Citation/Business Directory Question...
-
A company I work for has two numbers... one for the std call centre and one for tracking SEO. Now, if local citation/business directory listings have the same address but different numbers, will this affect local/other SEO results?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
-
Hi Dan,
Hopefully your read-through of Google's guidelines will have helped to clear this up, too.
-
Thanks so much for all of your replies - they are much appreciated!
So much contradicting info on this subject, but thanks to William and Miriam/Simon for the valuable input.. excellent.
Cheers,
Dan
-
Hi P J,
Good question. Unfortunately, Google isn't fond of call centers and call tracking numbers are taboo in Local Search. Let me provide some resources for you here so that you can learn more about these issues.
Here are the Google Places Quality Guidelines:
https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
These guidelines state:
Website & Phone: Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location.
- Use a local phone number instead of a call center number whenever possible.
So, you're looking to publish a local phone number that connects directly with the business.
Call tracking is a whole other kettle of fish. Recommend that you read:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/05/14/a-guide-to-call-tracking-and-local/
You will want to be publishing an identical local area code phone number across all of your citations. Hope the above resources are helpful!
-
You need to be uniform across the web. Determine which number you want to be pronounced on the website, and schema it. It's okay to have the other phone number on there as well.
As for the uniformity of the listings across the web: put both numbers. I've spoken with a few of Google's Local Page Experts (or whatever their title is), and they've confirmed that, at least for G+ and Maps, the big deal is having the same number on your site as you do other place and putting both numbers in (one as an alt) is fine.
-
Local ranking factors would likely consider a uniformity of information across your web footprint. However a local listing should have a number with a local area code. I have tried free phone codes etc and none convert anywhere close to that of a recognized local number.
If you are a large or national organisation, then people almost expect lots of different numbers. If you are a local brand, then authenticity would favor the local number, as should local SEO results.
Theory's aside, you need to test the numbers after you ask your customers what they think.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content Strategy/Duplicate Content Issue, rel=canonical question
Hi Mozzers: We have a client who regularly pays to have high-quality content produced for their company blog. When I say 'high quality' I mean 1000 - 2000 word posts written to a technical audience by a lawyer. We recently found out that, prior to the content going on their blog, they're shipping it off to two syndication sites, both of which slap rel=canonical on them. By the time the content makes it to the blog, it has probably appeared in two other places. What are some thoughts about how 'awful' a practice this is? Of course, I'm arguing to them that the ranking of the content on their blog is bound to be suffering and that, at least, they should post to their own site first and, if at all, only post to other sites several weeks out. Does anyone have deeper thinking about this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
HTTP to HTTPS Question
Hello, I have a question regarding SSL Certificates I think I know the answer to but wanted to make sure. One of our clients’ site uses http for their pages but when they started creating Registration forms they created a full duplicate site on https (so now there are two versions of all of the pages). I know due to duplicate concerns this could be an issue and needs to resolved (as well as the pros and cons of both) but if they are already set up with https does it make sense to just move everything there or in some instances would it pay to keep some pages http (using canonical tags, redirects, htccess…etc)? – Most of the information I found related to making the decision prior to having both or describing the process but I couldn’t find anything that specifically related to if both are already present. I thought that the best approach because everything’s already set up is to just move everything over to the more secure one but was curious if anybody had any insight? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ben-R0 -
Local Listing Question
We will be starting local SEO efforts on a medical practice that has 4 locations & 15 doctors each location (so 60 listings total). I will submit each doctor & each location to InfoGroup, LocalEze, Axciom & Factual. Also, I will only submit each location (not doctors) to Google. The problem I'm seeing is the fact that each listing would have the same exact phone number - it all goes to one main routing center. What kind of problems could come of this? Do we need a separate phone numbers for each of the four locations (at the very least)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnWeb120 -
Google Places - Advanced Question
Hi All, Ive found multiple threads about previous issues but I haven't found any tailored to my specific question.I know there are a large amount of factors so I wanted to see if any other individuals had ran into this previously. We are currently in a centralized position in a major city. We are discussing moving the main office about 15 miles away into another city, moving us out of the main city where we have been for the past 3 years. The city where we are currently located has a lot more GEO search volume compared to the new city search terms and variants of. If we move will our local rankings drop when someone searches in the city where we were previously? How long would it take for this ranking to fall? Or would we still rank because we are moving a short distance away and have a large amount of citations there? I know we would need to change over all our online directories, on page etc..Any other suggestions on a smooth transition? I know there are many factors that go into this and any past experience, guidance and/or assistance is greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PRKEL0 -
Adding a Directory to Successful Article Website
We are considering adding roughly 1,300 pages to a 2,300 page website within the drug rehab niche. Our website is generating roughly 10,000 uniques from Search / month. **Is there a way to estimate the change in traffic to the existing content on the site when we add 30-40% pages in the form of a directory? ** **Is there a way to estimate the effect of the existing traffic and links to our newly added part of the site (the directory)? **
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alltreatment0 -
Page not showing up on Bing/Yahoo
We have a page that's ranking well on Google, however the page is not showing up in either Yahoo or Bing. What's even more odd is that for Y! and Bing, the page doesn't return in SERP even when you explicitly search for it (e.g. homepage + name of page). Instead, the result that gets returned is our homepage along with a Page Title that's been manipulated to include the keywords, but the title is not what we have in our title tag. Bing processed our sitemap today and I also manually submitted the URL, but it's still not turning up. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoeLin0 -
Yahoo directory listing issue
Hello all, We submit our site http://tinyurl.com/5v9hrql to Yahoo's directory (Standard Listing) on 08/26/2012 at this time the order remains as pending and the site is not listed on our suggested category http://tinyurl.com/d4a5lyf Furthermore, we haven't gotten any email from Yahoo Team; something is wrong with our submission or need to contact to? Thank you for your help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SharewarePros0 -
Duplicate content issue for franchising business
Hi All We are in the process of adding a franchise model to our exisitng stand alone business and as part of the package given to the franchisee will be a website with conent identical to our existing website apart from some minor details such as contact and address details. This creates a huge duplicate content issue and even if we implement a cannonical approach to this will still be unfair to the franchisee in terms of their markeitng and own SEO efforts. The url for each franchise will be unique but the content will be the same to a large extend. The nature of the service we offer (professional qualificaitons) is such that the "products" can only be described in a certain way and it will be near on in impossible to have a unique set of "product" pages for each franchisee. I hope that some of you have come across a similar problem or that some of you have suggestions or ideas for us to get round this. Kind regards Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masterpete0