Will Changing Your Business Phone Number Impact SEO?
Similar to the other facets of brand positioning and digital marketing, Search Engine Optimization is an ever-evolving game. Considering the numerous moving parts and progressing trends, it’s no surprise why brands today struggle in determining which of their decisions might hurt their SEO and which ones won’t.
While one day, a particular type of activity seems to be working perfectly, the very next day, you see Google penalizing your site just because they updated their algorithm last night. Bring the customer expectations factor into the equation and see things getting all the more complicated in identifying what is worth the risk and what should be strictly avoided.
When it comes to your business information, changing the NAP (number, address, and phone number) can be good. After all, multiple businesses have successfully gone for an entire rebranding without any setbacks. However, modifying a single detail can change the complete buyer journey if you don’t get it right.
In this blog, we will address a few crucial steps that you should bear in mind during the process to make sure changing your phone number does not affect your SEO or the audience’s perception of your brand negatively.
NAP Consistency
Local search forms a crucial element of a business’s overall SEO strategy, especially when running a purely local business with a brick-and-mortar store like a bakery, automobile repair shop, hair and beauty studio, etc. The amount of foot traffic your store receives depends vastly on how easily prospects are able to find your business’s accurate information when they perform a search query regarding your services.
If they come across an out-of-date contact number, they will simply ring the next company that appears in the results with positive reviews and forget about your existence. In simple words, consistency is necessary. Search engines don’t want to fail their users, and when it comes to Google, it is particularly strict about this. It penalizes companies that have contradictory NAP information online. As long as your website, online directories, and other listings don’t display your real number consistently, your SEO rankings are going to decline.
The solution is pretty easy. If you have made up your mind to switch your business number or maybe the whole communication system, you need to take out some time to review and update your local business listings, web directories, and all the other sites wherever your business’s name shows up.
Maintaining consistency in your NAP information is crucial for businesses. It can make or break your business – it can either degrade your company in the search engine’s eyes or help you achieve one of those prominent positions in the search results. Therefore, while changing your phone number may not be a matter of concern alone, but the way you distribute it will certainly impact your SEO.
Call Tracking
Several companies keep away from call tracking just because they are not certain about how to tackle it and fear harming their SEO in the process. Moreover, when it comes to tracking calls, businesses must stick to the main laws and guidelines laid by the authorities to ensure that the confidential information of their customers is safe. However, in due course, when you decide to shift from the obsolete landlines and change your numbers, you can take advantage of this process, which can be potentially beneficial for your SEO.
In an effort to merge and enhance their communications systems, businesses have started adopting digital communication solutions such as VoIP (also known as Voice Over Internet Protocol or IP telephony). This transition offers many perks for call tracking, and better customer support and engagement – all of these will eventually back up your SEO efforts. As you continue to grasp VoIP and its numerous uses, you will be able to get the most out of your telephonic conversations with your customers to take care of your brand reputation as well as SEO.
Besides having more business numbers within your easy reach, if you need them, you must know that VoIP platforms offer other valuable features, including call analytics, texting, recording, and emailing. Gathering all that data and executing SEO-safe call tracking using DNI (Dynamic Number Insertion) can help your SEO.
Establishing and Retaining Customer Trust
When you get it right, updating your business phone number can be a smooth process that does no harm to your SEO in any way. However, you need to realize the reason search engines rank websites in the first place – to offer the best, most credible search results first, followed by other alternatives available online. Moreover, they also reward brands that successfully present themselves in the most accurate way possible, and contact info composes a crucial part of that portrayal.
The general thesis is that if a potential customer calls you and finds out that the particular number does not exist, their trust in your brand fades away. Search engines, including Google, realize that loss of trust and therefore starts placing other relevant businesses above you that have precise and verified contact information. Thus, it’s safe to say that at some level, customer trust drives SEO ranking.
Moreover, this premise is backed by studies, too, where the majority of the customers agreed that they would lose trust in a brand with wrong or irregular contact information. Hence, when you decide to change your business phone number, make sure that you update it everywhere across the internet where your business pops up. This is the key to preserving customer trust and, therefore, your SEO rankings.
Notify Your Customers in a Timely Manner
Fortunately, there are several easy ways to ensure that your customers have your right and updated business information. After you have dealt with all the web directories, online business listings, your own website, social media pages, etc. you can utilize your marketing strategy to spread the word.
Your loyal customers would want to know that your business has got a new phone number, address, or any other crucial detail. Just the way you wouldn’t want your customers to waste their time calling your old number asking for a pizza home delivery only to find a plumbing store on the other side of the phone line, it’s better to make sure they have your updated info.
You can inform your customers about this change via your newsletters, social media posts, or a small announcement on your website, all the more so if these sources drive a lot of traffic to your business.
Conclusion
Changing your business phone number can be a straightforward process on its own. But unless you execute it properly, taking care of several things mentioned in this blog, the impact it might have on your SEO won’t be so easy-peasy. Be sure to take care of all the places wherever your business is listed, and implement the few tips discussed above to make this process seamless.