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.
Does displaying a mobile number for business hurt local SEO?
-
Perhaps a silly question but could someone please clarify if displaying a mobile number in the main site or Google places etc would hurt local SEO? Is having a regional landline/fixed telephone number a ranking factor?
EDIT: This is for a UK site, does anyone have experience of this is UK please?
-
My pleasure Clicksjim!
-
Hi Miriam, wow - thanks for going to all that trouble, appreciated!
-
Hi Clicksjim,
There's nothing silly about your question. I think it's a smart one. It took me a couple of days to get back to you on this because, like others on this thread, though I work in Local, I don't work in the UK. I wanted to speak with someone who does. We had a little chat.
Basically, I think there is agreement in the Local SEO community that a local area code is a ranking signal, but the strength of that signal, in relation to all of the many other signals, is unknown. It may be that Google uses that local area code signal to associate certain content with a geographic region, but how vital this is, in the whole scheme of things, is unclear.
The Local SEO I know (a very smart guy I trust) with UK clients says he ALWAYS advises clients to use a local area code landline because he feels it may give them a slight edge over competitors who don't, but he didn't state that he felt it gives them a really big advantage (but, most of us will try to take any opportunity we have to edge out the competition, right?). Another Local SEO I spoke with said he wondered if mobile numbers get less calls that landlines do, but he was just theorizing.
So, in your shoes, I would go with a local number for your UK clients, if you can, because it may give these clients a bit of an advantage, but if you absolutely can't do this for some of your clients, the effect will probably be slightly disadvantageous rather than majorly. so.
Hope this helps!
-
I would say that if your mobile phone has the same area code as your business then you should be golden. Having this local number attached to your business is definitely a good signal.
-
Unfortunately I do not have experience in the UK. I have done a smattering of work in New Zealand (for friends, since that's where I'm from originally) where the mobile number system doesn't have area codes (027 and 021 are the only two prefixes for mobile). For more competitive phrases, I've never seen a business using a mobile number rank. This is only for a very small amount of work, however, and it could well be that there are other factors in play (such as the fact that the people using mobile numbers don't have any optimization, either).
I have a hard time believing that the UK algo would be so massively different from the US one that it would ignore phone number area codes.
Because it's a fairly big factor in the US, if I were being asked to make the call, I'd go with a landline with a local area code, which forwards to your mobile.
-
Thanks for your resposnes - I forgot to mention that this is a UK based site so there are no regional mobile numbers whereas I think there is in the states and some other countries. Does anyone have experience of this in UK?
-
No. There's no difference between a mobile number and a landline number. So long as the mobile number has a local area code.
As Anita said, just remember to be consistent.
-
Just be consistent and list the number you use most often. For me that is my mobile number.
-
Yes Having a regional landline/fixed telephone number is Good signal for local SEO. And putting mobile number will not going to hurt your SEO. Here is the awesome post on Citation ( your problem
Hope this help you out...
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
-
Best way to manage multiple Google My Business accounts as a marketing agency?
As marketing agency we have for each client a Google My Business account. This means that we have more than 100 Google My Business accounts. We know that GA has a limit of 100 analytics accounts (free version), but is there a limit in Google My Business too? For now, we have created multiple accounts that own different Google My Business accounts of our clients. Can I just change all the different e-mail accounts of our marketing agency and change it to one? So we can manage all the Google My Business accounts of our clients in one e-mail account?
Image & Video Optimization | | conversal0 -
Alt Tag for Mobile/Tablet
I have device optimized images for desktop, tablet, and mobile. Should I put the same description, caption and alt tag for each? Not sure if this will hurt me or help?
Image & Video Optimization | | ResmanMarketing0 -
Is getting views to an infographic through Imgur beneficial to SEO?
I'm considering posting infographics to Imgur in addition to hosting them on my site in an effort to leverage Reddit a bit more this year. My concern is that, if all goes well, we'll get a ton of views through Reddit to Imgur, maybe a couple clickthroughs to the site, and links to (probably) the Imgur page. I don't see that Imgur gives your profile a followed link, so how would any of this help SEO. I assume it would, because respected guys like John Dougherty espouse the benefits of Reddit, but I can't see how and I need to justify the effort to my department head.
