How to tell which jobs came from Google

Ask a trade owner where their work comes from and you’ll get a shrug and “Google, mostly, and word of mouth”. That might be right. But if you’re paying for a website, a lead site, a van wrap and someone to look after your listing, “mostly” isn’t good enough to decide what to keep paying for.

The good news: you don’t need fancy software to find out. Google gives you most of the numbers for free, and the rest comes from one question and a simple table. Here are the five ways, from the easiest, with what each one can and can’t tell you. Everything we quote from Google was read on its help pages on 2 October 2026.

1. Your Business Profile’s Performance screen

This is the first place to look, and one plenty of owners never open. Go to your Business Profile and click Performance, or in the Google Maps app tap Business, then See more next to Performance. Pick a date range and click Apply. You need to be signed in to the Google account that manages the profile, and Google says “Performance data is available only for verified Business Profiles.”

Google’s own definitions of the numbers that matter to a trade:

Number	Google’s definition	What it tells you
Calls	“The number of times a customer clicked on the call button on your Business Profile”	Taps on the button, not calls answered
Website clicks	“The number of times people clicked on the website link on your Business Profile”	People who went from your listing to your site
Directions	“How many people asked for directions to your business”	Mostly useful if customers come to you
Searches	“The search terms that people used to find your business”	What people typed when your listing showed up
Views	“How many people viewed your Business Profile on Search and Maps”	Counts unique visitors, “once a day”

Two things to know before you trust these:

• Calls are taps, not calls. Someone who taps call and hangs up counts. Someone who reads your number and dials it from another phone doesn’t. So it’s a guide, not a log.
• Google’s figures include adverts. “Performance data includes views, searches and actions from both organic search results and Google Ads.” If you run Google Ads, the Performance screen doesn’t separate them for you.

Google also notes that “Only metrics that apply to your business appear”, so if your address is hidden you may see little or nothing under directions.

What we have seen

Benny’s Barbershop in Swindon, whose Google listing we took over on 28 September 2026, showed about 260 clicks a month from his listing to his website in the six months to September 2026, on his Performance screen captured that day, before we changed anything. He’s a barber, not a trade. Read his case study.

That one number told us the listing was already sending people to his site every month. What it couldn’t tell us is how many of those people then booked. That’s the gap every method below is trying to fill.

2. Search Console, for your website

Google Search Console is free, and it’s about your website rather than your listing. Google describes its Performance report as showing “important metrics about how your site performs in Google Search results”. The two numbers to watch:

• Clicks: “The number of times a user clicked your site from Google Search results.”
• Impressions: “How many times your site appeared in Search results.”

The Queries tab shows what people searched; Pages shows where they landed.

What it can’t do: tell you about calls and direction requests made straight from your Google listing. Those never touch your website. So read Search Console and the Business Profile Performance screen side by side, never one on its own. A local trade can look quiet in Search Console while its listing is busy.

3. Tag the website link on your listing

When someone clicks from your listing to your website, it can be hard to tell that visit apart from everyone else who arrived from Google. You can make it obvious by adding tags to the end of the website address on your listing. Google Analytics calls these UTM parameters, and its help page says that when someone clicks a tagged link, “the parameter values are visible in the Traffic acquisition report.”

So instead of https://www.example.co.uk/ on your listing, use:

https://www.example.co.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=business-profile

Three rules from Google’s help page:

• “When you add parameters to a URL, you should always use utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign.”
• Values are case sensitive: “utm_source=google is different from utm_source=Google.” Keep everything lowercase.
• To see the results, Google points you to Session campaign in the Acquisition, Traffic acquisition report.

You only do this once, in the website field of your Business Profile. After that you can see how many visitors came from the listing, and which pages they went to. If your website form records which page or source each enquiry came from, you can match forms to the listing too.

4. Tracked phone numbers

A tracked number is a separate phone number that forwards to your normal phone. The caller just hears your phone ringing. Behind the scenes, a tracking system can log every call: the time, the caller’s number, how long it lasted, and whether you answered or missed it.

The trick is to use a different tracked number in each place: one on your website, one on your van, one on a leaflet. Then a call to the website number came from the website, and a call to the van number came from the van. You can see missed calls you’d otherwise never know about.

