NAP Consistency & Call Tracking

[Susan]

Very interesting post by Mark Sullivan at CallRail about call tracking and NAP consistency.

Local SEO, DNI, & NAP Consistency: An Advanced Guide | Call Tracking and Analytics

I'm curious to hear other's thoughts on this touchy subject.

Do you use call tracking?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for sharing Susan!

Call tracking for Local is such a complicated topic. I'm sure if done right it can work OK.

I imagine the guys over at CallRail have it all figured out.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Using dynamic insertion via javascript and swapping the numbers based on session type & referrer type is fine. As long as you're not hard-coding the tracking number on the site, then it can work well. Callrail, like many other quality providers, uses javascript to swap out the numbers; which I haven't seen any problems with.

The only thing you don't want to do is plaster different tracking numbers all over different sites or in different places on your website. Consistency is key.

Tracking where your phone calls come from is important to understand which marketing channels are working best, but you just need to make sure you're doing it right.

 

[JoyHawkins]

We use dynamic call insertion for several clients and love it. The article is absolutely right though, it doesn't track every single call then, only if the customer first comes to the site.

 

[Scott ClientClicks]

Thanks you for linking this article and for the comments.

Eric and Joy - Just to confirm, do you use DNI for organic? I have been using DNI for adwords for many years and love it, but have been hesitant to use DNI for organic because of NAP consistency fears.

On a related note, I've been desperately searching for a reporting dashboard or CRM that lets me aggregate multiple lead types such as calls, web form submissions and web chats into one place.

I also need the ability to allow my clients to rate each lead and display qualified leads in a dashboard to show cost per qualified lead.

The closest I've come is to use Call Tracking Metrics which has a nice post call rating dashboard and also offers the "form reactor" product which adds form leads to the dashboard. I can't find anything that also incorporates web chats or allows the entry of manual leads. I'm thinking I'll have to go to a CRM like Insightly, Zohocrm or Salesforce.

If anyone has been down this path and has some ideas, I'd love to hear what people are doing.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yes we've used it for organic and I have never seen or experienced any issues with it. Everyone I've spoken to who uses it has said the same thing. I haven't heard any horror stories so if they do exist, I don't know about them

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I've never had problems when doing DNI for client sites. The real number is the one that's hardcoded, so when someone visits directly (or when a bot visits directly) the number is the correct business phone. The number will swap based on the source the user came from, so you can assign a different number for PPC, Organic, Local (if it can track down to a sub-domain), etc. All depends on the company and what rule restrictions they have.

By rule, I mean something like:

if referral source = organic, swap number to: 123-123-1234
if referral source = google.com/maps, swap number to 123-123-1235

Just never use the tracking number on local listings... make sure any tracking numbers can only be find via javascript rewrite on your own website.

 

[JoyHawkins]

if referral source = organic, swap number to: 123-123-1234
if referral source = google.com/maps, swap number to 123-123-1235

Eric,

If the user clicks on the website from within the 3-pack (on Google.com not Maps.Google.com) wouldn't it still show as organic?

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Most likely. This all depends on the capabilities of the tracking provider. It would be difficult to segment map pack clicks from organic, but at that point I think you're trying to do too much with data. Tag it as organic, show the client some query examples and call it a day.

What the client really cares about is if it can be attributed to a medium that you're working with, and are the phone calls actually turning into sales. In my past life working in an agency, we learned that knowing how the call was made (organic, ppc, email, billboard, w/e), where (like actual cities) the calls came from and whether the recording pointed to a sale are all the client really cares about.

I probably could have given a better, and broader example in my last post. Get as granular as you can with the provider you choose, but don't go overboard with it Give the client as much data as they need to trust you're doing your job.