Take the P out of NAP and you're left with NA

[Weve Got Your Customers]

As in NA I'm not buying this.

The author states "After a lot of testing, we found that using a call tracking number only has a small negative effect on rankings."

Is this Egg not all it's cracked up to be?

or

Has NAP ceased being the #1 factor in Local?


Local SEO Tools | Tools for Local Search Reviewd | The Daily Egg

 

[Linda Buquet]

Take the P out of NAP and you're left with NA

As in NA I'm not buying this.

Is this Egg not all it's cracked up to be?

LOL, all I know that's absolutely certain Scott, is that your post 'CRACKED' me up!!!

His under the radar tip #3 is pretty interesting. I had been seeing those menu links a lot but had not investigated.

Re the call tracking #, I have never tried it because no way I would risk it with a client. Call me chicken. (Oops couldn't resist.)

Besides messing up NAP and citations, the other concern I would have is scrambled data and/or dupes. You know how you are supposed to create a new listing if you move or change names? My feeling is that's because every time the scraper finds the old data out there, shes going to change the listing on you. Think same could be true with the phone change. OR she'll see it as a different listing and you could end up with a dupe with the old phone number?

So those would be my concerns and I still am old school maybe, but I would not risk using a tracking # on a client.

If they see the link to them and come over here to comment, I'd love to hear if they've experience any ranking drops, data integrity problems or dupe issues. (I also dropped a trackback to them, in hopes that brings them over.")

Thanks for this post Scott. Great catch!!!

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

The post was actually a great post. Thanks for the head's up. I wasn't aware of Single Platform. I'm definitely going to look into that.

As for tracking numbers, I'm torn. I think I'm with Linda on this one. I'm a bit chicken to use my clients as guinea pigs. However, I'm all for using tracking or regional numbers on the client's website as long as you place them on the page as images (so Google can't read them and screw up the NAP consistency).

Travis Van Slooten

 

[Gio Greenard]

wow I like the sound of this single platform, great post.... I wonder if it is just for the American market.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Now I need to research singleplatform?
but let me play devil's advocate and ask you...

Why would you want to add a link to your listing that takes them to another site? Not your company site, someone else's site???

If that menu link was not there, that leaves them with the only option to get more info about your company, at your OWN site. Isn't that the goal? To get them there?

SIDE NOTE: It was rumored that Google was looking at singleplatform before ConstantContact bought them.

 

[Weve Got Your Customers]

Regarding the NAP - the only way I could see myself doing this for Clients is by changing ALL #s for the business. Would have to have a thorough conversation and put into writing what we're doing, why we're doing it and what the potential risks are.

The PROs would obviously be being able to track any of our work Finally!

But the Cons you listed are very serious ones to consider.

Would be interesting to see the Sample Size they're calling "a lot of testing".

As for Single Platform, taking the same PRO/CON approach, would the Pros of having additional information and being found in additional search engines and for additional searches outweigh your potential client leaving your site?

IMO, it depends alot on your menu - if you have what the searching is in the mood for and it's well presented and appealing, then you just gained a new customer who may have been on the fence.

If it's half way thrown together and food descriptions/pics don't make your mouth water, then you're probably better off without.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Wow, quite an interesting article. I've always been one to regard the call tracking number as the devils own in the world of local. I would love to see some more research results.

Agree with "Weve Got Your Customers" in that the only way I can see it possibly working long term would be to go out and switch up the phone number on all of your citations. Especially the big 3 data providers.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yeah...I don't buy it. I wrote a comment on his blog asking how big his sample size was and what industries and size cities he had the clients in. There's a huge difference between a restaurant in San Francisco and some non-competitive-industry in some really-small-city-in-idaho.

I just find it hard to believe that all the experts in this industry found that having a call tracking number was the number 1 negative ranking factor (Local Search Ranking Factors | Local SEO Best Practices for Ranking in Google +Local) if that isn't in fact true.

I myself have seen numerous cases where duplicates emerged due to call tracking numbers and it destroyed my clients' ranking. The best article I have ever read on this issue is this one: Overcoming Google Local Listing Mergers with Additional Citations | Local Search Marketing Blog by NGS

I love using call tracking numbers in Adwords. You could find a lot of the same types of things that this guy referenced without any risk of screwing up ranking.