Call Tracking, DNI Script & Local SEO
-
Hi Moz!
I've been reading about this a lot more lately - and it doesn't seem like there's exactly a method that Google (or other search engines) would consider to be "best practices". The closest I've come to getting some clarity are these Blumenthals articles - http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/05/14/a-guide-to-call-tracking-and-local/ & the follow-up piece from CallRail - http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/11/25/guide-to-using-call-tracking-for-local-search/.
Assuming a similar goal of using an existing phone number with a solid foundation in the local search ecosystem, and to create the ability to track how many calls are coming organically (not PPC or other paid platform) to the business directly from the website for an average SMB. For now, let's also assume we're also not interested in screening the calls, or evaluating customer interaction with the staff - I would love to hear from anyone who has implemented the DNI call tracking info for a website. Were there negative effects on Local SEO? Did the value of the information (# of calls/month) outweigh any local search conflicts?
If I was deploying this today, it seems like the blueprint for including DNI script, while mitigating risk for losing local search visibility might go something like this:
- Hire reputable call-tracking service, ensure DNI will match geographic area-code & be "clean" numbers
- Insert DNI script on key pages on site
- Maintain original phone number (non-DNI) on footer, within Schema & on Contact page of the site
- ??
- Profit
Ok, those last 2 bullet points aren't as important, but I would be curious where other marketers land on this issue, as I think there's not a general consensus at this point. Thanks everyone!
-
Hey Charlie - I realize this is a slightly old question post, but I am just now starting to dig into the details on this for my clients. One thing many of these articles that offer a 'solution' is failing to address is what number to actually put on your local search listing.
I understand DNI and as long as your website has your 'regular' static local number on the homepage, and you use the static number in all of your local SEO efforts - You should not see any penalties. I have many clients that use DNI and do not have an issue, plus I have read that Google can even read the javascript and see the number the DNI is replacing. The DNI is only useful if someone actually clicks past the initial search result to call - So basically, you may still only be getting partial data if someone does not click to your site but just rather calls the number in search results.
What my clients are now asking for, and I am pushing back on , is whether we can use separate call tracking numbers on separate Local SEO mediums. Here is an example -
Google: 800-555-1234
Facebook: 800-555-1235
Bing Places: 800-555-1236
This would still keep the static/owned number on the site - but show us who is calling from where. This would give good data in call tracking reports but from what I know and have researched, kills local SEO success due to NAP inconsistency.
-
Hi Charlie,
Mediahawk has written quite a good guide on local SEO and call tracking https://www.mediahawk.co.uk/blog/call-tracking-improves-local-seo/
The article says "You can use DNI numbers to control what number is displayed to a website visitor based on a countless range of conditions. This means the numbers for your social networks can display to those referred from social media rather than applying social media dedicated call tracking numbers to your updates".
I would suggest applying DNI to key web pages on a website for improved tracking.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
Zoe-Lee (user of call tracking)
-
Hi Charlie,
I'm sorry you haven't yet received any feedback yet on this question. Mike Blumenthal's writing on this topic (which you've already read) is as much as I personally know about on this, having never personally implemented a call tracking strategy for a local business. I'm hoping someone in our community will still reach out to you on this, but it may be that having read what you've read, you know as much as most folks on this topic. It may be you'll need to experiment to learn more.
