Setting up Kerbrank takes a few minutes of your time and a few more of ours. You type in your business name and postcode, tick the searches you care about, pick an area, and we go and check Google Maps from spots all around you.
This guide walks through the setup wizard, what happens during the first reading, and what to look at once your report arrives.
Add your business in four steps
From the dashboard, press Add your business (or Add a business if you already track one). The wizard has four steps, shown along the top.
1. Find the business
- Type the business name.
- Type the postcode or town. Postcodes are suggested as you type.
- Press Find it.
- Pick your business from the list. Each result shows its category, address, rating and number of reviews, and warns you if the listing isn't claimed.
Kerbrank fills in the rest from Google: category, address, website and phone. If the business isn't on Google yet, you can enter the details by hand instead, although the map can only show where you would appear once you have a listing.
If a result is marked Already tracked, you don't need to add it again. Press Open its report to go straight to it.
2. Searches
We suggest the searches people near you actually make, with how many times a month each one is searched. The ones that show buying intent are ticked for you. Untick anything that isn't your work and add your own services in the box underneath.
You'll notice the town name is left off every suggestion. That is on purpose: Google already knows where the searcher is, and adding the town tends to flatten the map. Five or six searches is plenty to start. Choosing which searches to track explains how to pick well.
3. Area
Choose how far your customers come from: Neighbourhood, Local (recommended for most clinics, salons and trades), Whole town or Region. Each shows how many miles or kilometres across it is, and you can switch between the two. Spots in the sea or where nobody lives are left out automatically.
You can change the shape later, move the centre or draw your own area from the Map area button.
4. Check
Check the business, searches and area. Leave Run the first scan now ticked and press Create and scan.
The first reading
The first reading takes about four to six minutes. In that time we search Google Maps from every spot on your map, read the top 20 results at each one, ask ChatGPT the questions a customer would, check your website and build the report. You can leave the page while it runs, and a progress bar shows how far along it is if you stay.
If you unticked the scan in step 4, open the business and press Scan now when you're ready.
What to look at first
When the report opens, start with three things:
- Top-three share. The percentage of spots on your map where you appear in Google's top three. This is the headline number. Reading the map and the headline numbers explains it and the figures around it.
- The map itself. Look for blind spots, the patches where you don't show up at all. They are named by direction, such as "the north".
- The top of your job list. The report opens with one sentence and your top three jobs, ranked by how serious they are, then by likely effect against effort.
Pick one job and do it this week. Working through your job list covers how to mark it off and how the next scan confirms it.
The getting-started checklist
Until you've finished setting up, a short checklist sits at the top of your dashboard. It ticks itself off from what you've actually done:
- Add your business. Done as soon as the wizard finishes.
- Take the first reading. Open the business and press Scan now if it hasn't run.
- Tick off your first job. Do one job from the list, then press Mark as done. The next scan checks it for you.
- Connect Google Search Console (optional). A read-only connection that shows the searches already bringing people to your website and improves our suggestions.
- Put your brand on client reports (Pro plan and above). Your name, colour and logo, set under Account. See sharing reports for how clients see them.
Press Hide if you'd rather not see the checklist. It disappears on its own once every step is done.
After the first week
You don't need to remember to scan. Kerbrank rescans every business automatically every 7 days, and each card on the dashboard shows the date of the last reading and the next one. Changes from week to week are only compared when the searches and the map are the same, so try not to fiddle with either while you wait to see whether a job has worked.