Now there’s one more reason to claim online business listings. AdWords has recently announced they will require verification of ownership for all call extension and location extension phone numbers. Call extensions and location extensions that do not meet this policy will be disapproved.
This is just one more example of why it’s smart for local and enterprise businesses to stake their claim to their business profiles on the major search engines. It’s not easy—we completely get that. Manual claiming is a time-stealing endeavor (and a service we offer here at Connectivity). And there’s no automating the claiming process. It takes time.
But if you would like a phone number to run with your AdWords campaign or have the map icon show your business address, it’s more than past time to claim your business on Google My Business and other search engines.
To get started, Google offers plenty of local business help on the website for their new program, “Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map.” Or download Connectivity’s Guide to Claiming Your Business on Google My Business, Yelp and Facebook.
More from Google’s official blog about phone number verification:
Phone numbers requiring verification will appear with an “Unverified” or “Unverified phone” notation on the Ad extensions tab. Select “Call extensions” or “Location extensions” from the drop-down View menu to see your phone number verification status. You can then verify your phone numbers using any one of these three methods:
- Ensure the phone number used in your extension is present on the website featured in your ad. This means that if the phone number is associated with multiple ads featuring landing pages for different websites, then the phone number must also appear on at least one page for each unique website. The number must appear in text and will not meet the policy if it appears as an image.
- Link your Google Webmaster Tools and AdWords accounts. Learn how
- Add your unique AdWords conversion tracking code snippet to the landing page featured in your ad. Learn how
Olga is a Senior Manager of Marketing and Sales Operations at Connectivity.
