Want to Change Your Business Phone Number? Read This First.
Every once in a while, one of our clients will call or email us and want to change their phone number. It seems like such a simple or small change – but it really isn’t. Your phone number is part of your NAP (it’s the “P” by the way). So it is one of the three pillars of your local online presence. So the simple answer is yes – changing your phone number will likely adversely affect your SEO.
It will literally change how Google looks at you, indexes you, ranks you, and more. It will also change how customers view you. For instance, remember that you will never be able to remove/change your phone number everywhere on the internet. I changed my phone number almost 15 years ago, and people will still call the old phone number to this day. Google and other websites index and harvest your information – and it is near impossible to change them all.
So why does that matter? Studies show that when people see conflicting phone numbers, it tends to kill the conversion (probably one of the many reasons why Google looks so heavily at your phone number as a ranking factor). So it will not only hurt your rankings, but it will also hurt your conversions and how clients view you online – which in turn hurts your SEO – which in turn hurts your conversions, and… well… you get it.
So as you can see, it’s not a simple change. It takes many hours to do, years to get it completely changed, and it comes with consequences. But that being said – you may have a strong reason to change your phone number. So if you like to live dangerously – feel free to read below :).
Still Want To Change Your Phone Number?
What if you still want to change your phone number – how can you go about it? Before you do, be sure to read the points below:
SEO, digital marketing, and brand positioning are constantly changing. So what may be perfectly fine to do today, may not be fine in the future. So take that under consideration when changing your business phone number.
Google implements different algorithm changes from time to time, making it difficult for brands to figure out which information needs to be updated or what needs to be retained. So this goes beyond just the SEO reason mentioned above. In other words, do things the wrong way, and not only could it hurt your SEO, but at some point in the future, Google may have an algorithm change that actually “penalizes” you. There are lots of examples of this – but just keep it in the back of your mind. You are likely fine, but just a warning.
Change can be good because rebranding and a phone number change have worked well for a lot of companies. That includes changing any part of your NAP. Simply changing your phone number could impact the entire customer journey in a good way. For instance – did you change from a 1-800 number to a local number? That may actually help you in the long run, as people tend to prefer a local company and the local number may work better to convert people to leads.
So now that the “disclaimers” are out of the way, the rest of this article will show you the steps you need to take to ensure that changing your phone number will go as smoothly as possible.
NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) Consistency
As we mentioned before, one essential component of your SEO strategy is Local Search. Local search is a powerful tool to get customers to go to you, especially If you are running a local business with a physical location like a beauty salon, car repair facility, or pastry shop. Customers should find the correct information when they search your services online.
The fix for that is simple. Make sure that you have a list of all directories where your business is listed so that it will be easier for you to update all of them for any changes to your phone number. Didn’t do this? No worries. There are citation services that can help you with this. Companies like Bright Local and others can help you get this done pretty easily. But keep in mind, you may know about 50 online profiles with that phone number – but there may be hundreds or thousands more.
If a customer finds your services online and dials an outdated number, they would move on to the next one on their list. The customers could easily forget you exist. Google does not like to list businesses with conflicting NAP details across the internet. Your search ranking will suffer because of this inconsistency.
NAP consistency can boost your ranking on search engines and help you reach those desirable spots in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Take Care of Your Call Tracking & Call Forwarding
Call tracking is important. You need to be able to measure if there is a decrease in calls since the phone number change? Also, if you have access to the old number, a simple thing to do is forward the old phone number to the new one so that you don’t miss any calls. Keep in mind, with call tracking, every business needs to meet legal General Data Protection Regulation requirements to ensure the safety of customers’ sensitive information.
A lot of businesses are switching to digital phone solutions using VoIP. To upgrade their communication systems, The benefits of call tracking are better customer engagement and smarter customer support. Once you familiarize yourself with the applications of VoIP, you can already use it to your advantage in improving brand reputation and ranking.
Besides having many business phone numbers as you need them, VoIP has valuable features like texting, emailing, recording, and call analytics. Data collection and SEO-safe call tracking through Dynamic Number Insertion will benefit your SEO.
Build and preserve your customer’s trust
Updating your business phone number should not only happen on your website – but also on all of your social media, any videos you have ever made with it, and as many online profiles as you can (most companies have hundreds that they don’t even know about that get built automatically on the internet). However, you should also know that search engines reward the top ranking for the most reliable and accurate website/brand representation. Correct contact information is essential to achieve the top spot.
Customers lose their trust in your brand just because the phone number they dial no longer exists. Search engines will boost other companies with accurate and verified information because they recognize the lack of customer trust. Customer trust is a significant factor that affects search engine ranking.
According to respondents in a BrightLocal survey, 80% of them would lose trust in a company with incorrect and inconsistent contact information. If you need to change your business phone number, It is crucial to update it on all the digital outlets to keep customer trust and boost your ranking.
Keep Your Customers & Agents Up-to-date
Good thing you can now make sure your customers get accurate contact information in a few easy steps. Once you’re done updating your website, messaging apps, and social media pages, you should now use your marketing strategy to inform your customers about the changes.
Your loyal customers and subscribers need to be updated on any changes in your company’s information. You don’t want them to be surprised when they show up at your old address to see you are gone. You want your new number and details updated on their contact list.
You have to reach out to them through your weekly/monthly newsletter and post on your social media accounts about the changes in your phone number. Make sure that you announce it on your website as well.
If done correctly, a simple change of your business phone number can significantly impact your business. Having a search engine-approved tracking strategy and customer trust will be a powerful tool to help your business through the transition to a new phone number.
