Understanding + Using Google My Business Insights

The Insights panel found within the Google My Business (GMB) dashboard provides business owners with customer engagement data gathered from their GMB listing. This data can inform practices on what’s working and what isn’t with their profile so that they can, in turn, optimize in order to get more clicks and visibility from prospective patients. 

Upon signing into your GMB profile, click the Insights section on the left-hand side of the dashboard to access this information. 

The following insights can be found in the GMB dashboard: 

• How many views your practice’s listing had for a given timeframe
• How and where people find your listings 
• The actions people take on your listings 
• Other interactions customers have with your GMB listing 

Patients and prospective patients find your listing in 3 different ways: Direct, Discovery, and Branded Search

 

Direct:  A direct search refers to a search query that includes either your business name or location. These types of searches are usually from people already familiar with your practice or they may have learned about it from another form of advertising.  

Discovery:  Impressions from a discovery search refer to generic searches like “restaurant near me” or “coffee shop opens now.”

Branded Search:  A branded search is when a consumer finds your listing for a brand related to your business. 

 

Where customers find your GMB listing is broken into 2 different categories: Listings on Search and Listings on Maps. The graph in the dashboard gives business owners insight into whether their customers are typically coming from a traditional Google search or a search on Google Maps. 

High traffic from Google Maps means that customers are most likely looking for your business on a mobile device. High Traffic from Search results means that customers are most likely searching on their desktop computers. The search results data shows impressions for the listing – not whether people clicked the listing or not.  

The Customer Actions tab within GMB Insights shows the business owner the following: 

•  Website Visits 
• Direction Requests 
• Phone Calls 
• Messaging/Chat

The Phone call actions indicate how many times a customer called your business through your GMB listing. The total calls graph, on the other hand, helps to show the time of day or day of the week customers call your business most. This information is used for determining when people are looking at your listings most often, allowing you to target such times when scheduling ads and social media posts.  

Another feature that GMB Insights offers is Insights through Chatmeter. Within the Chatmeter reputation management platform, users have access to data going back as far as your first Google review. This helps businesses to see their performance over the years. Users can look at the breakdown of how and where customers found your listing as well as the actions they took. 

Everything is shown through interactive charts. You can even filter to a single location or compare and rank all your locations. The Chatmeter platform also shares data about your rankings, which is something that Google Insights does not offer. It allows you to see rankings across different search queries. 

 

GMB Insights are a great way to learn the behaviors of your customers and make improvements based on your findings. As a result, keeping your listings accurate, responding to reviews, and building up a social media presence, are crucial elements of successfully marketing your practice. 

Please feel free to reach out to our SEO Team if you have any related questions!  

 

—Aliah Rasmussen, SEO Specialist, Sesame Communications