Most people on our site look for vanity numbers related to the keywords for their business. But some people look for nice numeric numbers too. We have a section of the site that explains and goes into these easy to dial numbers and how they break down. But I wanted to share a tip on how to find the best numeric numbers for your business.

Read the rest of the tip to combine Words and Repetitive digits.

Some visitors look for a toll free number to match their existing local number. This can look good on your business cards and give you some additional credibility. But it’s really only memorable to people that already remember your number. Matching your local number is certainly better than getting a random number, although it doesn’t create the image or memorability of a vanity number that spells something relevant. But sometimes if you can’t find any memorable vanity number matching your local number is still helpful and we can definitely help you find a good number to match or almost match.

3 tips you can use to find numbers to match your local number.

One of the best ways to get a number centered on a generic term is to add some type of geography to it, usually by adding your state abbreviation in front of the generic term.

This separates you from everyone else in your business chasing after that generic term and increases dramatically the likelihood of getting a number using that term.

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Adding your state initials will give you a home field advantage.

It’s the 14th and time for our monthly summary. It’s by a very busy month. Traditionally the summer slows down for us but this summer has not only didn’t slow down but seems to be speeding up. And stay tuned because within the next couple weeks we’re going to be announcing our biggest change ever in the web based search tool too.

In terms of the website, in the past month we’ve had 23 unique new articles or posts on our website, during the past 30 days. They cover, Shared Use, Our Biggest Sale ever, Random 800 numbers, voip, Phone companies Stealing numbers and locking them up, as well as several articles in the Simplified series about Search, Transfers, Premium numbers. We pretty much have a new article ever day, so make sure you check back or get our RSS feed.

See the list of all 23 posts for the past 30 days.

One of the things I’ve heard is that we have a lot of great information but it gets a little confusing. That comes from writing more and more about all of the different aspects of toll free numbers, our service and related topics. So to simplify things especially for new people, I’ve been writing simplified summaries of several of the main things we do, such as Activations, Backorders, Premium Numbers, Transferring and Searching for numbers.

We’re also making videos later the end of August, to go with these posts that explain the basics. These will be linked from a variation of the Easy Button to make it ‘easy’ for visitors to find the basics.

Building your business on a shared use rented number is like borrowing money from a loan shark or even the mob, to start your business. They may look nice in the beginning like they wouldn’t take advantage of you, but any time you put your business at the mercy of someone else, it creates a bad situation.

800 Number Portability is what keeps them honest.

When you’ve narrowed down the list of potential toll free vanity numbers down to a handful, one good thing you can do to figure out which is the best for your project is to take them for a “toll free test drive.”

A toll free number isn’t a car so you obviously can’t drive it, but you can put it into your actual use and see how it feels in context. Make up a mock flyer or ad, or commercial and put the number into it. Make a couple versions and show them to a few people. Sometimes a certain number will flow better or sound better or fit in with the rest of the advertising better.

Even something as simple as putting the prospective toll free numbers onto your business cards and showing a handful of people will give a mini focus group and may make it easier to know which one or ones to go with. So pick the best couple numbers and put them into your actual advertising and see how much more memorable they make your advertising.

Toll Free Day (8/8/8) was more than a huge success. The $8.88 activations were even a bigger hit than we had anticipated, probably too good. We didn’t just set a record for orders, we did over 5 times more than we have ever had in a single day. Customers saved over $15,000 on numbers in that one day sale but I think we nearly killed our selves doing it!

We’re working as fast as we can and on all of the processing but some of the last activations and toll free manuals should be done by the end of the day on Monday. We’re sorry for the dealy and appreciate your patience.

It was fun doing something crazy and it was good because we saw a lot of people we haven’t seen in a while. We really have a lot of great customers and we were very happy to give so many people so much value. So thanks to everyone and as always we’ve very happy to get you great 800 numbers for your business.

I wanted to post something here though so that everybody understands I’m not making this decision just for them. Our 888 day sale was obviously a popular sale and a GREAT deal. So it’s natural for people to want to bend the rules a little to slip in afterwards. That’s a compliment and there’s nothing wrong with asking. I probably would if I missed it.

However I’m posting this here so everyone who asked to be let in afterwards knows that I’m not just picking on them. After the door closes on this sale, the door is closed. I’m not deciding to let some people in and not others based on how many they have bought or anything like that.

If you know me I’m a very straight forward up front person and I try to run my business that way. You don’t have to wonder about whether I’ll take the number you want and offer it to someone who’s willing to pay more money or rent it to you like other websites. You don’t have to worry whether I’ll sell your email address or whether there’s some hidden fee or fine print to take advantage of you. And for the same reason you don’t have to worry that I’m giving someone else more access to better numbers or specials either.

