800 Number vs. Local Phone
-
I have a client with multiple locations throughout the US. They are currently using different 800 numbers on their site for their different locations. As they try to optimize their local presence but submitting to local directories, we are trying to determine two things:
-
Does having a local number reroute to an 800 number devalue the significance of it being a local number (I've never heard of this, but someone told them it did)
-
Locality and consistency are important. Assuming they can't remove the 800 numbers from the site, are they better off keeping the 800 numbers on their site and using local numbers every else online OR just using the 800 numbers for all of their local listings?
-
-
Yup - even to capital letters...but, you are never going to get 100% perfection - and G knows that too - before we created our custom in-house citation and review tracking solution, we used to use just a simple spreadsheet; the first tab has your Google Places content exactly as it appears, then create a new tab for every citation - one tab group for existing citations that you may want to correct and one tab group for each new one that you create, always referring back to your GP tab as a reference.
We say internally that Google Places is like an onion - many layers, often stinks and sometimes just makes you cry
-
Thanks Keith, i did not realize citations counted all the way down to the "space" level. Some citations auto generate.
-
Hi Aspirant...
Regarding point #1, that is definitely a myth - we frequently secure local numbers and redirect these to call centres/800 numbers etc - we're sure that Google can closely associate a regular number with a geographic region, but until they start interrogating the Telco's (which I think even the Big G might struggle with) picking up a redirected number seems to be off their radar.
In relation to #2, according to our own research, experience, results and with a little help from David Mihm's "Local Search Ranking Factors" you need to honor the NAP "holy trinity" - consistency across all citations (including your clients' website numbers) for Name, Address and Phone is critical to success in local. Not just similar - exact right down to capitalization and spaces...so, if you can't change the 800 numbers (which would be better for Google Places but probably not ideal from a public/consumer perspective) then use the 800 numbers together with Address and Name everywhere - eventually Google will associate the 800 number with the geo location and you and your client will be happy.
Hope that helps...
-
1. I don't see how having the local number re-direct to the 1800 would be an issue, from an on-page SEO perspective. As long as Google is seeing the local area code that is consistent with the area you should be fine. For Google Maps there may be a different answer.
2. Why couldn't they remove the 800 number, or at least have both?
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
-
Phone number link / critical crawler issue
I've got 15 critical crawler issues coming up, all of which are ( tel: )links to the contact phone number. As this is a taxi firm, these links are pretty vital to customer conversion. Should I worry about these issues from an SEO perspective? If so, is there anything I can do about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul7300 -
Are TLD and numbers in subdomain ranking factors?
Several years ago my firm migrated our domain from a very lengthy 3point7designs.com to 3.7designs.co (we couldn't get 7designs.com at the time) thinking this would be a clever way to brand the name 3.7 Designs. Ever since that change we've had a dramatic reduction in search rankings which has lasted years. https://monosnap.com/file/adJUdkX9YCXQaODcXype4qza70pMCE You can see the drop in early 2011, we made the switch in February. I've read some discussion about Google changing weights based on having numbers in the subdomain as it appears spammy. I've also herd speculation about .co vs .com. Further evidence is being outranked by a competitor for a term we previously dominated despite having higher domain authority, inbound links, exact match keyword in our title and content. We now own 37designs.com and 7designs.com and are contemplating a switch. Any insight into these being ranking factors or is the site being penalized for other reasons?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 3PointRoss0 -
Interlinking vs. 'orphaning' mobile page versions in a dynamic serving scenario
Hi there, I'd love to get the Moz community's take on this. We are working on setting up dynamic serving for mobile versions of our pages. During the process of planning the mobile version of a page, we identified a type of navigational links that, while useful enough for desktop visitors, we feel would not be as useful to mobile visitors. We would like to remove these from our mobile version of the page as part of offering a more streamlined mobile page. So we feel that we're making a fine decision with user experience in mind. On any single page, the number of links removed in the mobile version would be relatively few. The question is: is there any danger in “orphaning” the mobile versions of certain pages because links don’t exist pointing to those pages on our mobile pages? Is this a legitimate concern, or is it enough that none of the desktop versions of pages are orphaned? We were not sure whether it’s even possible, in Googlebot’s eyes, to orphan a mobile version of a page if we use dynamic serving and if there are no orphaned desktop versions of our pages. (We also plan to link to "full site" in the footer.) Thank you in advance for your help,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_R
Eric0 -
One Site vs. Many
This is a question that I am not sure has a "right" answer. I am just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on this. I can see benefit of both sides of the coin. In your opinion, is it better to have one large e-commerce site with all of your content on the same domain or is it better to have multiple more targeted domains with your content broken up into smaller chunks? The reason I ask is, I feel like while multiple more targeted sites certainly have the benefit of focus, aren't you taking all your traffic and content, splitting it up and leaving you with several sites that most likely are getting less traffic than one large site would. All opinions welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | unikey0 -
Has anyone else seen a Google Plus Local listing displace a regular search listing?
I have a particular site that I have been working on for about eight months and had the site on Page 1 of Google search results for eight keywords (they are fairly small local-based keywords, so I'm really not trying to boast). Perhaps six weeks ago for two of the keywords we popped into the #2 position for Google Plus Local results. When this happened the site completely disappeared from the regular search results. A couple weeks later, the Google Plus Local listing was gone, and the site was back on Page 1 in the regular listings. This has gone back and forth several times, with either a very high Local result or a very high regular search result, but only one at a time. I suppose it would make sense for the same site to only be able to have one position on the front page at any given time, but my searches for info on this have been entirely fruitless. Has anyone else seen anything like this or have any thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IanKietzman271 -
Is there an optimal ratio of external links to a page vs internal links originating at that page ?
I understand that multiple links fro a site dilute link juice. I also understand that external links to a specific page with relevant anchortext helps ranking. I wonder if there is an ideal ratioof tgese two items
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Apluswhs0 -
Which link url placement to buy - High PR vs. High PA?
I'm about to buy one directory link (just the one!) but can't decide which URL to place my link on in that directory because of the varying metrics - which is better of the below (bearing in mind my own site is still a PR0 sitewide)? www.exampledirectory.com/categoryA/subtategory1/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | emerald
Metrics: 21 linking domains, PA 44, DA 59, PR0 www.exampledirectory.com/categoryA/
Metrics:1 linking domain, PA 35, DA 59, PR5 I know PR is no longer relevant and usually ignore this metric (except for possible penalties) and just focus on Seomoz toolbar metrics, but as my own site itself is PA:37 and DA:28 homepage but PR0 completely sitewide (over 6 months old but relatively new site), I thought this might help to balance things. Thanks for your advice.0