Analytics For Local Blogs

If you write a local blog or your business is a local business with a blog then you can track certain data with Google Analytics over and above the traditional GA offerings. Google has recently announced that its Local Business Center is now providing such data. The specific data you can track through your local blog website include:

• Impressions – The number of times your blog or website appear for a search, either through Google.com or Google Maps
• Actions – The number of times searchers interact with your business listing
• Top Search Queries – What are the top search queries used to find your local blog
• Zip Codes – Which zip codes are used to find your local blog or business

Understand that this information is available for listings in Google’s Local Business Center so if your blog isn’t listed then you won’t get this data for your blog. But how do you get your blog listed?

Actually, it’s your business that is listed. But what if your business was a blog? There are all sorts of ways you can work this into a local business listing angle:

• Start a blog for a local restaurant
• Write a tourist or travel blog for your local area
• Introduce a community blog to your neighborhood and sell advertising
• Add a blog to your business website
• Use a blog to highlight high profile members of your community

These are just a few ideas. But bear in mind that thinking outside the box is allowed. Just because you have a business website doesn’t mean you can’t have a separate website that is a blog. Or your primary website could be a blog. This is a new and growing trend among web businesses; the website owner, instead of building a static site, builds a blog instead and updates it every day. If you took that idea and used it for a local community blog then you’d qualify to be included in the Local Business Center. Of course, your primary static website can get the same data by being listed in the LBC as well.