You can get started by measuring two things: what the customer does on your website and how to measure if a phone call was the result of local SEO efforts.

We’ll also focus on your Google My Business profile. The search engine has evolved, and your My Business profile offers customers a variety of ways to get in touch.

If you’re not familiar with Google Analytics, you can read this blog to get started with analytics for local businesses.

1. Website Clicks

Google has been pulling out more and more information from websites, providing users the ability to do more without actually visiting a website.

This is great for a physical business like repair shops. Your Google My Business (GMB) profile now can be used by customers to check products and services, get in touch with you via phone or email, book appointments, and browse reviews.

How to measure website clicks via My Business Insights

Your My Business profile has data on website clicks. Choose the ‘new profile performance’ option to get up to six months of data.

How to measure website clicks via Google Analytics

If you want more control and greater insights, Google Analytics is the wat to go. But you need to set up My Business UTM tags to be able to do this.

If you’re not familiar with UTM tags and how to set it up, here is an easy guide from Moz to get you started. What you’re doing is passing on information via your My Business URLs (links) to Google Analytics so that you can create reports on traffic coming to your website from your My Business profile. 

Once you’ve set up UTM tags, you can go to your Google Analytics dashboard and select only traffic from your GMB profile. You can then see the breakdown of how many visitors clicked on which element in your My Business profile.

2. Phone calls

The phone rings. Someone wants to book an service appointment, buy a part or accessories, or double-check that you can meet their repair needs. The old-fashioned way is still a common way to get business.

With the use of Maps and the likes of Google My Business listings, customers can search and click to make calls — all on their smartphone.

So it’s worth it to track how you’re getting those calls. At least some are likely to be the result of local SEO done right. But how do you do this?

How to measure calls to your repair business via Google My Business

Once again, My Business Insights can give you call data based on the number of clicks on the ‘call’ button in your GMB profile. Not all of those clicks might have resulted in calls, but you should be able to compare incoming calls and match them with the time of the clicks.

How to measure calls to your repair business via Google Analytics

This only matters if you have a link to make a call on your website. And, once again, what enables you to get this information on Google Analytics is through UTM tagging.

In addition to tags, you need to use Google Tag Manager to set up “events” and “goals”. Unfamiliar with these terms? Read Google’s guide to tracking calls to learn more.

In simple terms, an event is an action taken by someone on your website. And a goal is an event that can be considered to have a direct impact on your revenue. In this case, a call to your business.

Once you use Google Tag Manager to set up an “event” to track phone number clicks, you set up a “goal” in Google Analytics.

Then, you can filter out My Business traffic within Google Analytics. There will be an option to select the goals you’ve set up for this traffic under a column named ‘conversions’. Click the right goal to see conversions via phone number clicks.

Going the extra mile

These automated steps only measure conversions if they use the website or My Business profile. It’s just as possible that some people would copy the phone number and make the call. This won’t be tracked by analytics software.

The answer is easy. Ask them. You don’t have to ask everyone. As an AASP you already have to do one survey — the CSAT survey. This can be one additional question in there and you have a new source of reporting.

If you haven’t read our blog on SEO for AASPs, here’s the full guide. And if you’re looking for a software partner that truly understands the needs of Apple authorized providers, Fixably might be the answer. You can book a demo with us to get a look at our platform.