Google Places Reporting

[MattCarter08]

Hey guys,

Looking to hopefully get some clarity on a couple things in regards to reporting.

In GP dashboard (for bulk listings, i assume its the same for single listings) there are impression and action metrics.



Most of our listings have 0 actions and lots of impressions (as above). I'm trying to figure out why this is the case.

I think its because most of our listings normally are just displayed for branded keywords like bmw sydney below:




And because they don't really rank on first page for non-brand local terms like 'brand new cars in sydney' they are not going to attract many clicks. Since you cannot directly go the the google plus page (for bmw sydney) from the search results (when its displayed as shown above, unless you click on the map, then click on review button).

So the reason why clicks are low in this case is due to the structure of the search results and the inability to directly click to the local plus page from the search results. Is that about correct?


Kind Regards,
Matt

 

[Linda Buquet]

I think that's a big part of it Matt. Google is making it so hard to even get to the G+ L page now.

But even before clicking reviews brought them up in the overlay panel. Even before when the Place page was front and center, most listings did not get many actions.

One of the reasons too, is that for a generic KW like car dealer city - the impression is counted for the whole page they are on. That page has usually around 57 possible links someone could click. (I just counted) So your client has a 1 in 57 chance of getting the click and the further down - the lower the chances. IF they click your click, it's likely they'll click the name which will take them to your site which is really where you want them to go.

On branded searches you'll get more clicks, but if they are looking for that particular business, they want to go to the site not the G+ page. So the domain is getting the click, in addition to the fact that like we said, the G+ page is hard to get to anyway.

Does that make sense?

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[jackson_lo]

Linda - I think you're right on this one. Just quickly reviewing Google's documentation for the old dashboard, they've stated that actions are only counted when a user clicks through to see the business listing from the search results (https://support.google.com/places/answer/142910?hl=en). In the news Insights section of Places, they break it down and give you statistics on: # clicks for more info on maps, # clicks for directions and # clicks to your website.

 

[Richard Haussmann]

Thanks for pointing this out, Matt.

Folks have been dying for this info but, besides being a pain to get for large numbers of locations, it was always miserably low in interaction and usually only had brand based searches. It is always hard to report on metrics that don't really seem to respond to feed or site changes, now I know why.

Rich Haussmann