Track Calls by Source

✓ How To Do It

1. List where people find you. Typical sources are your site, Google Business Profile, directory listings and paid ads.
2. Pick your setup. A call tracking service sells numbers and reports and costs money, so read its price page for today's plans. The low cost route is extra lines from a phone app that forward to your real phone, and one number per source by hand.
3. Buy or add one number for each source. Use local area codes, not toll free, so callers trust them.
4. Set each number to forward to the phone you answer. Call each one and check it rings your phone.
5. Start a sheet with columns for source, tracking number, where it is used and the date you added it. Keep it current.
6. Put the site number on the site. Many services swap it by script for each visitor source. If yours does, load it and test it with a private window.
7. For Google Business Profile, read Google's rules first. The number must connect to your business and be under its control. Google also lets you list additional numbers on a profile.
8. For directory listings and citations, use the tracked number for that source, and keep that same number on every copy of that listing. If the Google profile still shows an older number, write it on the sheet and fix it.
9. Once a month, count calls per number. Ask callers sometimes how they found you and compare.
10. Never use a number you do not control, and never list a number that sends callers to someone else's business.