Moz Local is saying a 800 is not okay...does it really negatively impact citations/rankings?
-
So I was considering using Moz Local to help improve the visibility of one of my clients who is trying to improve their local SEO (they only have one business location). When I submitted my existing client's listing there was an automated popup that read:
Sorry, we're unable to update this listing right now
Toll-free number detected
Many of the partners to which Moz Local submits your data do not accept toll-free lines as primary phone numbers. Choosing a local phone number may also be better for rankings and increase the number of calls you get from local search customers.
Is is true that having a "local phone number" can result in better rankings? Is there any articles/studies/evidence to support this?
Also are there any discounts out there for first time Moz Local users?
-
Hey Joe,
I'd be careful of this, myself. Google is very specific about not wanting redirecting phone numbers. The guidelines state:
Website & Phone
Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location.
- Use a local phone number instead of central, call center helpline number whenever possible.
- Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business, including pages created on social media sites.
-
Hi Rosemary!
Regarding 800 numbers, please check out this recent thread: https://moz.com/community/q/1800-number-for-google-local
Regarding our rates, they are the same for all accounts up to 100 listings. After that, you become eligible for our Enterprise pricing and support
-
There was a similar question asked in 2011, and I would think that according to the most recently Local Search Ranking Factors that it would still apply today.
Definitely check out this answer from Keith, but I'll quote him here for you:
"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."
The overall idea is that you can use local numbers that reroute to an 800 number. It's best if you can also have your local number on your website or some local landing pages on your website, but if that's not possible, having the local number on the NAP listings is still better than an 800 number.
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
-
Will using call tracking phone numbers in paid legal directories listing negatively affect our website?
I know it is important to have consistent NAP across directory listings but I would like to gauge the ROI on the paid "premium" listings in legal directories like FindLaw, AVVO and Lawyers.com by using call tracking and recording. Could using different phone #'s in these listings affect our website negatively? Same question for YELP ads (ads only, not organic yelp listing).
Local Listings | | SEO4leagalPA0 -
Multiple Business Listings at the same address - Negative or Positive?
Hi everyone Does anyone have any experience of working with multiple business listings at the same address? It's making me itch my head! I work for a travel agency and we have multiple websites for different holiday types/destinations. I want to add business listings for the businesses but I'm concerned that it could have negative effects from the businesses sharing the same address and sometimes the same phone number. Has anyone got any pointers on this, if will effect rankings or my SEO strategy. Thanks!
Local Listings | | Steve-Witt0 -
Placement of products in URL-structure for best category page rankings
Hi! I have some questions regarding the optimal URL-hierarchy placement of products in a marketplace setting where the end goal is to attract traffic to category pages. Let me start off with some background, thanks in advance for the help. TLDR Goal: Increase category page rankings. Alternative 1 - Products and category pages separated, flat product structure. Category page: oursite.com/category/subcategory Product / listing page: oursite.com/listing-1 Alternative 2 - Products and category pages separated, hierarchal product structure. Category page: oursite.com/category/subcategory Product / listing page: oursite.com/product/category/subcat/listing Alternative 3 - Products placed directly under category page. Category page: oursite.com/category/subcategory Product / listing page: oursite.com/category/subcategory/listing I run a commercial real estate marketplace, which means that our potential search traffic is _extremely _geographic. For example, some common searches are (not originally in english): Office space for lease {City X} Office space for lease {Neighborhood Y} Retail space {Neighborhood Z} And so on... These terms are already quite competitive, where the top results are our competitors geographic and type category pages. For example: _competitor.com/type/city/neighborhood , _is a top result, where the user reaches a landing page that shows all the {type} spaces for lease in {neighborhood}. These users are out to find which spaces are available for lease in these geographical areas, and not individual spaces. I.e. users do not search in the same extent for an individual product, in this case a specific empty space. Our approach has been to place an extreme bias towards a heavy geographical hierarchy. This means that basically any search, resulting in a category page, on our site results in a well structured URL like the following: _oursite.com/type/state/city/district/street, _since we are using Google Maps API's, this is easy and relevant for the user. Our geographical categorization beats our competitors both on extensiveness and usability, especially in long-tail search phrases