Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Phone Number In Meta Description
-
People are more likely to call us, than email us. However, if they're using a mobile device, there's a click to call button on that site. My question is this: google does not include our phone number in our meta description. I could try to get the description changed, but it doesn't seem like it would make that big of a deal for just the desktop site.
Am I missing something about the importance of the phone number on a desktop site? Any experience with this situation?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
Also want to comment on 800 number vs local number. Generally for a local small business, a local phone number is preferred. And yes, we use it in the meta description, because it works!
-
You should try Local Business Schema and Geo-tagging. The your information will come up when and how you want it.

You can also geotag your location (or “Place” in Schema.org lingo) by including your geocoordinates with your LocalBusiness code.
-
Point taken. Thanks for the response. Now, I just have to get Google index the snippet with the phone number from here on out.
-
It works for some of the largest companies in the world. You're telling people that you're a legit company with nothing to hide.
Use it as a CTA and test it out!
Zappos:
name="description" content="Free shipping BOTH ways on shoes, clothing, and more! 365-day return policy, over 1000 brands, 24/7 friendly customer service. 1-800-927-7671" />
-
Hey Ruben,
I use our number on the meta description of our site (MarbleRenovation) and it works wonders for us. I noticed a spike in calls once we had included it.
It makes sense... People don't want to think too much nor search too hard to get what they want. If they see a number from a company that is high on page one for a term they have entered then they are likely to call it without even looking at the page. Obviously this wouldn't work for all industries but if it is advice you need, a number sometimes is enough for them.
Hope this helps amigo!
Dave
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
-
I am trying to generate GEO meta tag for my website where on one page there are multiple locations My question is, Can I add GEO tagging for every address?
Am I restricted to 1 geo tag per page or can i add multiple geo tags ?
Technical SEO | | lina_digital0 -
Finding websites that don't have meta descriptions
Hi everyone, as a way to find new business leads I thought about targeting websites that have poor meta descriptions or where they are simply missing. A quick look at SERPs shows this is still a major issue for many businesses. Is there any way I can quickly find pages for which meta description is lacking? Thank you! Best regards, Florian
Technical SEO | | agencepicnic0 -
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are not Indexing in Google
Hello Every one, I have a Wordpress website in which i installed All in SEO plugin and wrote meta titles and descriptions for each and every page and posts and submitted website to index. But after Google crawl the Meta Titles and Descriptions shown by Google are something different that are not found in Content. Even i verified the Cached version of the website and gone through Source code that crawled at that moment. the meta title which i have written is present there. Apart from this, the same URL's are displaying perfect meta titles and descriptions which i wrote in Yahoo and Bing Search Engines. Can anyone explain me how to resolve this issue. Website URL: thenewyou (dot) in Regards,
Technical SEO | | SatishSEOSiren0 -
Phone number in Meta Description - Is it a good idea?
Is it a best practice to place your company's phone number in the meta description for a page? Are there any rules as to what is acceptable for meta tags? One of our competitors recently started doing this but for some reason I think it might be against Google's guidelines. They (competitor) is also engaging in web spam, plagiarizing our content, and other black hat techniques so I'm leery of anything they do.
Technical SEO | | mathamatix0 -
Two Dentists, Same Address, Same Phone, Different Business Names
Hi Everyone, I've been looking into this situation for quite a while, but most posts/information on this topic seem to be from at least 1-2 years ago. I'm currently working with a dentist who just moved into the same suite as another dentist who has been working there for years. They each have the same address and same suite number, the same phone number, but each own their own respective practice and have their own patients. To make things even more complicated, the dentist that has been working there for years uses his name as a business name, while the new dentist has a business name differing from her actual name. I'm not exactly sure how to go about optimizing the new dentist's local presence, but the only thing I can think of doing is try to recommend having the suite split into Suite #-A and Suite #-B and seeing if it's possible to add a second phone number for the new dentist. Please let me know your thoughts, and if you've seen this topic come up in the past, I would love to get pointed in the right direction. Thanks for all your help!
Technical SEO | | abnovak1 -
Templates for Meta Description, Good or Bad?
Hello, We have a website where users can browse photos of different categories. For each photo we are using a meta description template such as: Are you looking for a nice and cool photo? [Photo name] is the photo which might be of interest to you. And in the keywords tags we are using: [Photo name] photos, [Photo name] free photos, [Photo name] best photos. I'm wondering, is this any safe method? it's very difficult to write a manual description when you have 3,000+ photos in the database. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Staging & Development areas should be not indexable (i.e. no followed/no index in meta robots etc)
Hi I take it if theres a staging or development area on a subdomain for a site, who's content is hence usually duplicate then this should not be indexable i.e. (no-indexed & nofollowed in metarobots) ? In order to prevent dupe content probs as well as non project related people seeing work in progress or finding accidentally in search engine listings ? Also if theres no such info in meta robots is there any other way it may have been made non-indexable, or at least dupe content prob removed by canonicalising the page to the equivalent page on the live site ? In the case in question i am finding it listed in serps when i search for the staging/dev area url, so i presume this needs urgent attention ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Error: Missing Meta Description Tag on pages I can't find in order to correct
This seems silly, but I have errors on blog URLs in our WordPress site that I don't know how to access because they are not in our Dashboard. We are using All in One SEO. The errors are for blog archive dates, authors and just simply 'blog'. Here are samples: http://www.fateyes.com/2012/10/
Technical SEO | | gfiedel
http://www.fateyes.com/author/gina-fiedel/
http://www.fateyes.com/blog/ Does anyone know how to input descriptions for pages like these?
Thanks!!0