This article covers how to set up call tracking without affecting your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP.) NAP consistency an important internet ranking factor for businesses. Displaying the same number in directories (Google Local, Yelp, etc.) and your website helps your visibility online . CallRail takes great measures to ensure that our JavaScript snippet and call tracking have no impact on NAP.
Getting started
This article is a supplement to CallRail's blog post on NAP. Read The Advanced CallRail Guide to NAP Consistency for more information.
The importance of NAP consistency
When clients search for your business online, they should find it on their first try. NAP consistency is thought to be a primary ranking factor for Google's local search function. If a different name, phone number, or address is found for your business, it is less likely to appear in searches.
CallRail's dynamic number insertion (DNI) feature uses a small snippet of JavaScript. This snippet uses the website's referring URL and landing page to decide whether to replace the website's phone number with one from a website pool. Our DNI technology serves the same code and user experience to human visitors and bots alike. CallRail's methods are consistent with Google's guidelines. We will never serve a phone number in a way that would jeopardize your NAP consistency.
The "track all calls" method
CallRail's recommend way of maintaining NAP consistency with our snippet is by using the "track all calls" method. This requires you to port your number into CallRail and set up visitor tracking. Porting a business number into CallRail grants your number features like call recording, advanced call routing, and call analytics. Porting numbers in and out of CallRail is always free. We will never keep a number from your business when you are ready to port it out.
Port a Phone Number into CallRail.
If you do not want to port an established number into CallRail, you can create a local offline tracking number and use it as your main line number
Please note: After creating a brand new main line tracking number, your existing business number could still appear online. Mike Blumenthal discusses this possibility and makes several suggestions in his blog on call tracking and local SEO.
Main line tracking numbers will not allow you to attribute calls to their exact marketing campaigns. However, they will give insight into calls that are coming from work you have done on citation cleanup and listing optimizations. Focusing on the "first-time callers" metric when using a main line tracking number will tell you how many leads are coming from local search engine optimization (SEO).
Once your main line tracking number is set up and placed where desired, you are ready to create a website pool. Website pools give you more data about your site visitors. They do this by creating a pool of numbers that replace the main line tracking number for each visitor.
The "main line only" method
It is possible to track callers who are finding your number online using only a main line tracking number. You will have to manually place this number where desired online, and it will not affect your NAP consistency. This method does not provide as much data as the "track all calls" method. However, it still gives visibility into call volume and call recordings. You will not know if it came from your website or elsewhere, but you will still have access to your caller's information.