Keeping your company’s phone number hidden from Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) can be a strategic choice to encourage users to engage with your chat customer service rather than directly dialing your number. In this guide, we’ll delve into the technical steps to hide your phone number from SERPs and encourage users to land on your website and utilize chat customer service.
Why Hide Your Phone Number on SERP?
Hiding your phone number on SERP can help you direct user interactions through your website, particularly chat customer service. By minimizing “click 0” searches, you encourage visitors to explore your site and engage with your chat support system, enhancing the overall user experience.
1. Implement Robots.txt File
The robots.txt file is a valuable tool for controlling what search engines can and cannot index on your website. To hide your phone number, follow these steps:
- Create a
robots.txtfile if you don’t already have one in your website’s root directory. - Add the following lines to your
robots.txtfile:User-agent: * Disallow: /path-to-your-phone-number/
Replace
/path-to-your-phone-number/with the actual URL or directory where your phone number is located on your website. - Save the changes to your
robots.txtfile and ensure it’s accessible from your website’s root directory.
2. Utilize the Meta Robots Tag
The <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag can be added to specific pages on your website to instruct search engines not to index them. Here’s how to apply this tag:
- Open the HTML source code of the web page where your phone number is visible.
- Insert the following code within the
<head>section of the page:<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
- Save the changes to the page and ensure it’s properly uploaded to your website’s server.
3. Dynamic Loading with JavaScript
If you prefer to dynamically load your phone number using JavaScript, you can hide it from search engines while still making it accessible to website visitors. Here’s how to do it:
- Ensure that your phone number is not present in the initial HTML source code of your web pages.
- Create a JavaScript function that loads and displays the phone number on the page after it loads. For example:
(function() { var phoneNumber = "1-800-123-4567"; // Your phone number var phoneNumberElement = document.getElementById("phone-number"); if (phoneNumberElement) { phoneNumberElement.innerHTML = phoneNumber; } })(); - Add an HTML element with an ID (e.g.,
<div id="phone-number"></div>) where you want the phone number to appear on the page. - Implement structured data markup to ensure the phone number is accessible to assistive technologies and users.
4. User-Friendly Chat Customer Service
To encourage users to engage with your chat customer service, create a seamless and user-friendly experience:
- Position the chat widget prominently on your website’s key pages.
- Offer proactive chat assistance based on user behavior and interactions.
- Personalize chat interactions to provide tailored support and solutions.
- Ensure that your chat service is available and responsive around the clock.
Conclusion
Strategically hiding your phone number on SERPs to encourage users to engage with chat customer service is a technical process that involves controlling how search engines index your content. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can influence user behavior and lead them to utilize your chat support system, ultimately improving user engagement and the quality of service on your website.
