Google My Business Insights Update
A little gained (Discovery), a key piece muddled (website clicks and photo views)
Last week we talked about how Google unveiled changes last month to Google My Business and its Insights reporting. This week we will dive a little deeper and identify some of the challenges in navigating the new Insights reporting. To summarize
What is Old in Google Insights
- Driving directions requests
- Phone calls
What is New in Google Insights
- How customers search for your business
- Where customers find you on Google
What is Wrong with the new Google Insights
- Clicks to Your Website totals gone
- Customer Actions includes Photo Views
What’s New in Google Insights – How customers search for your business
In the first days of Google My Business, back then known more commonly as Google Local+, Google Insights reported the top keywords searched that resulted in search views for your GMB page. It was quite helpful to learn if your GMB page was showing in searches for your business name, or a branded search, or for other search terms, like “best [category of business].”
This feature is partially returned by showing the overall number of “Direct” (or branded searches, i.e. for your business name or the “name of your restaurant” as an example) and “Discovery” searches (all other searches NOT using your business name, i.e. “restaurants near me” or other searches).
Direct searches will speak to your overall brand awareness and advertising. Discovery searches will speak to your overall search engine optimization efforts. Both statistics are limited by the number of overall searches in the market.
No detail is provided as to the actual Discovery terms (or keywords) used. So were still missing that feature from the early days of GMB – Google Local+. Based on Google throttling current results in its Keywords Planner Tool in Google Adwords, we are not hopeful we will ever see that information again unless you are a paying Adwords customer, and even then, you will not see how it impacts your GMB page search results.
You will, however, see the total number of searches that served your GMB in results in Google Insights now, which will be a smaller number generally, than your total search views, so multiple items can count as views in a single search, in particular we credit this to Photo Views. More on that in a minute.
What is New in Google Insights – Where customers find you on Google
The second graph on the Google Insights shows whether your GMB page showed on Google Search (a search in your browser) or Maps (specifically through the mobile app Google Maps or the Google Maps browser page – maps.google.com).
SEO guru Joy Hawkins points to potential confusion in this graph. Selecting multiple boxes from the menu – checking both “Listing on Search” and “Listing on Maps,” she notes, presents data that is cumulative of both data sets, something that is not obvious at a glance. It is an issue with the Customer Actions graphs as well.
She also notes that Local Stack results will appear as Google Search not Maps, “since they happen on Google.com and not Maps.Google.com.”
Why Are My Google Insight Search Views Down Significantly?
Overall, we have noticed across most of our clients a significant drop in the Search Views we have been tracking with Google Insights for the last 4 years. There are a couple of reasons for this:
- Google+ is no longer included in Google Insights. While this number was already dropping quickly with Google moving GMB from Google+ to Google Maps, it is completely gone in the tracking now, both views of your Google+ profile, photos and your Google+ posts.
- Formerly a significant driver of “View” statistics, Photo Views is no longer considered a “View,” but an “Action.” More on that below.
What Wrong with the new Google Insights
Clicks-To-Website Total Gone and Photo Views as Actions
Previously, Google Insights displayed a total for Clicks-To-Website, one of the most common interactions with a GMB page and healthy driver of organic search traffic to your website. Remember, your GMB information is what drives results in the Local Stack, the first local organic search position with the map above it.
The only way to measure this in Google Insights now is to manually add up the daily totals in the graph.
We could almost get to this number by subtracting the other two common actions on a GMB page – click-to-call and click-for-directions – both of them features carried over from the previous Google Insights
EXCEPT, Google now counts Photo Views as an Action and does not offer a total number for Photo Views, which can only be totaled manually be adding up the daily total on the graph.
“For whatever reason, GMB likes to call these actions instead of clicks just to make our lives harder,” notes Hawkins.
What Does This Mean for my Google Insights Summary from New Plains MediaMedia?
- Views will be down because View Photos are now in the Action graph
- Actions will be higher, because it now includes View Photos
- Clicks-to-Website and View Photos can only be totaled manually, so these two metrics will appear combined in our Google Insights summary, at least for now.
PLEASE NOTE: While these changes are fairly consistent across the 80+ GMB pages we track, THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. Only time, further investigation and reports from the Local SEO community will help us understand why. It is difficult to say in the first two weeks of these changes.
New Plains Media is credentialed as a Google City Partner in the Get Your Business Online program. If you have any questions after reading this update, please know that we provide FREE assistance with your Google My Business (GMB) page. Just give us a call. We are here to help.
