Why You Should Add a Phone Number to Your Blog – Even if You Don’t Take Calls

So, you’ve got a blog. Maybe you’re just blogging for fun, or maybe you’re blogging to sell products or make money from ads.

If you are blogging to sell something, there’s a good chance you have already got a phone number and it’s clearly visible on your blog. In this case you need to make sure it’s easy to find when someone wants to call you – you can’t assume they’ll search for it if it’s not.

People are used to looking in the top right corner of a site in the header area, so this is a good place to display your number. The footer and on your contact page are also good places for the same reason. Also, don’t be afraid to put it right in front of them whenever they might need it, such as in your blog posts and sales copy.

“But I don’t want people to call me!”

Even if you don’t want to take calls, you should still include a phone number on your site – you just have to do it in a different way.

A phone number on your site makes you appear more trustworthy – you look like a ‘real’ business. The internet is an anonymous place, so your visitors will look for reassurance you are a real person they could contact, even if they have no intention of ever doing so. Some people are also of the opinion that having a contact number on your site is another tick in the box for Google, signalling to them that your site is legitimate.

Of course, one downside of including a number is that someone might actually dial it. Although highly unlikely, there are some crazy people on the web you don’t want to share your home or personal cell phone number with.

To protect your privacy and add a protective barrier between you and the public, you can use a virtual phone number on your blog instead.

Virtual phone numbers are hosted in the cloud, rather than being tied to a physical location. Having one can make you look more professional, as well as giving you options your regular phone can’t offer, such as:

1. Never answer calls live – just send all calls direct to voicemail. Any messages you get are emailed to you as an audio file attachment. You can listen to them when you’re ready and respond when you choose to.

2. Divert your calls on to any other phone number (landline, cell or even international) so you can take calls wherever you are. If you work from multiple locations but still want to stay in touch this is a great solution. Just swap over the destination number or send calls to voicemail when you’re out of the office. You can even schedule this to happen automatically.

3. You can easily block nuisance callers if you are unfortunate enough to ever need to. Just enter their number(s) and they won’t be able to get through.

4. If you’d rather not receive any communication by phone at all, just use a recorded message to tell people to contact you via your website or by email instead.

As you can see, with a virtual number you can get all the advantages of having of phone number on your site, without any of the potential downsides.

To find out more about virtual phone numbers and hosted services please visit the Callagenix website today.