Google Business Profile provides valuable insights about how customers find and interact with your listing. Understanding this data helps you make informed decisions about your local SEO strategy.
Accessing GBP Insights
Find your insights by logging into your Google Business Profile dashboard and clicking on "Insights" or "Performance" (Google changes the interface periodically). You'll see various metrics about your listing's visibility and engagement.
Key Metrics Explained
Search Queries: Shows what terms people searched to find your business. This reveals: keywords you're ranking for, opportunities to optimize for terms you're missing, and how customers describe what they're looking for.
Use this data to inform your keyword strategy. If customers are finding you with terms you haven't targeted, consider creating content around those terms.
How Customers Find You: Shows whether people found you through direct searches (searching your business name) or discovery searches (searching for a category, product, or service). A healthy profile has both. High discovery searches mean your SEO is working—people find you without knowing your name.
Where Customers View Your Business: Shows whether customers saw you on Google Search or Google Maps. This helps understand user behavior in your market.
Customer Actions: The most actionable metrics. Shows how many people: visited your website, requested directions, called you, messaged you, and viewed your photos.
These actions represent potential leads. Track them over time to measure the impact of your optimization efforts.
Photo Performance
Photo insights show how your photos perform compared to similar businesses: photo views and photo quantity comparisons. If your photos underperform, it's a signal to add more high-quality images. Businesses with more photos typically get more engagement.
Time-Based Analysis
Look at trends over time, not just snapshot numbers. Are your metrics improving month over month? Identify seasonal patterns in your data—many businesses have predictable busy and slow periods.
Compare year-over-year when possible to account for seasonal variation.
What GBP Insights Don't Show
GBP Insights have limitations: no conversion tracking beyond actions, no visibility into ranking positions, no competitive comparison data, and limited historical data. Supplement GBP Insights with other tools: Google Analytics for website behavior, rank tracking tools for position monitoring, call tracking for phone lead attribution.
Setting Up Goals and Benchmarks
Establish baseline metrics, then set improvement goals. For example: increase website clicks by 20% in 90 days, generate 25% more direction requests, grow photo views by 50%.
Track progress monthly and adjust your strategy based on what's working.
Acting on Insights Data
Low search visibility: Focus on GBP optimization, reviews, and citations.
High views but low actions: Improve your listing content—photos, description, services—to encourage clicks.
Low direction requests: May indicate your address isn't clear or you're attracting out-of-area searchers.
Few calls: Make sure your phone number is prominent and correct. Consider messaging if customers prefer that.
Photo underperformance: Add more diverse, high-quality photos.
Reporting to Stakeholders
If you report to others (clients, bosses), focus on metrics that matter to the business: leads generated, phone calls, direction requests, and website visits. Avoid vanity metrics that don't connect to business outcomes.
Create a simple monthly report showing key actions and trends over time. Connect these to actual business results when possible.
Using Insights for Strategy
Let data drive your local SEO priorities. If website clicks are low, focus on improving your listing. If you're getting views but not actions, work on conversion optimization. If discovery searches are low, invest in broader SEO and review generation.
Review your insights monthly and use them to guide your next month's priorities. Data-driven SEO beats guesswork.