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
-
Local Strategy for Multiple Domain Integration
Hello, We are a locally driven business with two locations. Currently, each location has its own local site and are linked to from our central domain (3 domains total). We are discussing whether we should integrate the local sites into location pages on our core domain. However, we would also prefer to keep the ‘local’ domains live. Is this a viable strategy and what would we need to do to ensure the local sites won’t cannibalize our efforts with the main domain? Also, should we remove the contact information on those local sites to avoid NAP issues? The other option would be to build out the local domains but that could raise concerns over budget and potentially expanding into the future. And we would like the main domain to take presendence. A few additional notes on this: Each location has its own brand name and contact information. Traffic across all 3 sites is about the same. We are also considering using silos with sub-folders to build out local service pages. We understand how to set up location pages but are asking more in terms of overall strategy and ideal way to position all 3 sites. Any help or insight would be very appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Ben-R
Best,0 -
Need SEO Opinions
SEO Campaign and Best Practices Hello, I have dabbled with MOZ before and I’m coming back with a project that is going to be a marathon. I have a very general question for some of you SEO professionals. I would like to lay out a scenario and I would appreciate any feedback that you can offer. Let’s say I have a client which is an office cleaning company that just services the local Chicago area, let’s call them ABC123 Commercial Cleaners. They have a website that is Example: abc123commercialcleaners.com. On the website it explains all about their services with several different pages. If we want to start a site on another URL, let’s say officecleaningchicago.com will this hurt our online reputation? Or will it make us stronger? Our plan on paper is to target the different localities around Chicago Example:
Local Website Optimization | | Scott-Jones
napervillecommercialcleaners.com
officecleaningchicago.com
evanstonofficecleaning.com I just wanted to get opinions on whether this is a good or bad idea. If it will strengthen or weaken our brand. I hope I have explained a very general scenario (which is completely fictitious) I would appreciate any feedback that you can offer.1 -
Do I need to change my country og:locale to en_AE
Hi MOZ, I have a site that is aimed at the English speaking market of the United Arab Emirates. The language tag is currently set to lang="en-GB" and the og:locale also set to en_GB. The domain is a .com and aimed at the whole world. Should I be trying to target en-AE and en_AE for these tags instead of GB?
Local Website Optimization | | SeoSheikh0 -
301 or 302 Redirects with locale URLs?
Hi Mozers, I have a bit of a tricky question I need some help answering. My agency are building a brand new website for a client of ours which means changing the domain name (yay...). So! I have my 301's all ready to go for the UK locale, however, the issue I have is that the site will also eventually have French, German and Spanish locales - but these won't be ready to go until later this year. We will be launching in just English for September. The current site already has the French and German locales on it as well. Just to make sure I'm being clear, the site will be www.example.com for launch, but by lets say November, we will also have a www.example.com/fr/ and www.example.com/de/ site launched too. So what do I do with the locale URLs? As I said above, the exisitng site already has the French and German locales on it, so I don't particularly want to redirect the /fr/ and /de/ URLs to the English homepage, as I will want to redirect them to the new URLs in November, and redirecting more than once is bad for SEO right? Any ideas? Would 302s maybe be the best suggestion? Thanks! Virginia
Local Website Optimization | | Virginia-Girtz1 -
Local SEO - Multiple stores on same URL
Hello guys, I'm working on a plan of local SEO for a client that is managing over 50 local stores. At the moment all the stores are sharing the same URL address and wanted to ask if it s better to build unique pages for each of the stores or if it's fine to go with all of them on the same URL. What do you think? What's the best way and why? Thank you in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | Noriel0 -
Local cTLD site not showing up in local SERP
I have 1 website with 2 cTLD. 1 is with .be another .nl. Both are in Dutch and pretty much with the same content but a different cTLD. The problem I have is that the .nl website is showing up in my serp on google.be. So I'm not seeing any keyword rankings for the .be website. I want to be able to see only .nl website serp for google.nl and .be serp on google.be I've already set up hreflang tags since 2-3 weeks and search console confirmed that it's been implemented correctly. I've alsy fetched the site and requested a re-index of the website. Is there anything else I can do? Or how long do I have to wait till Google will update the serp?
Local Website Optimization | | Jacobe0 -
Local Rank riddle
Here is a very odd scenario which to me makes very little sense. How can a site rank on Page #1 of Google for let's say "Boston party planner" yet on Page#2 for "party planner Boston"?? Would love some insight on this one. thanks, Chris
Local Website Optimization | | Sundance_Kidd0 -
Local Business Schema Markup on every page?
Hello, I have two questions..if someone could shed some light on the topic, I would be so very grateful! 1. I am still making my way through how schema is employed, and as I can tell, it is much more specific (and therefore relevant) in its details than using the data highlighter tool. Is this true? 2. Most of my clients' sites have a footer with the local business info included on every page of their site (address and phone). This said, I have been using the structured data markup helper to add local business schema to home page, and then including the footer markup in the footer file so that every page benefits from the local business markup. Is this incorrect to use it for every page? Also, I noticed that by just using the footer markup for the rest of the pages in the site, I am missing data that was included when I manually went through the index page (i.e. image, url, name of business). Could someone tell me if it is advisable and worth it to manually markup every page for the local business schema or if that should just be used for certain pages such as location, contact us, and/or index? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | lfrazer0