Local SEO KPIs: What to Track and What to Ignore

Local SEO reporting has a vanity-metric problem. "Profile views up 40%" sounds good and means almost nothing; views rise when Google shows your profile in more carousels, not when more customers call. This is what we report to clients, why, and what we leave out.

The hierarchy

Report from the bottom up: the metrics closest to money first, rankings last. If revenue is up and rankings are flat, the work is working. If rankings are up and calls are flat, something between the pack and the phone is broken.

1. Enquiries and revenue

The only metrics that matter to the business owner. Track:

• Calls from the profile — the Business Profile "Calls" metric counts taps on the call button; a call-tracking number as the additional phone gives you duration and outcome.
• Direction requests — the closest thing to a footfall proxy for shops and restaurants.
• Website clicks from the profile — with UTM parameters, these show up as a distinct source in analytics, and you can follow them to form fills and bookings.
• Messages and bookings from the profile, if enabled.
• "How did you hear about us?" — crude, but still the best source-of-truth for many businesses.

Report these month on month and year on year (seasonality is strong in most local categories).

2. Grid rankings

A single rank number for a local search is meaningless because the pack changes with the searcher's position. Track on a grid: a set of points (7×7 is the usual) across your service area, each showing your rank for a keyword. Report:

• Average rank across the grid per keyword
• Share of points in the pack (top 3) — the number that correlates with calls
• The map itself, monthly, so the owner can see green spreading or a competitor's red patch

Track five to fifteen keywords: the primary category term, the main services, and the most valuable long-tail. More than that and the report becomes noise.

3. Profile health

• Review count, rating and reviews per month, against the competitor target
• Response rate and average response time
• Photos added this month; posts published
• Any Google-applied edits, duplicate profiles found, or suspension events

4. Search visibility (context, not headline)

• Business Profile performance: searches (direct vs discovery vs branded), views on Search and Maps. Useful for trend and for spotting drops; not a KPI.
• Search Console: impressions and clicks for the landing and service pages, and the queries driving them. This is where local organic (below the map) is measured.

What we leave out

• Domain authority scores. Tool metrics, not Google's.
• Number of citations built. Output, not outcome.
• Impressions without clicks.
• Social followers.
• Anything reported as a percentage without the base number.

Reporting cadence

Monthly is right for most businesses. Weekly rankings are noise; quarterly is too slow to catch a suspension or a competitor entering the pack. The report should fit on one page: this month's enquiries versus last month and last year, the grid map, review numbers, and three sentences on what was done and what is next.

Setting up tracking in an afternoon

1. Add UTM parameters to the profile's website link (?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp).
2. Set up a grid tracker (Local Falcon, BrightLocal, Local Viking, or the free tier of any) with your keywords and a 7×7 grid at a sensible radius.
3. Verify the website in Search Console.
4. Screenshot the Business Profile performance page for the last six months as a baseline.
5. Put a "how did you hear about us" field on the enquiry form or the booking script.

Everything above is what our monthly report contains, delivered as a one-page PDF and a short WhatsApp voice note explaining it. It is included in every plan.

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