Unlocking the Secret Sauce: A Sneak Peek into Your Google Business Profile's Performance
If you have observed a decline in certain metrics of your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), you may be curious about the reason behind it.
Please be assured that there is no reason to panic. The decline can be attributed to a recent update in the Google API, which aims to enhance data accuracy and display precise search terms for local businesses.
GBP Insights provides data about a business's local search performance, such as the number of profile views, how searchers find the business, and how they engage with the profile. Unlike other free Google tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics, Google Business Profile Insights focuses solely on local search presence and performance.
By consistently measuring local performance, businesses can gain valuable insight into their local search performance across mobile and desktop surfaces, including understanding how frequently certain search terms find their Business Profile.
The feature also offers a range of search-based metrics to measure customer engagement and performance and can be used by organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to multi-location enterprise brands.
It was formerly known as Google My Business Insights.
Google made some changes to its APIs that impact how it defines certain metrics on GBP, including profile views, searches, and direction requests. This update was made to increase the quality of data available to you on GBP and Business App, and for your clients in their portal.
Google has since removed certain data points from its Business Profile performance insights dashboard.
These include:
- post views and clicks
- query volumes grouped by direct, brand, and discovery
- views across photos uploaded by users
As such, businesses will no longer have the same visibility into how their Posts and photos are performing.
However, businesses will still have access to:
- Map views (desktop and mobile)
- Search views (desktop and mobile)
- Website clicks
- Call clicks
- Driving direction clicks
- Keyword queries
In a nutshell
The significant modification here is that in the past, a business profile appearing on Search or Maps would be considered as a view. Furthermore, if you proceeded to click on a Google Business Profile (GBP) to read reviews and then clicked on 'directions,' it would be counted as two separate views. However, the new approach consolidates all these interactions into a single unique user interaction within a 24-hour timeframe. Consequently, regardless of the number of times you discover or click on a local business' GBP, it will now be counted as just one view.
The good news is that this GBP rankings update also brings exciting changes. We will now be able to see the specific search terms that people are using to find your business, which will help us optimize your GBP and drive more traffic to your website.
