Michael Epps Utley {kind=image/jpg}
Our performance marketing agency has a saying: “The Internet is a smartphone”. The reality of doing business online is more people are using their phones than ever before to access content, find people to do business with, and make purchases. To stay competitive, your website design and development has to keep up.
We’ve covered the importance of logo placement in the header of your website. Another great website element that improves any header is a clickable phone number. Let’s talk about why that’s a best practice for content marketing and branding, as well as search engine optimization.
Benefits for Adding a Clickable Phone Number on Your Website
Big Return on Investment
It takes a few minutes to code a clickable phone number into your website header, and the return on investment you’ll get is more than worth it. In the campaigns we operate, we’ve found that 75-90% of lead generation from the website comes from mobile users.
If your website isn’t designed with smartphone users in mind, you’re missing out on the majority of your potential leads and new customers.
Our research into landing page content marketing data has found that the top-left is the best section of the header for clickable phone number placement. It should be prominent, and as visible as your logo and other identifying information. While it shouldn’t clash with your header and design elements, we recommend making it slightly larger and in a complementary or contrasting color, so it immediately catches the eye.
You can make your phone number stand out a bit more by adding a graphic or icon of a phone or smartphone. Just remember to choose something visually appealing that shows a sense of action and energy, and matches the overall look and feel of your branding.
Better User Experience
Along with getting more conversions, putting a clickable phone number in the header is a surefire way to improve the user experience. No one wants to go searching through your website for a phone number.
You want to get them in contact with you, and they don’t want to waste time when they’re out and about trying to find information. Here are some additional things you can try to make their experience even more streamlined when it comes to getting in touch.
Have one phone number on your website.
Dedicate team members to phone call response during business hours.
After hours, have an automation strategy in place so that everyone receives communication from your team as soon as possible.
Make follow-up a top priority.
Give people the option of texting your number to get a quote, set up a sales call, or get questions answered about a product.
Similar to live chat, we’ve found texting gives people the flexibility of communicating with you on their terms. That makes them more likely to feel comfortable moving from step to step in their customer journey. Our team and our clients have also noticed improvements when directing people to a single phone number. It’s less confusing and makes it more likely they’ll remember how to get in touch with you more readily.
Improved SEO Rankings
Mobile-first design has been a ranking factor for Google for the last several years, and that could include factors like phone number visibility, accessibility, and placement. It’s important to code the phone number to the website so that it’s not just numbers in an image. If it's coded into the HTML search bots can “see” it’s a phone number when crawling and indexing your site. If it’s just a clickable image with numbers, bots may not read it correctly. Along with your header, it’s a good idea to place a clickable phone number in website footers, in case people are ready to call you after getting to the bottom of your home page, blog post, or landing page.
How to Make a Phone Number Clickable on Your Website
To code your phone number so that it’s click-to-call, add (tel: to your code right before the digits of the phone number wherever it shows up. That way, one tap, or one click, is all it takes for your next loyal customer to get in touch.