where our competitors don't care to categorize where we are seeing real search volumes. The hierarchy only extends as far down as the user has searched, for example a lot of our searched just end up being _oursite.com/type/state/city/district. _ Now we are wondering how we should place our products, the empty spaces, in this URL structure. Our original hypothesis was that we should include the products in the original hierarchy, resulting in: oursite.com/category/subcategory/product. Our thinking was that we would both be serving the user with an understandable and relevant URL, and also provide search bots with a logical structure for our site and most importantly content for our category pages. Our landing pages are very dynamic, providing information by relaying graphical information on a map instead of in an SEO-friendly manner. I would however go as far as to say that these dynamic pages provide a ton of value for the user, much more so than our competitors, by describing relevant information about the neighborhood kind of like Trulia, just not in a bot-readable manner. This results in trying to rank them on their own merits being a challenge, whereas we were hoping we could create relevancy by placing products / listings and maybe even blog posts on the topic within the same URL-hierarchy. As of right now our current structure is oursite.com/products/category/subcategory/product. In other words, they are categorized in the same geographical fashion but under a separate URL-path. Our results so far is that we basically only rank for the product pages, and rank extremely poorly for our category pages, which is our ultimate goal to enhance. This is why we developed the above hypothesis. However, what we learned when we did some initial research is that very few e-commerce stores place their products directly below their categories. Most of the major websites we studied, and we looked at quite a few, just go for **alternative 1 **from above. The crux is that most of them choose alternative 1 but simultaneously implement bread crumbs that emulate alternative 3, just without the actual URL's. So, what I'm asking is, what are the actual benefits or downsides of the three alternatives? I feel as if I have a pretty firm grasp on how this could be done, I just need to better understand why most seem to choose to flatline their products or listings in the alternative 1 fashion. Thanks, Viktor
Local Listings | | Viktorsodd0 -
No Appearance in Local pack - group practice favored
Hi, One client has a website, Google My Business etc of his own. He ranks ok to good locally for search terms. However, his entry simply won't show up within the local n-pack (where it objectively should) and also does not appear in the map. It seems to me that instead a group practice with a colleague that has both their names in its name/title. (Moreover, it is in the same spot - they decided to go with different websites and entries of their own, though.) For some reason, this practice is also connected to the ranking website of our client. I suppose (NAP problems and previously used phone tracking numbers aside) that this group practice essentially blocks the real client-entry from appearing. Has anybody made such experiences? (My provisional ToDo would look like: Disconnect the group practice from the client's website; erase/merge it if possible; do proper LocalSEO otherwise.) Regards Nico
Local Listings | | netzkern_AG0 -
International customers for local business
Hi I have a vacation rental in France. My customers come from the UK/US, France, and Spain and as such i have three domains. www.domain.com (French) en.domain.com (English) es.domain.com (Spanish) I first set up a Google+ page which was tied to my French website and it's descriptive text and KW are in French. I subsequently set-up 2 more Google+ pages (English and Spanish, each with their respective domains and language specific KW) for the purpose of showing up in local searches in the UK and Spain, which is starting to working. I'm I going in the right direction? is this a crazy idea since they all have the same local address? Thank you for sharing insights regarding how to handle a local business with multilingual customers.
Local Listings | | pgcosson0 -
Yahoo Local Basic Listing Verifications Failing
Hey everyone, Over the last few weeks Yahoo Local's Basic Listings have been failing left and right for me. When working to verify a business listing, I have been trying the phone, snail mail and email verifications specifically, and am 100% sure I've been inputting the correct code, yet no matter how many attempts I make, I get the following error: http://i.imgur.com/pJ7ggBx.jpg This is for multiple accounts, not just a single instance. Seems Yahoo's just got an unfixed, prevalent bug. I've reached out to their Support for information, but they have been unresponsive. Anyone else running into this issue?
Local Listings | | copyjack0 -
Cleaning up inconsistent citations
What is the best tool or way to clean up old citations? I've been using the BrightLocal tool but am finding limitations in identifying inconsistent citations. Any help on this topic would be appreciated.
Local Listings | | Gavo0 -
Unable to verify my google local listing page by phone verification.
Hi, I have created the Google local listing page for my business site. I want to verify it using the phone verification but there is only a option - "verify by postcard". Is there no option to verify it using a phone number? Help needed.
Local Listings | | SangeetaC0