That may not sound like an advantage if you’re trying to get the sale price after it ended. But I think you’ll agree that not bending the rules is the best way to run this business and does help people more than bending them for you in this case really would.

Today only from 12:01am till 11:59pm on August 8th, 2008 (aka 888) all regular activations are just $8.88, instead of $49.95. Yes, we’ve probably gone crazy and are definitely losing money on this. This is the only time we’ve ever done anything like this before and we’re definitely NOT going to do this again. There’s a strict limit of 8 numbers per customer and this ONLY applies to standard activations that say they’re Currently Available in the Instant 800 Lookup.

Just use the regular activation form on our website at TollFreeNumbers.com and there’s no codes or tricks necessary. We’ve just changed the price (to less than our cost!) for one day. There won’t be another toll free day like 8-8-8 in our lifetimes so we figured it’s OK to be a little crazy. And it’s a Friday so we can work all weekend if we have to, to catch up. But at midnight the prices goes back to $49.95 so don’t delay!

We all know ‘800’ numbers are preferable. They’re a brand name, like the .com of the domain name business. They give credibility and make you look like a larger more established company. They’re the best and in higher demand but that’s probably also why you can’t get them from most phone companies and there haven’t been any ‘800’ numbers at all, even random 800 numbers in the spare pool during the day for over a year.

We’ve even experimented by releasing a random ‘800’ number and trying to re-reserve it and it gets taken in less than a second every time, at any time of the day. There are some Resporgs that have literally set up an automated system to submit requests for any ‘800’ number all day long. When they come out at night they are taken within seconds and we’re lucky if we can get one request through before they’re just gone.

We have some random ‘800’ numbers immediately available if you need them.

People often ask if they can point a toll free number to their voip line or port a toll free number they get from us to a voip company such as Vonage. The answer to the first part is YES definitely. You can certainly point or forward your toll free calls to a voip line such as Vonage or any voip company.

The second question about porting or transferring the toll free number over to a VOIP service so they are the ones getting the calls to your local number is a little more complicated. The short answer is that YES, we will release the number to ANY phone company, voip or otherwise. However voip companies are usually pretty dumb about toll free service and may give you some very strange answers.

Read more about the options for 800 service to a voip number

Click to listen to the message then click the link on that page.

This came up recently in an email and I thought it was worth posting since people probably feel this way sometimes even if they don’t say so. Statistically some people are not going to get the numbers they’ve backordered. It’s worse than just the mathematical averages too in many cases for several reasons.

If you’re not getting the percent of backorders you had expected, there are several possible reasons.

1. You haven’t done a large enough sampling to go by the %.
2. You are in a competitive category.
3. You are looking for above average phone numbers.
4. You’re trying to get mainly ‘800’ numbers.
5. You’ve just been unlucky.
6. We’re not really trying to get your numbers for some reason.
7. The system doesn’t really work like we say it does.

The issues listed above are basically in the order of popularity or probability. Numbers 6 and 7 aren’t really there because there’s any reality to them, but I just wanted to include the theoretical possibility because that’s what customers sometimes think. We really do our best and do get a lot of good 800 numbers from Backorders

1. Any toll free number can be transferred to and serviced by any toll free service within the US or Canada by filling out a Responsible Organization Change Form (Resporg form) and does NOT need to be carried by the company that provides the local line.

2. Along with the resporg form you get from the new company, you just send in the Toll Free Birth Certificate™ we email with the toll free manual after the activation if the phone company requests a phone bill as the proof of ownership.

3. The customer information is pretty easy since that’s just your info and the only other information that probably need to fill out the transfer form is our phone company name Resporg.com and the ID code is QZA01 and you can add our resporg fax number 800-FAX-0095

4. Unfortunately, when trying to follow up on a transfer request, most phone companies tend to say that a number was rejected or something along those lines simply because it hasn’t gone through, as their standard response, regardless of whether it’s been sent all the way through to the releasing company or not.

5. The quickest companies that we work with get the numbers transferred and set up in two days or so, but most phone companies take at least a week to two weeks and you can’t assume that it will be done simply because you sent them the paperwork.

6. Most phone companies will reject a transfer request if the slightest thing doesn’t match because they don’t want to give up customers, but we are the exact opposite and much more lenient and we usually release toll free numbers the same day we get the request, much faster than anyone else in the industry.

1. Premium numbers are repetitive easy to dial numbers that we have broken down into four categories and are immediately available for between $99 for a 1 star #, $299 for a 2 star #, $599 for a 3 star # and $999 for a 4 star #.

