Google My Business Insights, the analytics within the local dashboard, now let’s you filter your analytics to show how many people find your business in Google local and maps through branded searches.
So now you can see the percentage of people who find your business on Google in maps and local search either through searching on your company name, company brands and generic keywords such as categories, products or services.
How do I see this? Just login to Google My Business and click on the “insights” section and you will see the graph has now three cuts out of the pie:
What will I see? If you have enough branded searches for your local listing, Google may show you a new yellow section for “branded” related searches. The three categories are:
- Direct (green) – Customers who find your listing searching for your business name or address
- Discovery (blue) – Customers who find your listing searching for a category, product, or service
- Branded (yellow) – Customers who find your listing searching for a brand related to your business
The branded one is new and shows you how many people found the business on Google Maps and local search for brand related searches.
What is branded searches in local search? Google explains “Branded searches: A customer searched for a brand related to your business (e.g. a customer looking for fast food searched for “McDonald’s” and found your fast food restaurant listing). This category will only appear if your listing has appeared at least once for a branded search.”
Why does it matter? This gives you and your marketing team a bit more detail on how your customers are finding your business in local search. This helps you understand how people are searching for your business and also areas you can improve on with your local SEO strategy.
Frank Sandtmann, a reader, tipped us off to this new feature and we can confirm this is being rolled out to those with verified Google My Business listings.
About The Author
Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.