Do not include letters in phone numbers, firms advised

Date: 05/07/2011

Companies who may be looking to purchase memorable 0800 numbers have been advised against replacing digits with letters.

In an article for StuckOn, Carl Hopkinson noted that word-based phone numbers, such as 0123-CALL-NOW are often used as a marketing technique.

However, although they are easy for customers to remember, they may not do an enterprise any favours.

This is because, when published online, the letters are often overlooked by Google and it will not recognise the collection of digits as a phone number.

As a result, enterprises could be "hobbling [their] local search engine optimisation efforts", Mr Hopkinson stated, thus having an adverse effect on their marketing campaign.

"Simply resist the temptation to advertise your phone number as anything other than a number," he advised businesses.

However, it is important for companies to select memorable phone numbers, as owner of Michigan-based firm Ring Ring Aaron Beals recently told the Five Towns Patch simple digit combinations are more likely to encourage sales.