2. Unfortunately you can’t just ask the computer for a “good” or “memorable” 800 number, since the computer can’t define good, so you need to give the computer specific queries defining exactly what you’re interested in, with the Instant 800 Lookup on the top of the page at TollFreeNumbers.com.

3. The best way to find premium numbers is to make queries with short 3 or 4 digit terms (or company initials?) with 3 or 4 *s at the beginning or the end and the premium ones will be the ones with the prices on them.

4. There are no other fees and premium numbers are activated and transferred to any other carrier you select the same as regular activations except they have to be processed manually so they’re working and ringing to the phone number you select, within 24 hours, not within a minute like regular activations.

Don’t assume your phone company has transferred your toll free number over just because you sent in the transfer request form.
It seems like today is the day for customers that sent in a transfer request for their toll free number and assumed it had been transferred. One customer transferred it or actually thought he had transferred it three years ago. You’d be amazed how often the paperwork never reaches us or even the resporg department at the new phone company.

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If you invest in and build a physical building on property that you are only renting, you are putting yourself more and more at the mercy of the owner. That’s because it’s hard to move a physical building. You’re not building up any equity from your rent, and you’re not building up any equity from all of the investment you’re making in the building either. Advertising your business with else’s phone number is the same thing because you’re building your brand name on someone else’s property. So not only the rent goes to them but every dollar of advertising builds up THEIR equity, not yours.

Don’t invest all your advertising to build up someone else’s brand name

The 800 Watch email and the Alternatives are from the monthly database we create not the live lookup. That’s why we tell you to click on whatever number you like in the email or the alternatives box to see the LIVE status. If it says it was available but was taken recently, that means that it was available in the monthly database but that isn’t available in the national database when it checks live.

Read more about how our system works like a search engine with a cached database

1. TollFreeNumbers.com is the internet’s only independent toll free search tool that makes it extremely quick and easy to search for and instantly activate toll free numbers that you own and can transfer to any 800 service you want.

2. All you have to do to check for a number is type in any length word or phrase into the white box in the search tool on the top of the page and to activate or backorder it you just click on the link in the Toll Free Search Results.

3. If a number says “In Use” then it’s active in the database with another phone company regardless of what you hear when you dial it, and if it says “Currently Available” we can activate it for you ringing to the local number you specify on the activation form, often in less than 1 minute.

4. Our look up tool doesn’t just check the number you submit, it searches multiple databases, finds dozens or even a hundred alternatives, numbers in disconnect, premium and random 800 numbers, and more and it doesn’t automatically lock up numbers you find available like most other websites do.

5. The computer is better at doing the searching and you can place the order right online, but if you have any question or need help give us a call at 1-800 MARKETER or email billquimby@billquimby.net and we’ll be happy to help you any way we can.

I was looking at things on the web tonight and noticed something that I thought was very ironic. I realize that Dial800 is using dynamic 800 numbers for tracking, but it seemed more than a little ironic that a company that promotes “800″ numbers as being better than 877 numbers, actually uses 877 numbers to contact them on their own website.

By the way, don’t use Dial800’s lookup tool because they are one of the worst offenders at not only reserving numbers that people lookup but then they saying they own them and want to RENT them back to the unsuspecting customer. I don’t mean to go into that but I can’t talk about them without mentioning that.

Every time someone shows you a new ad, whether it’s the printer with a proof or the new commercial you’ve just finished, get in the habit of calling picking up the phone and testing your toll free number. It only takes a couple seconds to test your toll free number and it might just save you an awful lot of pain and heart ache, not to mention wasted advertising dollars.

So any time you ask someone or someone asks you, “So what do you think?” translate that in your head to a reminder to check the phone number. That simple habit will only take you a couple seconds but it just could save your butt. A butt is a terrible thing to lose.

Selecting a phone company based on price alone is like marrying someone based on looks alone. That may be the easiest way to judge things by on the surface, but if that’s your only criteria you’re going to be very unhappy at some point. The same can be said for a nice website too. And don’t fall for a fake review site like TollFreeReview.com either, because on the internet it’s easy to make multiple versions of fake companies and sites that look nice and credible on the surface, but again have no depth.

Would you select your car based just on price, or your cereal, or your house or even your soda? A low price is great, but the mistake many people make is thinking that price is the only factor to base their decision on for their phone service. You need to realize that the very cheapest company is the cheapest for a reason. It may mean they are adding additional fees somewhere, or they have less customer service or they may outsource the customer service overseas. They may be new and willing to do anything for a sale, or they may they may be having financial difficulty. Maybe they lower their feeds only to raise them later on. Some companies play with the instate rates or even change their definition of a minute and charge you for two minutes for each minute you’re connected to your customer.

