Phone Numbers on Google+ Local Best Practice?

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi All,

I'm posting in the private forum because I wanted to reference Linda's advanced training. If I remember correctly Linda, your advice was to leave out any extra numbers such as toll-free and mobile when setting up a places listing.

Do you still feel the same way?

What about fax#'s?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Colan, I appreciate it. That's not a Linda secret sauce thing though, so I'll move this to public for a more well rounded discussion and opinions from others.

A single #, the main local # has always been my 'best practice' recommendation for a couple reasons.

1) The Google algo is easily confused and I think additional #s can just cause problems.

2) I don't really feel the additional #s are necessary, so why EVEN POTENTIALLY rock the boat.

800 is not needed if it's a local business marketing to clients in their own city.
(If they want one on the site, fine, just put it in a graphic.)

Fax # is normally only needed for EXISTING customers AFTER they already know about the business (by discovering it on Google) and BECOME a customer. At that point most customers are going to go directly to the site for info like fax #.

Exception possibly being a business with NO web site, but how many businesses like that pay people like us to help them? Most have a site. And most customers are going to use the site not the G+L page for info like fax#.

So anyway those are my thoughts. I've seen other pros recommend same thing BUT have not seen anyone talk about it for awhile. Nothing written in stone, up for debate.

What do you guys think???

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Linda,

I read this article and basically it made me think that including more phone numbers would be a good thing because it could prevent duplicates.

Overcoming Google Local Listing Mergers with Additional Citations | Local Search Marketing Blog by NGS

I figured the more information you can provide Google about your business, the more trusted you would be because spammers and fake addresses tend to do the opposite (not list anything).

I haven't done any testing on it

 

[Linda Buquet]

Good point Joy and that's why I wanted to bring this out for discussion, to get other viewpoints.

I didn't read the full article but one thing you said in your post that does make some sense to me is IF they have a bunch of citations out there with a second # like a cell # then adding it to the listing COULD possibly help with dupes. That's something to consider.

 

[Jason Kamara]

I'm fairly new to Local, but NAP consistency seems to be one of the most difficult things to achieve with an established business.

I'm weighing my options for a realtor client (partnership) that uses mobile phone numbers and no landline. Both phone numbers appear on the website, G+L listing, and some citations. I can't think of a clean solution for citation-building that won't generate G+L dupes or invalid citations.

I'm hoping that if I keep the order and syntax of the numbers consistent and add schema to every page of the site, that'll minimize problems further down the road. If anyone has dealt with a similar situation, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Joy:

I'm not following you. The article you referenced is all about avoiding merged listings primarily with doctors, lawyers, etc. and how you can avoid it. I read the entire article and I don't see any reference to using multiple numbers on a G+ page as a way to prevent duplicates. In fact, the article you referenced talks about how using more than one number can CAUSE duplicates. Maybe I'm missing your point

Travis Van Slooten

Hey Linda,

I read this article and basically it made me think that including more phone numbers would be a good thing because it could prevent duplicates.

Overcoming Google Local Listing Mergers with Additional Citations | Local Search Marketing Blog by NGS

I figured the more information you can provide Google about your business, the more trusted you would be because spammers and fake addresses tend to do the opposite (not list anything).

I haven't done any testing on it

 

[Linda Buquet]

Earlier in this thread I said:

"1) The Google algo is easily confused and I think additional #s can just cause problems."

Here's the perfect example! If you give her all those extra numbers and she goofs and puts stuff in the wrong place then you can end up with a cell or fax # instead of your main #!

Bad Google Phone Bug Bites Google+ Local Listings

 

[JoyHawkins]

Travis,

I thought the article was a good explanation of why duplicates pop up and thought the note about Superpages having a different phone number was interesting. I figured if you have the 2nd phone number listed as an alternate # on your listing, the data would merge instead of creating a duplicate.

Linda is right though. Because of all the bugs, having alternate #s can sometimes be more of a headache than a good thing.

 

[Travis Van Slooten]

Ah...got it. And I side with Linda as well. I always encourage my clients to stick with one number (ideally their local number) on their G+ page, citations, etc.

Travis Van Slooten

Travis,

I thought the article was a good explanation of why duplicates pop up and thought the note about Superpages having a different phone number was interesting. I figured if you have the 2nd phone number listed as an alternate # on your listing, the data would merge instead of creating a duplicate.

Linda is right though. Because of all the bugs, having alternate #s can sometimes be more of a headache than a good thing.