Contact details - does the email address matter?

Well, I guess yes it matters I have seen when emails come from some authoritative i.e not gmail or yahoo but when email from specific domain say "" it gives a feel that admin or .... is on the other side while the gmail or yahoo id can be created by just anyone doesn't give that professional appeal.

 

There is an unwritten scale or "professionality" based on the email address. Beginning with hotmail and comcast addresses and all the way through yahoo, gmail and finally an email on your own domain. Basically if you want to look professional best is have various email address by topic on your company domain, or company's email server domain, like the big companies do.
Gmails are basically good for G+ profiles, authoriship and these sort of seo aspects, so it's good to have one as well.

 

Purely from an SEO standpoint it should not matter. There are various ways to optimize the Subject and Content of the actual email message and this is what makes the difference for search engines. Apart from that, as its clear from previous answers, your main benefit from using a domain-tied email would be to establish trust and gain a more professional outlook for your prospects.

 

I agree with guys above. As for me, I trust more when i see email@domain_name.
Also I want to add, that it is important for website authority to have "contacts" page. Ideally it should include:

• email;
• names;
• phone number(s);
• adress;
• map.

And dot forget about having "about us" page. Good Luck!

 

Hey Sarah,

I definitely think it can have an SEO impact.

Let's say you're Costco. If you're switching from something like: (A) to (B) ...

For the term "Dallas Costco", Google will give more ranking preference for the page that has the (B) email address. Especially if the term brand term "Costco" isn't listed any where on the page in text.

Even though your keyword is part of an email address string, Google will still use it to determine on-page relevance.

Diggity

 

Yeah, but why would you send an email with your brand name nowhere to be found? Even if you have Costco in the signature its still profitable from an SEO standpoint, compared to the actual brand name in the email address. And have you practically observed Google giving preferences based on email addresses solely, like a case-study or something maybe. I am really interested to see if anyone dedicated their time to checking that because logically it should not matter at all.

 

Wanting to see everyone use company/site email details is clearly the right way to be going/thinking Sarah for all the obvious reasons you will of course be well aware of. I personally don't trust sites that use hotmail/gmail/yahoo etc etc as although I know many reasons why it's useful to make use of such addresses the usual John/Jane Do is more likely to first think it is unprofessional and quite possibly scammy looking.

Now as for using actual site relevant email addy's in a way that can be of benefit to SEO there are ways where such things can indeed make sense from an SEO perspective.

You say yourself you are using actual pages for differing contacts.

This means that those pages also have URL's and all that follows.

So let's say you have a page for contact with a URL along these lines >

aussie-carpet-fitters-.com/

Just that one URL alone gives you a number of pretty clear human and machine readable and useful search phrases. I think just touching on this subject as I have done shows that indeed there can be advantages and so IMHO the answer is "Yes" (It matters!).

I certainly try to use contact page URL's and what follows on that page for SEO advantages in a wholesome and acceptable way as it is IMHO another place where an opportunity presents it's self that I must look at to see if it can be utilised in a way that won't act in any detrimental way for the site.

I hope thta gives you some useful food for thought, just as clever use of email addresses might also give SE spiders useful food for thought (to process) to.

PS Google "Local SEO" plugins for WP Sarah and you might find a few useful links...

 

I get your thinking Sarah but to my mind that approach is slightly missing some of the possible SEO benefits

BTW I added a PS b4 noticing your reply above....

 

It actually also varies based on niche. Some would rather send an email to an address, others would fill a form, or give you call. What sort of area does the business operate in?

 

Having a contact form might be best, for the more important pages at least, as it's easier for the user to fill some details and send a note, rather than copy the email address, go to the email client, send an email. Additionally if this is about different locations - you can just have the visitors pick a location from the list. If you're on WP - check out the plugin contact form 7.

 

oh, ok! Then just tell them their gmail's and yahoo's can be hacked and the hacker would get access to all the clients, so own domain emails are usually a lot more secure.