A PET STORE’S GOOGLE Business listing has become one of the most critical components of a strong brand presence online. Having an active and optimized listing helps pet parents discover, engage with and shop at your store. As pet business owners know, a number tracked is a number improved. So, which metrics should you be tracking on your Google Business listing?
Metrics to Track Success
Customer actions are the primary indicator of your listing’s online success. These actions are broken down into four main components: clicks for directions to your store, clicks to your website, calls to your store and inbound messages. You can dig further into these numbers and see things like where people are requesting directions from, or which day of the week gets the most phone calls.
The second major metric to track is customer views. Views are broken down into two categories: Maps and Search. Maps view tracks how many users find your business on Google Maps, and Search tracks how many discover you on a standard Google search. More and more customers are discovering businesses via Maps on their smartphones.
The final metric to track is customer reviews. Reviews are trusted almost as much as a personal referral these days, and not having a strong base of positive customer testimonials is a glaring weakness in a business’s digital presence.
How to Start Tracking
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The best way to identify and analyze the data you’re looking for is under the ‘Insights’ tab of your Google Business listing. From there, you can set the time period (one week, one month or one quarter) and find the above metrics displayed as graphs, charts and tables.
Create an Excel sheet and begin recording the data for the above metrics every month. You can sign up for a monthly email from Google that will provide these Insights for you if you need a reminder.
How to Improve Your Metrics
As a pet business, improving your visibility online will bring in new customers. You can gain visibility and increase customer actions by posting engaging content and photos regularly on your business listing (promotions, events, updates, coupons, etc.). Businesses with recent photos typically receive more customer actions.
To further improve your customer views and actions, ensure that your listing is optimized and up to date. The physical address, phone number, website and hours are all pieces of your listing that need to be in order.
Finally, ask your customers to provide reviews on your business listing via social media, email or in store. Gaining positive reviews will increase your business’s activity in Google’s eyes, increasing your visibility, in addition to building credibility and trustworthiness. It’s important that you respond to every review, positive or negative, to maintain this activity and credibility.
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In order to understand the story of what’s happening in your Google listing, you need data, the lifeblood of strong marketing. Start tracking your listing’s metrics this month and build the positive habits to improve them.
