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Attract customers with new Google Local Business Center dashboard
02 June 2009
Google has launched a new dashboard feature in the Google Local Business Center (LBC) that will provide business owners with a powerful level of information about how Google users are interacting with their local listings.
The Local Business Center is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their listings in Google Search and Google Maps.
With the addition of the new dashboard, the LBC will now draw upon local search data to help owners optimise their local listings and their other efforts to attract more customers.
According to a 2009 WebVisible/Nielsen Study, it is estimated that 82% of consumers use search to find local businesses.
The LBC dashboard will initially provide business owners with the following data on that activity in Google Search and Google Maps:
- Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a search result on Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
- Actions: How many times users interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times users clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.
- Top search queries: Which queries led users to the business listing; for example, whether more customers are finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee".
- Zip codes where driving directions come from: Lists and maps of the zip codes users are coming from when they request directions to a listing.
With the LBC dashboard, business owners will be able to identify trends, such as days of the week when interest in their business spikes, or seasonality in the types of searches that lead potential customers to their listings.
The LBC dashboard also allows business owners to better measure the impact of changes to associated web content or adjustments to marketing campaigns - such as a new post to the company blog, or a new advertising campaign - by measuring impressions, actions, location, and more before and after the changes.
The dashboard is accessible to any business owner who has claimed his or her listing in the Local Business Center.
Business owners who do not yet have an LBC account can quickly create theirs for free by visiting http://www.google.com/lbc.
The Local Business Center is currently available to business owners in 36 countries, but the dashboard feature will initially be available only for US listings.
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