Today’s way of living is incredibly fast-paced. Digital innovations come often, and the business industry is no stranger to these innovations.
Businesses have taken their efforts to the online world, and Google has become a crucial part of these strategies. Google My Business is an excellent tool for companies, as it helps them provide essential information to potential customers.
But how can marketers know if their efforts are on the right track? How can you provide data to let your clients know their business listings are doing well online? Well, here’s where Google My Business profile analytics join the game. Join us as we explore the world of GBP and its metrics.
A Brief Look Into Google My Business
Google is the most popular search engine globally. With 4.3 billion active users, this is the place to be for businesses. Many potential customers are just a Google search away from finding out about your clients’ company.
The search engine is constantly improving, and its efforts include providing the best results possible for each search query. That is where GBP, a tool launched in 2014, comes in handy for businesses. When a potential customer goes on the quest to find a specific local business via Google search, the most optimized GBP profiles will come up in the search results.
For example, imagine a customer is searching for Mexican restaurants near them.
When people do a local search to find a company on Google, the businesses with the most complete information show up higher on the SERPs. You must look into Google Business profile insights to know how these customers find your clients’ business.
Google Business Profile Insights: What Is It?
The main goal of Google Business Profile Insights is to help business owners (or marketers who work in local SEO) know how people find their establishments. Google Maps and Google Search are the vehicles to help people find their businesses, so insights help you understand how that discovery search goes and what they do once they discover the company.
Simply put, GBP insights are a look into how potential customers find businesses through Google Search and Maps.
It’s crucial to highlight that GBP insights differ from Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Google My Business insights focus on providing information about the profile’s views and overall traffic, and Google Analytics focuses on helping you gain data about website traffic, among other items.
Understanding GBP Analytics
When Google created GBP, the idea was for it to act like a website for businesses. It keeps essential information within the reach of potential customers, and if these potential patrons find what they’re looking for, it can help them make the final decision.
Picture this: A person plans to go to the dentist next month, but they’re new in town, so they do a quick “dentists in [city]” search on Google. They will most likely land on a few websites to gain insights about the dentists in the city and keep some of those health offices in mind. Later, when the time comes, they’ll conduct their search through high-intend keywords, such as dentists in a specific area of the city, and since your client has an optimized GBP profile, they’ll find your client’s business.
There, Google Analytics will provide data about how the potential customer interacted with your client’s website. Perhaps they looked at their About Us page or saw which treatments they offer. However, GBP insights will provide information about lead generation and more.
5 Google My Business Metrics to Keep Tabs On
When you conduct local SEO marketing strategies, GBP is one of the most effective tools to carry your campaign on and know how it does. Here are some of the metrics you keep tabs on and highlight for your clients
Reviews and Ratings
Reviews and ratings are crucial for any business. Customers rely on the comments and scores to make decisions. Studies show that 91% of people from 18 to 34 years old trust online reviews just as they trust personal recommendations.
Keeping an eye on this metric helps you identify if your client requires a campaign focused on encouraging reviews and ratings. Furthermore, it allows you to see if there is room for improvement in review management.
Getting good feedback isn’t the only crucial part these comments play in front of potential customers’ eyes. Knowing how to respond to positive reviews, and handle negative ones can set your client apart from competitors.
Call Tracking
The never-ending innovations we face led us to the road of online directories. These GBP profiles serve the purpose of a physical directory with a section of Google results highlighting phone numbers and business hours clients can make their calls.
You must keep call tracking analytics in sight, as these will provide information on how many people are calling the business and how many calls are going to the voice mail. There are several call-tracking apps you can use to keep a record of your client’s overall call data.
Web Page Traffic
This metric combines your Google Analytics and My Business profiles. Simply put, you can track how many customers are redirected to your client’s website from their GBP profile.
Include UTM tracking codes to understand parameters such as source, campaign, content, and medium to take your campaigns to the next level. By gaining these insights, you can track your marketing campaign’s performance.
Google Maps
When customers search for a business, it’s crucial to understand whether it is on Google Search or Maps. Consider creating reports or graphics on these metrics to showcase and keep your clients updated on which search method provides the most traffic for the business.
Furthermore, when you use this data to understand where the focus is, you know where to place your advertisements. For example, if a business clientele searches for “pediatric dentists near me,” advertising on Google Maps might be the best choice. On the other hand, if the search is “pediatric dentists,” Google Ads is the best way to go.
