The Truth about SEO and Call Tracking
What is Call Tracking?
Call
tracking is a way for online marketers to track which sources, campaigns, and
keywords generate phone calls. Hundreds of thousands of marketers across the
U.S. and Canada use call tracking to close the loop on their marketing ROI
calculations. Some of the biggest companies in the world use call tracking to
measure the effectiveness of their PPC campaigns, SEO efforts, and retargeting.
These companies value call data significantly. They spend a lot of money on it.
Marketing
agencies also use call tracking. They use it as a way to prove their worth to
their clients. It is especially popular among agencies that do PPC and SEO
work.
Call
tracking is, right now, a $1B industry. It is mainstream.
What is the Truth?
Call
tracking, when used correctly does not hurt SEO. That’s the truth. Even most
ardent call tracking opponents admit that.
The
correct way to use call tracking is to use call
tracking DNI. This doesn’t hurt SEO. We’ll discuss more about
this later in the article.
The
problem is that the call tracking industry has traditionally done a very poor
job of educating marketers about what correct use of call tracking actually is.
Why Do Some Say Call Tracking Hurts SEO?
Because
of NAP.
Google
makes it very clear that Name Address and Phone number (NAP) have to be
consistent across all online directories. Having different phone numbers in a
ton of different places confuses Google’s algorithms and will hurt your SEO.
This is why a few local marketers have written articles criticizing call
tracking.
They’re
right about one thing. Call tracking numbers should not be used in various
directory listings across the web. That will hurt your SEO. This is common
knowledge (or should be).
However,
far too often articles attacking call tracking will lump all uses of call
tracking (on-site Dynamic Number Insertion, primarily) together with erroneous
use of call tracking in directories.
And,
admittedly, some call tracking companies have not operated with care in this
area. They have placed call tracking numbers all over directories without
worrying about the consequences for their clients. This is bad business and bad
for the industry.
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