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Google Business Profile Optimisation

Analytics and Insights

What are Google Business Profile Insights?

Google Business Profile Insights is a free tool from Google that shows how searchers found your listing and what actions they took on it.

It contains information relating to your local search performance such as the number of views your listing has received, how search users find you, and the types of interactions they have with your listing, such as clicking through to your website, calling you, or requesting directions.

Why are Google Business Profile Insights useful?

Google Business Profile Insights is useful for two core reasons:

1. It helps you understand how searchers find your business
2. It helps you understand what actions searchers take on your business

Beyond this, GBP Insights can help you to identify broader trends in how people are finding your business.

For example, your cake delivery business might be surprisingly busy at the beginning of March, leading you to investigate providing special Offer Posts for customers purchasing services around Mother’s Day.

The more information you have available to you, the more you’ll be able to improve your listing and encourage more actions to take place. 

How to use Google Business Profile Insights?

Now we’ve established why Google Business Profile Insights are useful, we can get into how to use the data provided.

Here’s how to find and use Google Business Profile Insights:

1. Sign into your Google Business Profile profile as usual. 
2. The Home tab should load, and to the right of the screen, you’ll see the ‘Performance’ box, which shows data from the last 28 days on Search and Maps. 
3. Alternatively, you can click on Insights from the left-hand side menu.

The Insights data is split across several different features, each of which will help you to build a better understanding of your listing.

How customers search for your business?

Knowing how users search for your business isn’t just a point of interest, it can also help you to make better marketing decisions.

At the top of the Performance box, you’ll see three sets of numbers: Views, Searches, and Activity.

When you click on Searches, a panel will drop down and show you data related to Direct and Discovery searches.

Queries used to find your business

The information found in this section, ‘Queries used to find your business’, can become a very useful content optimization resource.

Available from the Insights menu, this lists the top search queries, which you can then use to confirm you’re using the right keywords across your blogs, web page, and Google Business Profile Posts.

What are Impressions in GBP Insights?

The Google Business Profile Impressions metric refers to how many people have viewed or seen your business listing. You can think of the number of Impressions as being how many people your listing has reached. 

You’ll see two numbers here, Listing on Search and Listing on Maps, with options to view for the week, month, or quarter.

While this may not seem helpful at first glance, it will show you how well mobile optimization is going, particularly if you’re working with a high-footfall business such as a restaurant or hotel.

Google Business Profile Post Insights

When you write a blog post or update your social media, you’ll probably be in the habit of checking post views and likes.

In a similar vein, Google Business Profile Insights will give you some data relating to your Posts on GBP –

just click on Posts in the navigation and you’ll be able to see how many new views your Posts have received in the week prior.