There are 2 things to help you find the best company plus our guarantee

You’ve probably heard Lending Tree’s slogan, “When banks compete you win.” Well we have a different version. When phone companies compete YOU win. That’s nothing amazing or new though. We’ve had the ability to select phone companies since the breakup of AT&T in 1984 and toll free numbers have available from competitive phone companies since the early 90s. But there’s something else, even more important.

You don’t want them to stop competing do you? How they perform AFTER you select them is actually a lot more important than how you think they will ahead of time. You don’t just want to be able to pick the best company for your needs right now. Even more important than being able to pick phone companies is being able to change 800 providers in the future if the one you pick doesn’t turn out to be as good as you thought or changes.

We're the only company that guarantees you the ability to transfer your number away if the company you select doesn't turn out to be as good as you expected!

There’s a much higher turnover rate in disconnected 800 numbers than most people realize because most vanity numbers are invisible since they’re usually referred to by the digits. That’s why we redo the 800 Watch research for visitors using our Keyword Lookup, because good numbers related to the terms you’re looking for get disconnected.

The 800 Watch can help you be in the right place at the right time, to turn someone else’s garbage into a brand name number for your business. We have essentially a four month crystal ball that sees a couple months into the future for the numbers coming out.

We also allow the first customer requesting it to backorder a number. We’ll do the research to calculate the exact date it comes out and we’ll try to grab it for you that first second it comes out. We can only take the first customer that backorders a disconnected number and anyone else has to be turned away. So if you like a number make sure you backorder it right away.

“Locking Up” a number is the term we use when you do searches on the wrong website and a number that was previously available is suddenly reserved by them without a specific request to do so.

We’ve written several posts about companies that do this such as The Dark Side of Shared Use, and we’ve put up some warnings about searching for toll free numbers on other websites too, such as Searcher Be Ware. But this still happens to a lot of people.

Some of the worst offenders

Unfortunately slimy companies like CustomTollFree.com, CallSource, Dial800, OneBox, TollFreeNumber.org and GotVMail.com don’t post any warnings and most look very legitimate, but they’re Fake Pone Companies and as soon as you search for an 800 number there, the number you wanted gets sucked up and suddenly isn’t available anywhere else. In some cases if you talk to them they will even reserve other neighboring numbers as well to make sure you can’t get anything else either.

We want to help you get your toll free vanity number back if it gets Locked Up!

That’s right Tollfreenumber.ORG clearly hacked our website to hide the links internally to the posts we’ve written about them. It was very cleverly hidden in the Google Analytics plugin file, googleanalytics.php and it left the links to an article about Hidden Fees the article that showed Tollfreenumber.ORG clearly backdated the age of their organization by several years and second article about Tollfreenumber.ORG making up fake statistics all underlined but with no link. It only affected these posts about TollFreeNumber.Org and it even blocked View Source from working in IE.

I guess that’s one way to respond to someone who shows that you’ve lied about things if it’s true and you really can’t dispute it.

Some people confuse what they personally like or what their friends or customers say they like for the things that get the best results. If you had a car dealership you might prefer softer more professional advertising, over the loud in your face banners and balloons. Your friends and neighbors may all say that like the quieter approach, but in the end, car dealers all find that loud in your face promotion sells more cars.

You may not personally like having to think about translating the letters when you dial. You may think it’s easier to just enter the digits. But your goal isn’t really to make it easier. Your goal is to maximize the results and for results vanity numbers beat numeric numbers every time (with only a few exceptions).

Don’t fall for that trap of confusing what you or other people say they like with what actually gets more calls and sales for you.

When you see that in the Search Results of the lookup tool, that generally means you entered a 1 or a 0 for the first digit of the phone number which isn’t valid in North America. If you stop to think about it, it probably doesn’t look quite right either

So if you entered 123-LOAN or something like that try 321-LOAN or better yet, try just entering this shorter term like LOAN and let the computer put things before or after it or look for any version that ends a LOAN or whatever your word is.

That may sound ridiculous but a lot of people don’t even realize that if they got their toll free number directly from their phone company, some phone companies might claim that it’s THEIR number NOT YOURS and refuse to release it or in some cases even yank it back even after it’s taken away.

That’s exactly what happened to LaRick Calhoun recently. He got an 800 number from Onebox (J2 Global (NASDAQ: JCOM), also the parent company of Efax) and used and has advertised it since October 2007. When he decided he wanted to transfer it away however, he was suddenly surprised by the fine print at Onebox.

Not only did Onebox say he owed them money but they even filled out forms for the SMS claiming they are the customer!