An optimized Google my Business listing for your car dealership will enable you to rank high in Google search engine result pages. As a car dealer, your business mostly relies on local customer traffic. Google is the best place to get foot traffic to your car dealership.
You know why?
Over five billion searches are made daily through Google. global search engine market share of Google is between 70% and 90% and it will not go down soon.
Recently, Google revealed that 40% of mobile searches have local intent.
According to Google, 50% of all the mobile consumers who search for a local business in a day visit it as well. Furthermore, 18% of them end up making a purchase.
Now that you know how relevant Google is to your car dealership business, the question is:
How do you get a chunk of this traffic to your car dealership business?
One of the best ways to get more traffic to your offline car shop is through Google My Business.
Let’s start by looking at the benefits of Google my Business.
Below are 5 mouth-watering benefits of Google my business:
1. Benefits of Google My Business: It is Free
The first benefit of Google my Business is that it is free. It is unlike other business listings on the internet where you have to pay to list your business. However, having a listing is not all there is to it, you need to optimize your Google my business listing in order for it to show close to the top of the local listing results.
The second benefit of Google my Business listing is that it helps customers to find your physical location.
2. Google my Business helps prospects to find your physical location.
The second benefit of Google my Business is that it helps prospects to find your physical location. This is especially true for car dealership shops. Many people who search for the car they want to buy will want to know where your shop is located. For instance, when I searched for “best car sales in UK“. The result below is displayed:
From the Image above, you can see the listed car dealerships. These are car sales businesses that have listed their businesses on Google my business.
The benefit of Google my business does not end there. Customers can also find more information about your business such as your local address, hours of operation, busy periods, directions, photos, call buttons for mobile users. In the image above, we saw “Autopark UK Car Dealer in Durham” as one of the results displayed for the search term “best car sales in UK“. Prospects can further type in the name of the car dealership, such as “Autopark UK car dealer in Durham”. If you type this into the search bar, it will show the exact physical location address and other information as shown below:
The image above is an optimized Google my Business listing that shows relevant information.
The third benefit of Google my Business is that it provides customer insight.
3. With Google my business, you can take advantage of the Customer Insight
The third benefit of Google my Business for a car dealership is that it offers customer insights. The insight tab in Google my business provides enormous analytics on customers. You can even customize the result by comparing stats in a chart.
The insight tab has three features – visibility, engagement and audience sections. The visibility section displays the number of views that your business profile, photos, and posts receive. You can view up to 90 days of data. The engagement section displays how your audience interacts with your posts. The engagement is in the form of clicks, shares, and comments, photo views and chat to you (message). The audience section shows the details of the people following you, such as their age groups, gender, and countries. These three insights will enable you to properly optimize and improve your listing.
Below is an example of an insight report on customer actions from an optimized Google my Business listing.
The fourth benefit of Google my business listing is visibility on Google search and Maps.
4. Benefits of Google my business: Visibility on Google search and Maps
This is one of the best benefits of Google my business. It allows your car dealership business to appear in the top 3 local area in Google Maps results. Google kept the first three listings on the search page results for Google Adwords advertisements. After that, you will notice a map with three local results(3 packs) shown. Then, you will see other search results.
The three listings are part of the seven to ten results. The three listings are placed on the visible area of the search results page on Google. The information that shows above the listing is the Google my business listing. Imagine if your car sales shop can make one of the 3 pack listings, your leads and customers will increase tremendously. The most important thing here is you don’t pay to appear in the 3 pack list compared to those who paid for Google Adwords to appear in the top of the search results.
In the example below, there is no Google AdWords for the search term “best car sales in UK”. It started with the optimized Google my business listing. What a great ranking opportunity?.
It will interest you to know the first position on Google search result page receives up to 30% of all the traffic. It is followed by the organic result.
The 3 packs above occupies a sensitive position on the Google search. Most advertisers pay thousands of dollars per month on paid search ad campaigns to get to the same position. But with an optimized Google my Business profile, your car sales shop can appear close to the top of search results for free as shown in the image above.
The fifth benefits of Google my Business listing is that it encourages customers to leave reviews and makes it easy for you to respond to them.
5. Google my Business encourages customers to leave reviews and for you to respond to them
The last but not the least benefit of Google my Business listing is that it encourages customers who have done business with your car dealership business to leave reviews for you. This shows their experience when dealing with your company. It will encourage other prospects to buy from you. You can monitor and respond to reviews as seen in the image below.
You can encourage customers to leave reviews by sending a feedback request email with a link to your Google My Business page.
It is difficult to get all the benefits of Google my Business enumerated above unless you optimize your Google my business listing.
So, the question is, How do you optimize your car dealership business on Google my business listing.
Below are 5 Google my Business optimization tips:
1. Google my Business Optimization Tip: Update all business information
The first Google my Business optimization tip you can use to push your listing to the top is by making sure that your business information is correct and up to date. Make sure it contains your operating hours, service category and more. Add a good deal of information as possible. Google also made it possible to add a short blog. Make a good use of it.
The next Google my Business Optimization tip is to add the NAP (Name, address and phone number).
2. Google my Business Optimization tip: Add NAP
The second way you can optimize Google my Business listing is to add NAP I.e. The name of your business, the address, and the phone number. Ensure that you have the same information on other online profiles such as Yelp, Bing and other listings. Having an inconsistent information will confuse your potential customers and impact your ranking negatively.
The next Google my Business optimization tip is to add images to your profile.
3. Google my Business optimization tip: Add images
The third Google my Business optimization tip you can use for your car sales business is to add images to your profile. Images will help your potential customers to see what you have in your auto dealer shop. Make sure your car photos are top quality to help your profile stand out.
The fourth Google my Business optimization tip is to add online reviews.
4. Google my Business optimization tip: Add online reviews
Online reviews are very important to potential customers. They want to know what it is like to do business with your company. Luckily, there is a portion on your profile that shows reviews as seen in the images above. Customers can leave reviews and you can also respond to them. The rank they give you will show up beside your business name and address. This will drive more customers for your car sales. If you have multiple car sales points, you can manage reviews from all the locations in one place using Google my Business software.
The fifth Google my business optimization tip is to update your Google Maps.
5. Google my Business optimization tip: Update your Google Maps.
Updating your Google Maps is an effective Google my business optimization tip you need to pay attention to. This is because Google Maps is linked to Google My business. When a potential customer search for your dealership on Google Maps, your Google My Business listing will show up. Updating your Google Maps with more information on your car dealership will give your prospective customers a good first impression and it will drive more traffic to your car sales shop.
Conclusion
Are you using Google my business for your car dealership? With all the mouth-watering benefits of Google my Business and Google my Business optimization tips listed above, you will be leaving money on the table if you don’t use them. Now is the right time to start.
Psst.. Watch our latest video and optimise your listing now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJulXDIhAQg
