How does dynamic call tracking affect local SEO?
-
I would like to begin tracking calls and offline conversions, but I am concerned that if I add a dynamic call tracking software that it will negatively affect SEO.
-
Hi DJReason,
If you can manage to not have a pool of numbers for SEO traffic, my solution above will work. By using a script that only fires when certain parameters hit, it allows you to only use one number for non-parametered URLs, so search engine bots will only see the one number. Then you use that number during citation building, and you're golden... at least from that perspective.
-
At my company, we currently employ call tracking software to help dissect incoming calls to our call center phone numbers. We have 5 national brands with desktop and mobile versions of each brand's website, as well as 900+ location specific websites, again for mobile and desktop for our individual brick and mortar stores. This means we have over 80 dynamically swapped phone numbers showing on our sites depending on the origin of the visitor and if our software solution understands them correctly. We use Mongoose Metrics, but may be shopping for another solution, or building our own.
We divide traffic by PPC, Organic, Referral, Direct and Other. PPC and controlled referral traffic is relatively easy. By adding parameters to those destination URLs, it helps the software detect where those visitors are coming from and swaps the number appropriately. For organic, there are also ways to detect by process of elimination. For example, if a visitor comes from Google, but is not PPC (lacks PPC parameter), then we assume it is Organic. We do the same for Bing and Yahoo, since those are the three search engines where we advertise using PPC. Where it becomes challenging is the small percentage of organic traffic that does not use the top 3 search engines (ie. AOL, ASK, Baidu, etc). Because we simply cannot create code for any and all search engines out there, that traffic gets dumped into our referral bucket. The good news is that it is generally so small, that any information gleaned from those tier 2 and 3 search engines would be directional at best and would not influence our optimization efforts.
Our software also heavily relies on 1st party cookie information to help determine if a visitor is a bot, from a referral source, direct, etc and swaps the number based on our logic. There are also those visitors that have disabled javascript, or where our software does not fire correctly, or is not defined minutely enough so the wrong number or default number shows instead of the intended swapped number. These typically get lumped into our Other category, when all else fails.
As far as your question is concerned, there may be a downshift in your local SEO when various data aggregators come to your site, and potentially grab the wrong phone number based on a conditional swap. We rely heavily on schema markup and rich snippets to help direct the bots to ignore the software controlled number and to only read the hard coded number, but it is not perfect.
If you come across any software solutions that help minimize data loss and discrepancies, I would love to know.
-
This is perfect. I really appreciate you answering so fully.
-
It can. Ideally, the same phone number will always be displayed, but in your case (and a few of my clients), dynamic call tracking really needs to be on the site.
There are solutions to this. I don't know which software you're using, and it could differ depending on the software. The solution we found that worked was to put the call tracking script in, and have it change the phone number on the website only when traffic is coming in with certain parameters.
This works well with PPC call tracking, because the traffic coming in has predictable parameters, and those can used as a trigger to fire the script. Search engines aren't going to use these parameters, so they won't effect local SEO. Depending on how much direct and referral traffic you have, you might be able to use this solution with your PPC pool of numbers, and then you can focus on separating the referral and direct traffic from the SEO traffic to get the data you need. We usually only split the PPC traffic this way, trying to do it with organic could get you into trouble.
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
-
Tracking Google Local Click-Thrus (Maps)
We've expanded our business to be in multiple cities. We are tracking our local rankings in each city and have Adwords campaigns for those cities with location extensions. We have a separate contact page for each city but haven't setup landing pages for each city which would be fairly tricky as our services are identical for each city. So really the landing page would be almost identical to our home page content with maybe a photo of the city and the city's name thrown in here and there - definitely a risk of duplicate content detection. What I'm wondering is if anyone knows if there a Google Analytics report we can run to show us links from our Google Places for Business Listing segregated by location? My guess is that we would need to make each URL for each Google Places listing unique to that location, like http://www.oursite.com?{name of city} Or is this not even necessary by using some report settings in Google Analytics? -- update -- Well this is a 7-year old article but I suspect it might still basically hold true? In other words, it's not easy and straight forward. What I'm wondering is, if I use the ?{cityname} URL only in my Places listings URLs, well, let's make it ?place={cityname} then really all I need to do is run a report filtering by URL contains ?place= Can it really be that simple because if it is, then this old article and others like it seem to be really over complicating the strategy for simply seeing your googe places listing traffic in total and by location? https://moz.com/blog/tracking-traffic-from-google-places-in-google-analytics Furthermore, if we plan on eventually building home pages for each location, maybe the better URL structure would be mysite.com/places/{city name} and just do a 301 to the home page until the custom page is built. The big question then arises if we are only using this URL in our Google Places listings does it have any farther reaching effect on Google's organic view of our website? In other words will it try to add a unique Google Places URL to the organic results database? Will it cause a suspension of the Google Places listing? If we create the URL as an alias to the home page instead of a 301 will it risk dupe content penalty. Wait a sec... if we use a 301 won't that render tracking in Analytics useless as it's only then going to count the pageview for the home page and not the original URL, right? I guess we could use an alias and then in the robots.txt dissallow indexing of any URLs with /places/ ? Now I think I'M over complicating things. Seems like the best/easiest/safest method is to just a ?place={city name} to the Google Places URL. Then once we have unique places landing pages, just go update the URL in all our places listing.
