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Thought Leadership

August 7, 2024

5 min read

Dyverse Studies: The Impact of Google Business Profile Ratings on Community Website Traffic

The Connection Between GBP Ratings and Web Traffic

To get insights from a reputation management expert, we asked Alex Bennett of Opiniion, to provide his thoughts on how Google Business Profile ratings are connected to website traffic.

Alex added, “You need to have a constant flow of reviews coming in so that new prospects who are searching are seeing 5 star reviews that happened recently. Prospects want to know what it's like to live at the property today, not what it was like 3 months ago. A lot can change over a short period of time and your Google Reviews are the window to your business for those who are searching online. Keep it fresh!"

The Study’s Objective

In this study, we did not factor in the total number of reviews or the recency of reviews. This is something we will include in future studies to determine if there is a correlation beyond just overall star ratings.

The study was simplified to have a clear objective: determine if there’s a significant link between the current ratings of communities and their total views, website clicks, phone calls and direction requests generated from their community’s Google Business Profile.

Key Findings

Average Property Rating: As of July 10, 2024, the average rating across all studied properties stood at 3.93.
Engagement Metrics: On average, properties garnered 2,798 views, with website and phone clicks at 578 and 127, respectively, and 293 requests for directions.

Full Results

The breakdown of the average GBP views and engagement metrics across different rating tiers revealed insightful trends:

Higher Ratings, Higher Visibility: Properties with ratings between 4.5 and 5.0 showcased the highest average monthly views at 3,946, indicating that higher ratings boost visibility.
Conversion Anomalies: Interestingly, properties with lower ratings (under three stars) exhibited high conversion rates (25% for website clicks and 9% for phone calls) despite fewer average views (1,716). This suggests that while higher ratings enhance visibility, lower-rated properties might attract more committed searchers, possibly due to being shown on the search results less often for sought after keyword terms such as “best apartments for rent in location”, and showing more for specific brand name searches, which typically have higher click-through-rates.

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Strategic Recommendations

Given the impact of GBP ratings on profile views and website visits, it is imperative for property managers to prioritize their Google Business Profile reviews. Regularly updating the profile, actively managing resident experience and reviews, and ensuring accurate and appealing photos are essential to optimizing online presence.

To maintain a competitive edge, property managers should leverage tools like Kyzen Analytics to regularly audit their portfolios to identify and enhance underperforming properties. Dyverse offers specialized services to help optimize resident experience, reputation management and online search visibility, ensuring that your properties gain visibility and achieve consistent traffic from critical sources such as Google’s search engines.

Contact us today to discover how we can assist you in harnessing the full potential of your Google Business Profile to drive meaningful traffic to your community.