As an operator of a brick-and-mortar business, chances are you’re going to want customers to visit your location or contact you directly. The best way to increase your exposure to potential customers is through having properly formatted contact information on your website. You can achieve this using schema markup.
As Moz says in the aforementioned linked article:
“Schema is recognized (and in fact the vocabulary is maintained) by Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Yandex.”
This means it is recognized by all the leading search engines your customers will be using when they search for you and your competitors.
“But I have my address and phone number on my site. Isn’t that good enough?” No.
If your address or phone number is in an image file or uses Adobe Flash (and not text code), it likely isn’t even read by search engines. This means customers won’t be able to reach you by clicking on your phone number or searching your address in their mobile maps from their phone.
If your contact information is in plain text code it is missing out on some major benefits. Here’s a great article on why you should use schema markup to get an advantage over your competition with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
One way Google rewards local businesses who have properly formatted address schema, is through showcasing your business profile on the right-hand side of search engine results
Now, here’s how you do it for your business –
Note: You may need to have an IT person or your Web Designer add the code, or you can use the “code” view in the editor if you’re using WordPress.
Using schema markup, we input this:
Centratel Telephone Answering Service
141 NW Greenwood Ave, Ste. 200
Bend, OR 97703
541-385-2616
…like this:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Centratel Telephone Answering Service</span>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">141 NW Greenwood Ave, Ste. 200</span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Bend</span>,
<span itemprop="addressRegion">OR</span>
<span itemprop=“postalCode”>97703</span>
</div><span itemprop="telephone">541-385-2616</span>
</div>
This tells all of the search engines and your customers’ mobile phones that the address is an actual address (that can be searched on their maps) and your phone number is an actual phone number (that can be dialed by their phones).
Replace the placeholder text below with your business information, and apply it to your website for an immediate and measurable business boost.
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<span itemprop="name">Your Business</span>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">Your Address</span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Your City</span>,
<span itemprop="addressRegion">Your State/Province</span>
<span itemprop=“postalCode”>Your Postal Code</span>
</div>
<span itemprop="telephone">Your Phone Number</span>
</div>
For more tips on improving the alignment of your digital presence with your business systems, stay tuned to http://www.pathwayone.com/blog
