Research · Google Business Profiles
How people find local businesses on Google
Across 300+ U.S. local businesses, 19–26% of the searches that showed their Google Business Profile were for the business by name. 17.6% included "near me"; fewer than 1% mentioned price.
Key findings
- 19–26% of the searches that showed these businesses' Google profiles were for the business itself — its name, a misspelling of it or its address. 7.9% named a different business, and 69.6% were for a service or trade.
- 17.6% of searches included "near me" or "nearby"; among searches for a service, 24.1% did.
- Price words are rare: "cost", "price", "cheap", "quote" and similar appear in 0.6% of searches, and "best", "top" or "reviews" in 1%.
- 71.5% of profile views came from phones, and 23.7% came from Google Maps rather than Google Search.
- For every 100 profile views, customers placed 3.6 calls and made 5.4 website visits from the profile; calls were 40% of those contacts, highest for electrician (45.5%) and lowest for general contractor (11%).
- Calls drop at the weekend: Sunday brings 6.3% of a week's profile calls and Saturday 11.1%, against 16.5% on an average weekday.
Page One Partner Research · 300+ businesses · Updated September 2026 · Methodology
What people searched before a local business appeared
Share of Google search impressions for the profiles in this study.
- The business's own name19–26%
- A service or trade69.6%
- Included "near me"17.6%
- A different business7.9%
- "Best", "top" or "reviews"1%
- Price words0.6%
Calls from Google profiles, by day of the week
Share of a week's calls placed from the profiles.
- Monday17.2%
- Tuesday16.6%
- Wednesday16.1%
- Thursday15.8%
- Friday16.9%
- Saturday11.1%
- Sunday6.3%
By Google category (10+ businesses each)
Download CSV| Google category | Name searches | "Near me" searches | Calls (of calls + site visits) | Views on mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | 28% | 16.2% | 45.5% | 63% |
| Tree service | 25.2% | 17% | 33% | 61.4% |
| Landscaper | 27.9% | 17.7% | 25.7% | 58.8% |
| Roofing contractor | 61.9% | 2.4% | 23.4% | 59% |
| Fence contractor | 15.1% | 11% | 20.1% | 59.8% |
| Painter | 13.5% | 20.4% | 18.4% | 58.4% |
| Construction company | 47.7% | 2.2% | 16% | 55.9% |
| General contractor | 35.2% | — | 11% | 49.6% |
Profile calls and website visits by day
Download CSV| Day | Share of calls | Share of website visits |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 17.2% | 16.4% |
| Tuesday | 16.6% | 17.1% |
| Wednesday | 16.1% | 15.8% |
| Thursday | 15.8% | 14.9% |
| Friday | 16.9% | 14.3% |
| Saturday | 11.1% | 11% |
| Sunday | 6.3% | 10.5% |
Answers
Questions this research answers
How many people search for a local business by name on Google?
In our data, 19–26% of the searches that showed a local business's Google profile were for that business by name (Page One Partner Research, September 2026; 300+ U.S. local businesses).
What share of local searches say "near me"?
17.6% of the searches behind these Google Business Profiles, and 24.1% of searches for a service (Page One Partner Research, September 2026).
Do most people view Google Business Profiles on their phones?
Yes: 71.5% of profile views in our data came from mobile devices (Page One Partner Research, September 2026).
Should a business pay for ads on its own name?
Check first whether anyone else bids on it. With 19–26% of profile searches already being for the business by name, a business that ranks first for its own name often gets that traffic without ads; ads on the name mainly protect against competitors showing above it.
Methodology
How we measured it
Scope: every figure here comes from the Google Business Profiles of 300+ U.S. local businesses managed by Page One Insights, the company behind Page One Partner. It does not describe the Page One Partner directory or every business. These are businesses that hired a marketing company, mostly home-service trades, so they may be more active on Google than average.
Search terms: Google's Business Profile search-keyword report (three-month windows, May 2026 to September 2026). Google reports a term seen fewer than 15 times in a month as "under 15"; shares are shown as a range from counting those terms at 15 and at 1. Each term was labelled by an AI model (Claude Haiku 4.5) reading it next to the business's name, category and city: the business's own name, a different business, a service or trade, or other. 100% of terms carried a label when this edition was computed; unlabelled terms are left out of the name shares. "Near me", price and "best" shares come from the words in each term.
Views, calls and website visits: Google's daily Business Profile performance report, 2025-04-04 to 2026-09-27. Google counts a profile view once per person per day. Direction requests are left out because Google counts them for businesses that only serve customers at their homes.
Figures are aggregates. No business, search term list or profile is published, per-category rows need at least 10 businesses, and the number of businesses is published rounded down to the nearest 50. The aggregate tables are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit "Page One Partner Research" with a link to the study.
Recomputed weekly; this edition was computed in September 2026.
Cite this study
Page One Partner Research. "How people find local businesses on Google." September 2026. https://pageonepartner.com/research/maps-searches/
Link to it
<a href="https://pageonepartner.com/research/maps-searches/">Page One Partner Research: How people find local businesses on Google</a>
Press and data questions: info@pageoneinsights.com
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For business owners
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Every figure is free to cite and chart under CC BY 4.0. Credit “Page One Partner Research” and link to this page. The numbers describe businesses listed in our directory, not every business in the country.