Every search you track gets its own map, so the list you choose decides what your report is about. Pick searches your customers actually type, for work you actually want, and the report will point you at jobs that bring in bookings.
Start with demand
Next to each search we show how many people search for it each month in your town, taken from Google Ads data. Being first for a phrase nobody types is worth very little, so this number matters more than it first looks.
Treat small numbers as a rough guide. They're Google Ads' monthly averages for your town, and Google rounds small counts into bands of 10, 20, 30 and so on, so ~10 or ~20 means a handful of searches a month, not an exact count.
In setup we add the search on its own to its "near me" and town-name versions, because people type all of them.
As an example, one business Kerbrank measured was set up with two broad category searches. Each gets about 10 searches a month in its town. One of the services it offers gets about 70. So track the phrase customers use for the work you want, even if it isn't what you call yourself.
When you add a business, the suggestions we tick for you are the ones people nearby search for most when they're looking to book.
Some carry a small "often researching" note, which means many of the people typing it are comparing or reading up rather than ready to buy. They aren't wrong to track, just less likely to turn into a booking.
Leave the town name off
You'll see that none of our suggestions include your town, and we'd ask you not to add it either.
Google already knows where the searcher is. Someone standing in Southsea who types "plumber" gets local results without saying where they are. When you track "plumber Portsmouth" instead, the town name tends to outweigh where the searcher is standing, so the results look much the same from every spot.
That flattens the map and hides the very thing it's meant to show you: where you're strong and where you drop away.
Name the service, not the business type
Customers search for the thing they want done. They type "boiler repair" or "lip filler", not the category on your Google listing. So track the services you sell:
- A plumber might track "emergency plumber", "boiler repair" and "blocked drain".
- A salon might track "balayage", "hair colour" and "gel nails".
- A clinic might track "lip filler" and "laser hair removal".
Our suggestions are filtered to services you actually offer. We check them against the services listed on your Google profile, and an AI model judges which ones show buying intent. If something's missing, add it yourself.
Quiet searches
A search is flagged as quiet when almost nobody makes it, roughly under 30 a month in your town. It still gets measured, but a quiet search can make your map look better or worse without it making any real difference to your phone.
When a search you track is quiet, it shows up as a task on your task list, usually with better searches to track instead. It's worth acting on, because every other number in the report is only as useful as the searches behind it.
Five or six searches is plenty to start. Each one is a full map, and a short list of searches that matter is easier to act on than a long list of ones that don't.
Change your searches
- Open the business from your list of businesses, and go to its Settings.
- Press Change the searches.
- Remove a search with the ✕ beside it, or type a new one and press + Add. When we have measured what people in your area search for, those searches appear under Ideas from your area; press one to add it.
- Press Save searches.
- Press Scan now, or wait for the next weekly scan, to measure the new list.
Your plan sets how many searches you can track for each business: 10 on Solo, 25 on Pro, 50 on Agency and 100 on Agency+. See plans and billing for the rest of what each plan includes.
Earlier scans are kept when you change the list. The report won't compare the next reading with the old one, though, because the searches are different. It marks the change as "searches changed" instead, as explained in reading the map. Settle on a list early and leave it alone for a few weeks so you can see real movement.
Use Search Console for better ideas
Connecting Google Search Console is optional, and we only read from it. It shows the searches that already bring people to your website, and we add them to your suggestions.
Those can be the most useful ideas of all, because they come from real customers rather than estimates. For more on picking the phrases people use, see how to rank higher on Google Maps.