Image & Video Optimization | | MattHolden1 -
Vimeo Pro, video SEO and rich snippets
Hi All, we are producing product demonstration videos. One major aim with these videos is to help our rankings for these specific product pages and associated keywords... and to get rich snippets displayed on Google results pages against our listing. We have used schema.org markup in the product pages body code along with / next to the embed vimeo video code on the product page in order to hopefully get us rich snippet listing... we used schema.org markup as this seems to be the main current markup for rich snippets we have hosted the video via Vimeo Pro so that it is served quickly and not affected by speed of our hosting server or any possible bandwidth issues on our hosting server and ensure sthat the traffic comes to our site pages rather then Youtube or similar Vimeo Privacy settings for the video have been set so that we have not allowed it to be embed anywhere except for our own domain and the video is not displayed on Vimeo.com to ensure that the video is not duplicated anywhere else... so that this is unique content on our own site for maximum value for our domain We have used the "old code" from Vimeo Pro for embedding the video on our product page rather than the current iframe code as from what i understand Google cant follow very well and doesn't necessarily trust content displayed in iframes. Video and schema.org markup code used is on product page is: <div itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">video</a>" itemscope itemtype="<a class="attribute-value">http://schema.org/VideoObject</a>"> <p ><strong>Watch our <span itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">name</a>">Click 7 Lite Duo demonstrationspan>:strong>p> <meta itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">thumbnailURL</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/img/products/nextbase-click-7-lite-duo-thumb.jpg</a>" /> <meta itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">duration</a>" content="<a class="attribute-value">T2M23S</a>" /> <span itemprop="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>">A product demonstration showing what's included in the box when you buy a Click 7 Lite Duospan>...:<br /> <p align="<a class="attribute-value">center</a>"> p> <p align="<a class="attribute-value">center</a>"><object width="<a class="attribute-value">500</a>" height="<a class="attribute-value">281</a>"><param name="<a class="attribute-value">allowfullscreen</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">true</a>" /><param name="<a class="attribute-value">allowscriptaccess</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">always</a>" /><param name="<a class="attribute-value">movie</a>" value="<a class="attribute-value">http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0</a>" /><embed src="[http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0](view-source:http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=67392721&force_embed=1&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0)" type="<a class="attribute-value">application/x-shockwave-flash</a>" allowfullscreen="<a class="attribute-value">true</a>" allowscriptaccess="<a class="attribute-value">always</a>" width="<a class="attribute-value">500</a>" height="<a class="attribute-value">281</a>">embed>object> p> div> Page this code is used on: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/proddet.jsp?id=2016&cat=1 Could anyone confirm whether the above seems to be what we need to do / should be doing to get the most value from these videos for helping our web site rank better with Google / search engine results pages as well as getting rich snippets displayed? Lastly does the above code seem correct and include all the necessaries for rich snippets? Thanks for any pointers.
Image & Video Optimization | | jasef0 -
How can I get around creating multiple Gmail accounts with the same phone number?
You know how, when you setup a Gmail account, Google asks you for a phone number to verify the account? I've run into a problem where Google is not letting me create anymore accounts with the same phone number. I set up an account for every new client we take on so that we have complete control of the inbox for verification purposes. Is there a way to get around this verification issue? We tried an app called Burner Phone but found out Google won't call the number because it's not supported by any major providers (e.g. Verizon, AT&T, etc.). Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!
Image & Video Optimization | | copyjack0 -
Local SEO: Links with the citations so should I slow down?
Hello, There seems to be some nofollow and dofollow links building as I add structured citations. Is this a reason to slow down the building citation process if you want the links to count? Do they help organic SEO?
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Australian Service that Allows you to Control all your Local Listings
Hey, After a few stumbles upon a variety of services that allows you to manage all your local listings from the one profile (the latest one was Yext.com). It got me thinking - is there an Australian equivalent? My research revealed nothing. Thanks.
Image & Video Optimization | | LukeyJamo1 -
Dynamic image serving SEO
We often use images from a dynamic image server, to cater for image asset management, multiple sizes etc. Similar to Adobe's Scene7, although that came out after we chose our product. So widgets.com may have all its images with a URL like myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90, instead of widgets.com/images/productname.jpg. A potential client wants to capitalise on traffic from Google image search. We could build an image sitemap, listing the images on each page. What should we place in the image:loc field? The code: myimageserver.com?src=widgets/catalogue/productname.jpg;width=100;height=100;angle=90 Apparently we have to verify the hosting site in Webmaster Tools, but I can't see where. I have a single Webmaster Tools account, where most of our sites are defined. Would I have to verify it for each site using the dynamic imaging program? Love to hear from anyone with solutions for getting images indexed when they are hosted at third-party dynamic imaging programs.
Image & Video Optimization | | ozgeekmum0