Thanks Everett!

Makes sense and the examples from your site were very helpful.  We realized that we needed to add G+ and Linked in to our "sameAs" list as well.

Howdy there!   Two schema related questions here

1. Schema markup for local directory

We have a page that lists multiple location information on a single page as a directory type listing.  Each listing has a link to another page that contains more in depth information about that location.

We have seen markups using Schema Local Business markup for each location listed on the directory page.  Examples:

• http://www.yellowpages.com/metairie-la/gold-buyers
• http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CS=L&MCBP=true&C=plumber%2C+dallas+tx

Both of these validate using the Google testing tool, but what is strange is that the yellowpages.com example puts the URL to the profile page for a given location as the "name" in the schema for the local business, superpages.com uses the actual name of the location.  Other sites such as Yelp etc have no markup for a location at all on a directory type page.

We want to stay with schema and leaning towards the superpages option.  Any opinions on the best route to go with this?

2. Schema markup for logo and social profiles vs website name.

If you read the article for schema markup for your logo and social profiles, it recommends/shows using the @type of Organization in the schema markup

https://developers.google.com/structured-data/customize/social-profiles

If you then click down the left column on that page to "Show your name in search results" it recommends/shows using the @type of WebSite in the schema markup.

https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name

We want to have the markup for the logo, social profiles and website name.  Do we just need to repeat the schema for the @website name in addition to what we have for @organization (two sets of markup?).  Our concern is that in both we are referencing the same home page and in one case on the page we are saying we are an organization and in another a website.  Does this matter?  Will Google be ok with the logo and social profile markup if we use the @website designation?

Thanks!

Yes, I follow you.   Your 90% correlation on click to view phone number metric to calls is better than the correlation we found between our time on page metric to calls so that is good!

Thanks Charles for the great input!

Currently, we use a time on business directory page metric to approximate calls.  We did some online surveys to look at how time on a business directory page relates to calls and it was lower than the 90% you mention.  It sounds like the click to view phone number would be a better approximation metric.  We have seen it used in places like Angie's list as well so there may be something there.

FYI - we would still use the call tracking numbers as we need to pull the data on that part of the interaction.  The reason we are looking for a better GA trackable interaction/goal is that we can then use that to fine tune everything else we follow in GA (and the scalability issue mentioned above).  Example, we use Page Value to understand what content leads to conversions.  Right now the Page Value amounts are driven by the goal of time spent on a page in the directory section.  If we update Page Value to use the click to view phone number metric, it could really increase the accuracy of detecting what content drives calls.

Thanks for the confirmation on the second point.  We currently show call tracking numbers for all the local listings and so the "P" portion of the business' NAP on our site is always going to be off on our site anyway. Using the click to show metric would probably not make it any "worse" than it already is.  We ask Santa Claus each year for a schema markup that would let us designate a call tracking number vs regular number, but have not seen it yet.  Maybe this year if we are a really, really good website ... 

Cheers!

Well hello there!

We run a local directory site for a specific vertical and use several thousand call tracking numbers (one per listing) to track calls to the local business and report on those metrics (number of calls, appointment set, etc).

We are familiar with dynamic phone number insertion to be able to track phone calls back to the type of traffic or campaign sending it.  If we wanted to implement this, it would require an exorbitant amount of call tracking numbers as we already start out with several thousand numbers to begin with.

We are toying with the idea to hide the phone number in the directory listing and require the user to click to show the full phone number. We know this is an additional action required by the user, but we assume that this would then help us see the folks who are more serious about calling the number of the local business.

We could then use that click metric to then tie out all the goals within GA to look at how effective a given medium is and even look at what content is sending traffic that clicks on the phone number.

Two areas for comments:

1. Any input on others who use this metric?  Any input on if anyone thinks this is a good/bad metric?  Anyone have a better idea/technique?

2. Do you think that the search engines would see this technique as a negative? If so, why or why not?

Thanks!