Should we include our company phone number on our site's PPC landing pages?

• Are there concrete benefits to include our company phone number on our site's PPC landing pages or should we just include a customer service email link and links to our online help resources?

Answer: The inclusion of an actual phone number to back up the content of a landing page is a great way to increase conversions and instill trust in your target audience. Trust is critical, especially if you want the user to supply any sort of private information. Unfortunately these days, finding a site with a phone number that connects to an actual live person is becoming more and more a rarity.

Once a visitor lands on your site, the clock starts ticking. You only have a few seconds to start make the impressions that ultimately lead to conversions. Adding a phone number to complement your current landing page copy is a great way to encourage the visitor to actually call in to complete the transaction. This can increase conversions dramatically by targeting those visitors who may be hesitate to pull the trigger on an online purchase or whom may have questions not addressed on your landing page.

The inclusion of a call to action button on your landing pages which encourages visitors to click here to place a call is also a great way to increase landing page conversions. More interactive than just listing a phone number, this mechanism is easy to track and verifiable in its ability to increase the number of incoming customer calls. If your site is currently experiencing a high-rate of landing page abandonment, this optimization tip may noticeably turn your fortunes around.

Another benefit of including a phone number on your landing pages is the ability to use unique 1-800-numbers to enhance your current PPC conversion tracking. 1-800 numbers are relatively inexpensive and can easily be redirected to any regular phone number. They also generate a billing summary that can be used to track incoming phone calls to unique online landing pages Most sites already use 1-800 numbers for their customer service, so adding a few more for specialized tracking isn't that difficult.

Obviously there's always the "danger" of being swamped by a deluge of 1-800 calls. ...