Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

[AndySimpson]

Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

If you use utm codes for tracking your GMB business urls then you can see these in Google Search Console (GSC).

It's easy, have a look at the example screenshot below. Switch between devices to show you the difference between each platform.



Filter your pages for "utm"



You can also select "Clicks" to see how many clicks your listing recieved.

"Near Me" Queries
This is a simple filter to see how well you are performing for "Near Me" queries. Again play around with "Devices" to see the difference.



Filter your queries for "near me"



Advanced - Use Google Data Studio
You can also bring all this data across into Google's Data Studio, which I did first and then wondered if I could replicate what I was seeing quickly in GSC. I highly recommend trying this in GDS as you can produce much better looking data results...and we all know the boss / client likes a nice looking graph or two.

Enjoy playing with your data...

Andy

Twitter: @ndyjsimpson

 

[Dave DiGregorio]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Good work Andy! I'll be sure to test this out later today.

 

[AndySimpson]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Good work Andy! I'll be sure to test this out later today.

Thanks Dave, any questions or feedback then please let me know. You can always get me on Twitter

 

[Linda Buquet]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

VERY helpful! Thanks so much for sharing Andy!
We appreciate it!

 

[AndySimpson]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Thanks, just helping out the team

 

[AndySimpson]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Chart example in GSC

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Awesome case study on why UTM parameters are a must-have for the GMB page. Love it

 

[epicwebstudios]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Really good stuff, thank you, Andy!

Curious if anyone thinks adding the UTM to GMB would mess with ranking signals?

I tend to think "Just add UTM, it will be fine", simply because UTM is a Google product and it does not appear until after the TLD/main directory, anyhow. There are, however, plenty of times when Google product centers don't necessarily play well together (e.g. Pagespeed Insights throwing warnings about analytics code not being cached unless you localize it which is never fun or ideal).

 

[saburnsjax]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Good stuff. Do you recommend a different utm code for GMB, Bing Places, Yelp, etc? It looks like Yext lumps all directories with same code but I was thinking the visibility would be nice to see so long as it wouldn’t affect local seo (i.e., being seen by the search engines as different website addresses)

 

[AndySimpson]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Hi Shirley, I wouldn't use a utm code for any of the others you've listed as the urls here can be used / taken by other directories, etc. Also I think the whole url, including the utm code is displayed visually to the user in the listing....I am also not sure (haven't tested) that you might not be allowed to add when submitting the url, I'll take a look the next time I'm in a BING or YELP account and let you know.

Thanks

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

I've been using this trick for a while on client accounts, and the benefits go deeper than just GSC...

Set a filter in GA for a source matching what you're tagging the URLs with. You will find out what pages people have visited after hitting the site - not just the landing page. You also will be able to filter down to know exactly what city they're coming from.

Hey service area businesses... you can stop guessing where people are finding your GMB page As long as you have goals set up correctly, you can also tell what cities have the best conversion rates after visiting the site from GMB.

There is a crazy amount of data out there after implementing this.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

I've been using this trick for a while on client accounts, and the benefits go deeper than just GSC...

Set a filter in GA for a source matching what you're tagging the URLs with. You will find out what pages people have visited after hitting the site - not just the landing page. You also will be able to filter down to know exactly what city they're coming from.

Hey service area businesses... you can stop guessing where people are finding your GMB page As long as you have goals set up correctly, you can also tell what cities have the best conversion rates after visiting the site from GMB.

There is a crazy amount of data out there after implementing this.

Hey Eric,

I'm not a pro in GA.

How are you seeing the city?

Edit: SOB, found cities dimension in GA. Never knew. Probably should take a class...

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Right on Joshua!

Use the Audience > Geo > Locations section of GA then drill down into "City"

When you do this make sure you have the custom segment enabled... here's an example of what I do (I use "GMB" in the URLs)



This will help you stop guessing where your local customers might be coming from. This is especially valuable for consultants who may not have 100% transparency into client sales data.

The more data that I collect, the more I'll share. Basically with this segment you can really tear into demo/interest and user behavior data through the site. I've also been able to back out how many form conversions GMB is contributing to client sites. Pair that with tracked phone calls, and I can absolutely prove value in the local work.

 

[Tim Sweeney]

Re: Are you using GSC for your local data? Tracking your utm's & "Near Me" Queries

Going along with this discussion, here is an article on getting GMB Data into Data Studio. Found via Joys Local Search Tips from Sterling Sky Inc. email newsletter. Enjoy