Customer Actions
Knowing what the customers do during their GBP search is crucial information for your campaigns. Are they searching for addresses? Are they visiting websites? Do they make phone calls? All these valuable insights can be a game changer when planning or modifying campaigns.
GBP Metrics That Don’t Need Constant Monitoring
The Google Business Profile metrics you highlight or keep in the background depend on each business. However, most marketers agree that the following metrics are not as crucial as the ones mentioned before:
- Knowing who visited your profile: This metric can be useful for small businesses in their beginning stages, but a company with a medium to long trajectory will most likely do nothing with this information.
- The number of image viewings: While having pictures and videos on a GBP listing is a crucial part of optimization, knowing how many people see these pictures does not make a difference. Picture this: A business goes above and beyond to take photos of its establishment. The beautiful, high-quality images get around 1,000 to 3,000 views weekly, but the phone barely rings. In the end, the views and the call analytics will be highly different.
Google My Business and Google Analytics: The Intersection
One of the most crucial parts of our journey is understanding where Google Analytics and Business profiles meet.
As you have learned, while the two work with data, each has a different goal. However, there are instances where the data from GBP can enrich the information on Google Analytics.
Google Analytics went live in 2005, and it keeps gaining relevance within the marketing industry. Its main goal is to help marketers and data analytics understand how campaigns perform through established parameters. Using this tool comes easier when you have basic coding knowledge, and this fact is a major drawback for many marketers.
However, when you combine GBP and Google Analytics, your marketing campaigns can reach a new level. Having a deeper understanding of how potential customers and target audiences engage with a campaign allows you to optimize it to its best capacity.
What Google My Business Profiles Do for Local Marketing
GBP profiles are an essential part of local marketing. When you optimize a profile, the business listing on Google search will provide all the details necessary to contact and learn more about it. Here are some other benefits GBP has on local marketing.
Boosts Local SEO
One of the most essential parts of local marketing is its SEO efforts, and Google Business Profile listings play the main role in SEO campaigns.
When potential customers use Google to find a business, the search engine focuses on providing the best results possible. The more you work on your client’s profile and keep everything in check, the more likely it is to rank higher on these search engine result pages.
Improves Your Client’s Online Presence
Many people agree that if you’re not online, you’re not relevant. However, just being online isn’t enough. If people know about your client’s company, they will do a branded search, and that will most likely end up in actions such as phone calls or appointment bookings if the business is a restaurant, for example.
While these searches bring results, you can boost your client’s online presence through GBP, ultimately expanding your business clientele. Keywords, optimized images and videos, exact business directions, and more help you increase your client’s presence.
Boosts Revenue
It’s essential to emphasize that boosting your client’s online presence and increasing its SEO ranking takes you to one ultimate goal: increasing your client’s profit.
Your clients approach you with one thing in mind: working with you to boost their numbers. Optimizing their GBP listings and seeing all the results we’ve mentioned so far increase their chances of growing their results in not just data but in profits, too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Google My Business Profile Free?
Yes, it is. This tool is free of cost for all business owners. However, it is recommended to work with local SEO agencies to make the most of it. Most agencies will incorporate several tools, like call-tracking apps or local business schema markups to skyrocket their campaign results.
How Many Owners Can a Google Business Profile Have?
GBP can have multiple owners, but there can only be one primary owner. Furthermore, you can transfer primary ownership by following these steps:
- Start from your Business profile.
- You’ll find a dots menu on it. Next, click Business Profile Settings and go to the Manager section.
- Find and select the person you’d like to transfer ownership to.
- Select the Primary Owner role, click Save, and the process will be completed.
Can Anyone Edit a Google Business Profile?
No, only people with ownership over the GBP profile can edit it. However, owners cannot delete or edit reviews. The first item ensures business owners won’t find malicious changes in their profiles, and the second guarantees potential customers come across trustworthy reviews.
Final Thoughts
Google Business Profile analytics are essential for local businesses and marketing. Factors like knowing if you’re landing visitors via Google Maps or Google Search, getting call data, and learning how many reviews your client’s business gets will make a difference in your campaigns.
We hope this article provided valuable information. Accelerate Marketing helps you take your Google Business Profile to the next level, contact us now to get more information. Thank you for reading!
