A lot of business owners and webmasters who have been actively involved in Local SEO, have come up with a question to me: How to track if a visitor came from usual web search results or from the Google Place page? For those who are new, Google Places is where you add your Local Business to Google. Google Places results are given a lot of prominence in search results when the query either has a location modifier in it or has a local intent. For example, Psychotherapist in Beachwood or Plumbing Supplies Parma. Here is a screenshot:
Tracking Results from Google Places Listing (and the 7 pack) in Google Analytics
For this to work, you should have a working understanding of Google Analytics and the tracking code (which is a Javascript snippet) should be inserted properly in your web pages.
Google Places itself gives a superficial analysis of the keywords that were used, number of impressions and the activity, but this indeed is very vague information. Where were these impressions generated from? Where they from Google Places, Maps or the Universal Search (Google O Pack or 7 Pack) as it is formally known.
To track the results, you need to tag your URLs with the correct parameters. Say if your business has one or multiple locations, a specific URL would be used for every location. The URLs (with parameters) can be built using the Google URL Generator tool. Add parameters like Campaign Source (Google), Campaign Medium (Places) and add a campaign name too. (Like say Location-1). Just copy paste this newly created URL in the Google Places listing. Remember that with the update of the URL, a review process is attached and it will take minimum 5-7 days to get it cleared from Google Places (may take even more).
On the Google Places listing, the URL that you see would be stripped off any parameters and only the main URL would be shown. This is how the data would be shown in your Google Analytics interface (go to Google Analytics Dashboard ->Visitors -> User Defined)
This is important information at your disposal that will help you take proper marketing and promotion decisions. Location where the inquiries are the most from, keywords that bring in traffic (and for the ones you are already ranking well) and ways in which people interact with your site can not only teach you a lot but also help in taking informed decisions on your marketing spent. A nice web design firm can only help you with website architecture, you need to find an Internet Marketing Consultant to win the online race.
For this to work, you should have a working understanding of Google Analytics and the tracking code (which is a Javascript snippet) should be inserted properly in your web pages.
Google Places itself gives a superficial analysis of the keywords that were used, number of impressions and the activity, but this indeed is very vague information. Where were these impressions generated from? Where they from Google Places, Maps or the Universal Search (Google O Pack or 7 Pack) as it is formally known.
To track the results, you need to tag your URLs with the correct parameters. Say if your business has one or multiple locations, a specific URL would be used for every location. The URLs (with parameters) can be built using the Google URL Generator tool. Add parameters like Campaign Source (Google), Campaign Medium (Places) and add a campaign name too. (Like say Location-1). Just copy paste this newly created URL in the Google Places listing. Remember that with the update of the URL, a review process is attached and it will take minimum 5-7 days to get it cleared from Google Places (may take even more).
On the Google Places listing, the URL that you see would be stripped off any parameters and only the main URL would be shown. This is how the data would be shown in your Google Analytics interface (go to Google Analytics Dashboard ->Visitors -> User Defined)
This is important information at your disposal that will help you take proper marketing and promotion decisions. Location where the inquiries are the most from, keywords that bring in traffic (and for the ones you are already ranking well) and ways in which people interact with your site can not only teach you a lot but also help in taking informed decisions on your marketing spent. A nice web design firm can only help you with website architecture, you need to find an Internet Marketing Consultant to win the online race.