Local Listings | | Wizkids9640 -
How to fix my local buisness listing
Ive checked with the Moz Local and put my company name in. theres two listings showing up Ones verified but is in a slightly wrong format - it says Street Name, Unit Number, Town, Post Code The other ones not verified but correct - its unit number, street name town, post code Will I need to edit the verified one to make it the correct format like it is on companies house and with Royal Mail? Or can I use the none verified version?
Local Listings | | paulfoz16091 -
Will using call tracking phone numbers in paid legal directories listing negatively affect our website?
I know it is important to have consistent NAP across directory listings but I would like to gauge the ROI on the paid "premium" listings in legal directories like FindLaw, AVVO and Lawyers.com by using call tracking and recording. Could using different phone #'s in these listings affect our website negatively? Same question for YELP ads (ads only, not organic yelp listing).
Local Listings | | SEO4leagalPA0 -
Worried about changing local SEO homepage tactic
Our current home page is texty, talking about why choose us and general information on what the service involves. We are currently developing a new web design and content architecture involving moving all the content out of the home page, and making the homepage a beautiful guide to the site, as is the best practice. I think the home page will generally result in a better user experience. SEO: we currently rank second for "service city" (going to our homepage). Our domain is service-city.co.uk. While the change is going to involve us adding lots of new good-quality pages with new keyword targets, our most important keyword by far is "service city" and the home page would probably still be the most appropriate page for that keyword. And I'm gravely worried the change will negatively impact this keyword. I would appreciate your thoughts
Local Listings | | Cooper10 -
Moz local...worth $84 a year?
I am currently showing up in local results for my business but when i run a Moz local test, it shows that i only have a current score of 29% and by using Moz Local it says i could get to a score of 86%. Will enrolling in Moz local help my pages to rank higher in the search engines for different queries, or does it just help my site show up in the local results at the top of the serps? I only have one business in one city so it might not be worth it for me. My business is a service though and i travel to many different cities. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks mozzers! Ron
Local Listings | | Ron100 -
I have noticed two changes in SEO from Dec 2014 to Now
Why has most of the local pages from google disappeared? There were normally 3-6 local listings on Google but now it has vanished? Has the algorithm or rules changed? Secondly i noticed a massive swing in seo rankings. I have done some testing i i found that google now gives you different rankings depending on the area that you in. So i can safely assume that the algorithms have changed and you now get results based on your area? The top 4-5 rankings stay the same but everything else changes to your current location. Am i wrong, what has changed. Please help.
Local Listings | | Ashwin19780 -
Do Local PPC Ads Get Ranked Higher Even Though the User Doesn't Specify Search Location
See the attached image.I searched for a drug called "Actos". The first Google Adwords result was a result specific to "Arkansas" which is odd because I didn't specify that I was in Arkansas. I understand that Google makes that recommendation because Google knows I'm in Arkansas. The resulting landing page has NOTHING to do with Arkansas and you can view it here: http://bladdercancerlawsuit.org/actos-bladder-cancer/My question is this: Does the fact that the AD has the name of the user's state (Arkansas) make the "click" less expensive or higher ranking or both? Is this known by Adword specialist community? I'm wondering because this is an expensive keyword and hard to guarantee top position for. If this is a technique we should incorporate, I'd love to do it. U1dfiiE
Local Listings | | iprov0 -
Which Local Listing to Delete?
A local business has two Google+ Local listings: an unverified unclaimed listing an unverified, but claimed listing Both are duplicates with correct address and phone numbers. Listing 1 ranks. Listing 2 doesn't rank. Should I: A) report listing 1 and verify listing 2, or B) claim and verify listing 1 and delete listing 2 With A there's a risk of killing a listing that's ranking well and not getting a replacement. With B there's a chance of going against Google guidelines, as I understand claiming duplicate listings is a no-no (?) Suggestions? Thanks!
Local Listings | | MatterSolutions0