Putting one on your Google listing needs more care. Google’s guidelines for representing your business, read 2 October 2026, don’t mention tracking numbers by name. What they do say:

• “Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location”.
• “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.”
• “Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or ‘refer’ users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business”.
• “Use a local phone number instead of a central call centre helpline number whenever possible.”
• “Premium phone numbers are not acceptable”.

Google’s help page on editing your Business Profile adds: “In addition to your primary business phone number, you can enter up to two more phone numbers.”

Our advice, if you put a tracked number on your listing: make it a local number that rings your business and nobody else’s, make sure it stays under your control (ask whoever supplies it what happens to the number if you leave them), and add your usual number as one of the two extra numbers so it’s still tied to your business. Check Google’s guidelines yourself before you change anything, because they change.

5. Ask every new customer

Every method above counts clicks and calls. None of them knows which of those turned into a paid job. For that, you have to ask, and write it down.

Make it part of the first call, said the same way every time:

“Before I forget, how did you find us? Was it Google, a recommendation, or something else?”

If they say Google, one more question: “Was that the map, or our website?” Then write it down straight away, with one of a fixed list of answers so it adds up later: Google Maps, Google search, website, Checkatrade, Bark, Facebook, van or sign, recommendation, repeat customer.

People don’t always remember exactly: someone recommended to you may still have searched your name on Google. The point is a rough split you can act on.

A simple tracker

You need one table, on paper, in a spreadsheet or in your phone’s notes. One row per enquiry:

Date	Name	Got in touch by	Found us through	Job	Quoted	Won?	Worth
6 Oct	Karen Holt	Call	Google Maps	Patio clean and seal	£480	Yes	£480
7 Oct	Sam Price	Website form	Google search	Driveway clean	£260	No	£0
9 Oct	Mr Okafor	Text	Recommendation	Gutter clear	£90	Yes	£90

Ten minutes on a Friday keeps it up to date. Once a month, add up three things for each source:

1. Enquiries: how many came in.
2. Jobs won: how many said yes.
3. Worth: what those jobs came to in pounds.

Then put what each source cost you next to it. A lead site that cost £400 and won you two £150 jobs looks very different from a listing that brought in £3,000 of work. Our Bark vs Checkatrade guide has the cost-per-job sum written out.

What we have seen

In the 60 days to 1 October 2026, 71 people got in touch with Luke and Dan’s, a tree surgery firm we work with: 31 rang and 22 filled in their website form. Counted from the contact records behind their number and forms. Read their case study.

Those figures show how people got in touch, which is the part a system can count on its own. They don’t show where each person first found Luke and Dan’s, or which ones became paid jobs. That’s why the last two columns of the tracker matter most, and why they’re the hardest to keep up when you’re busy on a job.

What to do this week

1. Open your Business Profile’s Performance screen and note last month’s calls, website clicks and searches.
2. Set up Search Console for your website if you haven’t, and look at the Queries tab.
3. Add UTM tags to the website link on your listing.
4. Start asking every new customer how they found you, and start the tracker today.
5. In a month, add it up by source, cost and pounds won.

If your listing isn’t bringing much in when you look, start with why your business isn’t showing on Google Maps. If calls are coming in but you’re missing them, read missed call text back.

How we do it, and why it works

This is the “counted” part of what we do, and it sits on top of the other two.

• Found: your Google listing set up and worked every week, a review asked for after every job, and a website built to be called, with a tracked number on your listing and website so every call and missed call is counted.
• Answered: calls ring you, as always; we never answer your phone or book your diary. A missed call from a mobile gets a text back in your name, every form and message is replied to in your name, anyone who goes quiet is followed up, and every quote is chased to a yes or a no.
• Counted: after each enquiry, a text asks you whether you won it and for how much. Your reply goes in your tracker. Once a month you get one page: what came in, what you won, what it was worth.

Why it works: the tracker above only works if someone fills it in every time, and the “did you win it?” text means you only have to reply, not remember. You pay nothing until you’ve won £500 of work through us, and any month the work you win through us comes to less than £500 is free. We don’t promise a position on Google; we show you where you stand and change what can be changed.

The free check shows who Google lists for your trade in your town, where you sit, and whether your town is still free.