When someone finds your business on Google and taps the "Directions" button, Google counts that as a direction request. It is one of the core actions tracked in your Google Business Profile performance data, sitting alongside phone calls, website clicks, and bookings. For a plumber or any other tradesperson, understanding what Google Business Profile direction requests actually mean — and when to care about them — can change how you interpret your profile's performance.
If you are not sure whether your numbers are healthy, see what our clients are achieving on their results page and compare.
What exactly is a direction request
A direction request is logged every time a user taps or clicks the "Directions" button on your Google Business Profile listing. This can happen from Google Search, Google Maps, or the local pack (the map with three listings that appears for local searches). The user does not need to complete the journey or even start navigating. The tap itself counts.
This is an important distinction. A direction request does not mean someone visited your premises. It means they were interested enough to want to know where you are or how far away you are. For businesses with a physical shopfront — a plumber's merchant, a tile showroom, a trade counter — that is a strong buying signal. For mobile tradespeople who travel to the customer, it is murkier.
The customer does not need to arrive or start navigation. The tap alone is counted.
Found under "Customer actions" alongside calls, website clicks, and bookings.
Why direction requests matter for tradespeople
Direction requests are a proxy for intent. Someone who taps "Directions" is further along the decision process than someone who merely views your listing. They are either planning to visit you or checking whether you are local enough to be worth calling.
For trades with a physical location — a showroom, a yard, a workshop where customers collect materials — direction requests directly correlate with footfall. More directions typically means more walk-ins.
For service-area businesses where you go to the customer, direction requests still carry useful information. Many homeowners tap "Directions" not because they plan to drive to you, but because they want to see how close you are. A plumber three miles away feels more trustworthy than one fifteen miles away. The customer is using distance as a trust filter.
This means even if you never have customers visit your address, a healthy direction request count suggests people are checking your proximity and, by extension, considering hiring you.
What is a healthy number of direction requests
This varies enormously by trade, location, and whether you have a customer-facing premises. Here are some rough monthly benchmarks based on profiles we manage:
- Plumbers and heating engineers (service-area, no premises): 15-40 direction requests per month
- Builders and general contractors (may have a yard): 30-70 direction requests per month
- Kitchen and bathroom showrooms: 80-200+ direction requests per month
- Electricians (service-area): 10-35 direction requests per month
- Landscapers (service-area): 20-50 direction requests per month
If your numbers sit well below these ranges, it does not necessarily mean your profile is underperforming. It might mean your service area settings are configured in a way that suppresses the directions button, or that your address is hidden because you correctly set up as a service-area business. Both are valid configurations.
To understand whether your overall visibility is where it should be, our guide to how many GBP views you should get per month puts direction requests into the wider context of total impressions and interactions.
Direction requests vs phone calls: which matters more
For most mobile tradespeople, phone calls are the stronger signal. A call means someone is ready to discuss a job. A direction request means they are still gathering information.
That said, the ratio between the two tells you something useful:
- High calls, low directions: Customers are finding you and calling straight away. This is typical of emergency trades — burst pipes, lockouts, boiler breakdowns. They do not care where you are based; they need you now.
- High directions, low calls: Customers are checking your location but not picking up the phone. This could mean your profile is missing information that would give them confidence to call, or that your address suggests you are too far away.
- Both high: Your profile is working well. People are engaging with it in multiple ways.
- Both low: Your profile is not getting enough visibility in the first place. The issue is upstream — you need more impressions before you can worry about actions.
If direction requests are high but calls are low, add your phone number prominently to your business description and make sure your services list is complete. Give people a reason to call instead of just checking your location.
How to increase direction requests
If direction requests are a metric you want to grow — because you have a premises or because you want to signal local relevance — there are several practical steps.
Keep your address accurate and consistent
Google cross-references your address with other directories and data sources. If your address on Google does not match your address on Yell, Checkatrade, or your own website, Google may suppress your listing in map results. Consistency across all platforms is one of the fundamentals of local search. Our guide to business citations covers this in detail.
Optimise for local keywords
Your business description, services, and Google Posts should include the town and area names where you work. A plumber in Bristol who mentions "Bristol," "Bath," "Keynsham," and "Clevedon" in their profile is more likely to appear in map results for those areas than one whose profile just says "plumber."
Encourage and respond to reviews
Profiles with more reviews rank higher in maps results. Higher rankings mean more visibility, more impressions, and more direction requests. If you are not actively asking for reviews, you are leaving map visibility on the table. Our article on how to ask for Google reviews gives you a step-by-step process.
Post regularly
Google Posts signal that your profile is active. Active profiles tend to rank better in local results. Even one post per fortnight showing a recent job keeps your listing fresh in Google's eyes.
Use high-quality photos
Profiles with strong photo libraries get more engagement across every metric, including direction requests. Before-and-after shots of your work are particularly effective for trades because they show capability without you having to say a word.
When to ignore direction requests
There are legitimate scenarios where a low direction request count is not a problem:
- You are set up as a service-area business with a hidden address. Google will not show a directions button if there is no address to direct people to. Your calls and website clicks are the metrics that matter instead.
- You work in a trade where customers never visit you. An emergency plumber does not need walk-ins. Focus on calls.
- Your area is rural with low search volume. If there are simply not many people searching for your trade in your area, all your metrics will be lower. That does not mean your profile is broken — it means your market is smaller.
The mistake most tradespeople make is chasing every metric equally. Direction requests are one data point among several. They matter most when your business model involves people coming to you, and they matter least when you are a pure mobile service.
How direction request data helps us optimise your profile
When we manage a Google Business Profile, direction requests are one of the first things we look at each month. A sudden spike might mean a competitor closed or that a recent Google Post gained traction. A sudden drop might indicate an address inconsistency, a category change, or a shift in Google's local algorithm.
We cross-reference direction requests with calls, website clicks, and impression data to build a complete picture of how your profile is performing. That picture tells us where to focus — whether it is your description, your photos, your review strategy, or your service area configuration.
Get a clear picture of your profile
If you are not sure whether your direction request numbers are where they should be, we can tell you in about two minutes. Our free audit for plumbers analyses your entire Google Business Profile against the benchmarks we see across hundreds of trade profiles. You will get a clear breakdown of what is working, what is not, and what to fix first — no obligation, no sales call.