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
-
Advanced SEO - Locations vs Service Areas
Hi we have a Roofing business that has an office "corporate headquarters" in Lincoln Nebraska- We have also setup service areas or "address locations" in other states and cities we service. The remote addresses we have are through the UPS store locations giving us an address in the areas- Knowing that Google GMB wants us to list these as service locations and not physical addresses- they have told me directly we are setup okay with separate GMB pages for each location- they say we just need to "hide" the addresses in GMB. Question: If we "hide" the local address on "all" of the local listings how will this affect the local SEO? It seems like not having a physical office will hurt the local presence- or moreso- having an actual office will help it? Can anyone give input and opinion of setting up "Service Areas" vs "Locations" as it relates to SEO and SERP placement? Many thanks in advance.
Local Listings | | murraycustomhomescom1 -
How to tell Google My Business what area is local to my company?
Hello Mozers I've been stumped by the changes in the interface with Google My Business. I used to be able to set up the area for which I wanted a business to cover. Now I can't find anyway to tell Google. The company I work for is in St Albans and our main workload is London. It would be helpful if I could actually control what Google Local sees as Local for my company, i.e. to encompass central London which is only 19 miles away. Can someone give me an idiots guide has to how to tell Google the area I'd like our local listing to cover? Thanks
Local Listings | | Catherine_Selectaglaze0 -
LOCAL CITATIONS - SHARED ADDRESS, DIFFERENT BUSINESS ENTITIES, DIFFERENT PRACTICTIONERS
I am trying to to boost my clients online presence through Local Business Listings but am running into a few issues that I would like to get some feedback on. First, I will provide some background information and then provide my questions that I am seeking feedback on! Your help is greatly appreciated. **BACKGROUND INFO: ** Client has little online visibility and is looking to optimize his Local Business Listings to boost his online presence. Client is a Chiropractor that just registered his own business, has a unique local phone number, his own website. The facility that the Chiropractor works out of is a shared office space, known as a "Wellness Center" This facility has other chiropractors, doctors, & massage therapists who fit the same criteria as my client. I understand that in order to qualify for a local business listings your business must meet **CRITERIA. **This is the only one he does not meet, but the way the businesses are ran, it seems like to me that he should be eligible for local business listings. Have a dedicated physical street address (not a shared address, PO box, or virtual office) I don't understand why a shared address isn't allowed. This seems pretty legit to me. And is similar to a Doctors Office with multi-practitioners but slightly different because they each have their own business not all working for one business owner. All working for themselves. Everyone recently moved and joined this wellness center. Everyone generates their own leads and clientele. One thing to note is that no other business in the wellness center currently has optimized their online presence using this address. But address is present on other business owners websites. If my client uses this address and builds his local listings, is there a chance he can get penalized if the other business owners build their business listings on sites like, yelp, yellowpages, google maps, citysearch, etc. What are the chances of him getting penalized/the entire shared office being penalized due to this shared office space. Your feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank You
Local Listings | | InternetRep0 -
Local Citation with multiple offices
We have 5 different offices and each has its own google+ page and yell page. At first they were ranking poorly and the wrong offices were coming up for searches in that town so we change the name to :
Local Listings | | EJmoz
BusinessName (Location1)
BusinessName (Location2) Etc. those listing all starting to rank top for searches in Location1 and Location2. We have now been told that it is bad for our overall SEO to have the business name appearing differently in different listings and this led me to look at Moz Local. My question is should I remove the (Location1) from the Google+ business listing so that all our offices have the same name (but obviously different addresses) even though it appears to have a negative impact on rankings? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks0 -
Local seo citation tools
Hi I have been manually adding my details to local/national directories in order to help my ranking in my google places placing. It is a bit of a grind, and I am aware there are tools out there. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with any of them? I am UK based. Also I was ranking for "Liverpool Photographer" on google places for a couple of months and it brought in quite a bit of work, although I have since slipped back to about 15th, so out of the visible results. I am mainly a wedding photographer so my home page was optimised mainly for "liverpool wedding photographer" Although I hired an SEO company who changed the home page title to "liverpool photographer", I cannot remember if I was ranking on places for this keyword because of this change or I was already in the results before the changes were made. So my question is how Can I rank for "liverpool photographer" and "Liverpool wedding photographer" on a places result at the same time? I hope this makes sense. Best wishes. David.
Local Listings | | WallerD0 -
Correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing
Hi Moz fans, A quick question: any correlation between ranking on Google organic result page and ranking on the local listing or vise versa? Thnx Saab
Local Listings | | S.Saab0 -
Nitpicky NAPS Local Question
I'm about to setup all our NAPS for our Tampa office with Moz Local, and I'm curious about one small thing: suite vs ste? I have read that what matters most is consistency, but since I haven't set it up yet, if anyone had any experience with full names being written out doing better/worse than abbreviations? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How to get a verification tick next to the URL in a Google Plus Local page?
Google Plus Local: https://plus.google.com/+PrestedHallFeering Website: www.prested.co.uk So how do I get the verification tick next to the URL on this businesses Google page? Also, even though the website is much strong then those in the map listings for Wedding Venues In Essex, whats preventing this website from appearing in there? My local optimisation knowledge is poor!
Local Listings | | jasondexter0