Phone Consistency across citations/aggregators

[Jim Froling]

Client has LOTS of phone #s. Many different #s across multiple citation sources & aggregators. He uses different #s to measure effectiveness of various ad programs both online & offline.

I'm trying to develop a strategy that adheres to local NAP consistency standards while maintaining his desire (need) for inbound phone #s to measure effectiveness of other campaigns.

Ideas?

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Use 1 phone number

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Jim,

Sorry that's a tough one. I'm sure you've educated them about all the problems that can cause? Not just with citation inconsistencies and rankings, but could cause dupes to be created as well.

I'm not sure if there is a workable strategy. Hopefully Darren or one of the other citation pros will see this tomorrow.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Jim,

I think the problems that will come from phone# inconsistencies far outweigh the benefits of tracking which directories are getting you phone calls. These days I believe a majority of phone calls will come directly from the website or their Google listing. Yellowpages gets a fraction of the traffic, Yelp still ranks well, but at the end of the day I'm not sure how many people are actively using some of the 2nd tier directory sites.




This slide was taken from Mike Ramsey's MozCon presentation (go to moz.com/mozcon#agenda to find the complete pdf), and it shows the businesses listed in the top 3 positions had less inconsistencies/errors with their NAP.

So... I guess the question you bring back to the client is whether they want to track irrelevance for the sake of collecting data, or whether they want to rank well locally and dominate the market.

Use 1 phone number - their main & real business number.

 

[Jim Froling]

Thanks Linda,
Could cause dupes, ahhhh Yeah! So many that my head is spinning. Dupe G+ Pages too.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Jim

I'll echo what everyone else has wisely said. The only thing that multiple phone numbers will tell your client about his marketing efforts is that his local rankings will suck.

The only exception worth considering is using a "phone extension" in AdWords. Those numbers don't get scraped.