Worth saying before anything else: for most contractors, website clicks are the minority of what a Google Business Profile produces. Calls and direction requests usually outnumber them, and a call is the more valuable outcome.
So the goal is not to maximise clicks. It is to make sure the people who do click land somewhere that matches what they were promised, and to know which of those visits came from the profile at all.
Where profile clicks actually come from
Four places, and most contractors only ever configure the first:
- The website button, one URL for the whole profile.
- Buttons on Posts, each Post can carry its own destination. See whether Posts are worth the effort for when this is worth using.
- Individual services, entries in your services list can each carry a link.
- An appointment or booking URL, a separate field from the website button.
Service-level links are the most neglected. Someone reading your AC repair entry can be sent to your AC repair page rather than a homepage they then have to navigate.
Where the main link should point
The homepage is the default and is usually wrong for a service business, it makes the visitor do the work of finding what the profile already told them you do.
A better rule: point it at the page that matches your primary category. A profile whose primary is “Plumber” should link somewhere that immediately confirms plumbing services and offers a way to get in touch.
Whatever you choose, it must load fast on a phone and put your phone number where a thumb can reach it. Profile traffic is overwhelmingly mobile and overwhelmingly urgent, a slow page loses the visit outright.
Tag the URL so you can measure it
This is the most useful thing on this page and almost nobody does it.
By default, traffic from your profile arrives in analytics mixed in with everything else from Google, so you cannot separate it from organic search. Adding UTM parameters to the URL in your profile fixes that:
https://example.com/services/ac-repair?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp-profile
Use a different utm_campaign value for each place a link appears: the main website button, each Post, each service entry. Then your analytics tells you which parts of the profile send people and which are decorative.
One caveat: the profile’s own performance data counts clicks on the button, while analytics counts sessions that arrived. The two numbers will not match, and the gap is normal, people tap and abandon.
What to do with what you learn
Once the traffic is tagged, the useful comparisons open up:
- Calls versus clicks. If calls dominate, put your effort into making the phone number and hours correct rather than chasing website visits.
- Which services get clicked. Often not the ones you expect, and it tells you which pages deserve work.
- Whether profile visitors convert differently. They usually arrive further along than general organic traffic; they have already seen your reviews and photographs.
That last point is the argument for not over-optimising for clicks. Someone who called from the profile skipped your website entirely and is on the phone. That is not traffic you lost.
The profile and the site should agree
Where the two disagree, the visit is wasted. Services listed on the profile that do not exist on the site, hours that differ, a phone number that does not match, each one costs trust at the moment someone is deciding.
The simplest version of this check: open your profile and your website side by side and confirm the name, phone number, hours and service list are the same in both. It takes ten minutes and it is the fix most often needed.
Frequently asked questions
Should my profile link to my homepage?
Usually not. Point it at the page matching your primary category, so a visitor lands on confirmation of what the profile said rather than a homepage they have to navigate. Individual service entries can carry their own links to their own pages.
How do I track traffic from my Google Business Profile?
Add UTM parameters to the URL you enter in the profile, for example utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp-profile: using a different campaign value for the website button, each Post and each service link. Without them, profile traffic is indistinguishable from ordinary organic search in analytics.
Why do the click counts in my profile and my analytics differ?
The profile counts taps on the button; analytics counts sessions that finished loading. People tap and abandon, particularly on slow pages or poor connections, so the profile number is always higher. The gap is expected.
Is website traffic the right goal for a profile?
Often not. For most contractors, calls and direction requests outnumber website clicks, and a call is worth more than a session. Measure both before deciding which to optimise for.
Where to start
Add UTM parameters to your profile’s website link today. Until that is done, every other question on this page is unanswerable, and once it is, the data starts accumulating for whenever you get round to looking. For how the profile earns the impression in the first place, see how Google decides which profiles show in the map pack.
Real Time Marketing has worked with home service contractors since 2016: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical and other trades, nationwide, from our office in Bradenton, Florida. Agreements are month-to-month. See our Google Business Profile management service or book a strategy call.