The Importance of Your Google My Business Listing

Putting your dealership message in front of car shoppers and service clients is becoming more and more difficult, complex, and expensive.

You already know that today’s car shopper does almost all of their research online before they even visit a dealership.

The average car shopper today makes just two dealership visits in the search for the perfect vehicle. That’s because today car shoppers turn to mobile to research models, find deals, and get real-time advice. Google

To make things even more complicated, car dealerships require more diverse digital strategies because of the many departments found under one roof. These departments new sales, used sales, service department, parts department, collision center, etc… have different hours, phone numbers and objectives.

Because your dealerships probably has multiple businesses built into one website, your optimization strategy must be multi-faceted too.

This becomes even more complicated if you are a family of dealerships with individual websites for each location.

Accountability in Your Digital Marketing

In my 22 years of doing digital marketing in the Auto Industry, I have never seen more accountable marketing funnels than exist today.

Like most dealers, you probably spend more marketing dollars on Paid Search because based on your metrics it brings in leads, and turns leads to sales.

As a consultant for digital marketing agencies that work with car dealers, I sit in on many strategy calls, and most of the talk centers around Paid Search strategy, conversions, and monthly spends on pay per click.

Some of the talk revolves around improving website content and landing pages as well as tracking users through the website. Re-marketing is a hot topic because it allows you to target potential customers after they leave your website. This is all very important, and I am not here to discourage you from this type of marketing.

I am writing this to bring to your attention a major traffic driver and lead funnel that is extremely cost effective when used the way Google intends you to use it.

Click Here fill out your GMB – Google Maps Analyis Form and get your results in 48 hours.

Your Google My Business Listing is a major traffic driver!

The Numbers Don’t Lie!

In 22 years of working in the Auto Industry, I have never seen a more misunderstood and misused marketing tool than your Google Business listings. I spend quite a bit of my working time setting up and charting metrics, as well as fixing messed up GMBs for Auto dealers across the country.

I scratch my head in amazement when I talk with Digital Marketing experts and Internet Managers that have no idea about how to fix, optimize, and track the metrics involving their Google Business Listings.

Your Google My Business listing is a Free Tool given to you by Google and placed in a prominent position on their page one search results. It is a huge traffic driver that generates thousands of website visitors as well as phone calls. Google has made it no secret that they are serious about GMBs and it is time dealerships get serious also.

The evolution of mobile searches and why Google is all in when it comes to GMB Marketing!

Google Business listings have been around for many years and what started out as a simple place to list your business has evolved into a major information center with massive potential when used properly.

Mobile search now dominates the way consumers find information online. Google is ahead of the curve and has revamped its search results pages to cater to mobile searches. Over the past few years Google has enhanced what goes into your GMB and has created multiple marketing streams to allow you to reach more interested consumers and engage them right off your GMB.

As someone that follows every move Google makes, it has become evident that every signal screams loud and clear that if you want to drive more traffic to your dealership you better start paying more attention to all the tools within your GMB.

The difference between your Google Business Listing and your Google Maps Listing.

Google uses all the data within your Google Business listing in the search results and your maps listing. They may lay out a little differently, but they are in fact from the same data feed. This means any data errors in one will show up in the other. If you have duplicate listings or unclaimed listings floating around the web, they will also show up on both.

Why are Digital Marketing Agencies ignoring your Google Business Listing?

I work with digital marketing agencies and businesses every day helping them create GMB lead funnels and fixing broken listings as well as claiming unclaimed listings floating around and updating inaccurate data that is hurting conversions.

It has become apparent that most digital marketing agencies and web design companies do not have anyone in-house that understands how GMBs work or how to use them to drive traffic to your dealership.

Why? I believe that many are so focused on Paid Search which is a major revenue driver for their agency, they do not see the importance of hiring a GMB expert. Another reason is, Google has made so many upgrades to Google Business Listings in such a short amount of time, it is impossible for them to keep up with the changes.

I work with some very smart digital marketers and when the topic of GMB marketing comes up, they get blank stares on their faces and admit they are too busy to keep up with that stuff.

What should you expect from a properly implemented GMB Marketing plan?

When your GMB or GMBs are set up properly and all duplicates or erroneous listings eliminated, it is time to get moving on driving more traffic to your website and generating more phone calls to your dealership.

Once we activate all the components within your GMB knowledge panel including Google offers, photos, Q&As etc… it is time to set up all the tracking metrics.

Once we properly tag and integrate your GMB with Google analytics, you will see exactly how many visitors are finding your GMB in the Google search results and Google Maps and what they are doing once they reach your website.

In most cases we see about 40-50% of all organic traffic is coming directly from your GMB and we also track new and used VDPs views.

What Should You Do Next?

Click Here fill out your GMB – Google Maps Analysis Form and get your results in 48 hours.

To maximize your exposure in Google Maps and the Google search results it is important to do a complete analysis of what is currently live in the Google index. My experience shows that 7 out of 10 dealers have at least one duplicate or unclaimed listing, or inaccurate information that causes Google to suppress your listing in the search results.

Several years ago Google announced that car dealers can now create department GMBs for service departments, parts departments and Collision centers if they want to more closely target those markets. Most dealers and marketing agencies have no clue that this is allowed.

The problem is, Google has on its own created thousands of Google Business listings for dealerships and most of them have inaccurate information and are unclaimed. These listings are hard to find and fix unless handled by a GMB expert.

To create a powerful lead funnel to your sales department as well as your service and parts you need to fix this stuff. This is not an option and hurts your ability to rank in more areas. Some searchers may land on an unclaimed listing and get inaccurate data creating a poor user experience.

Once we fix and optimize all your Google Business Listings, we focus on the Metrics set up and the marketing data needed to increase click throughs and VDP views.

Your website plays an important role in your GMB rank!

We look at your website and all the location data, page set up and SEO components because Google connects the information on your website with the information on your GMB. This blended algorithm plays an important role in ranking you outside your main city.

Google looks at your exact location when determining what city you will rank in the 3-pack for your top keywords. However, like most dealers you want to appear in your outlying cities and to do that effectively you need carefully laid out and optimized location pages on your website.

Simply adding a few city names to your homepage or meta tags is not enough if there is any level of competition. Google looks for certain elements in location pages and unfortunately most OEM website providers fail to deliver properly optimized location pages. The more outlying cities you can rank your GMB and Maps listing in the more traffic you will push to your dealership.

Get a Complete GMB – Google Maps Analysis Today!

This is the first step to taking advantage of one of your most powerful lead funnels and driving more leads, phone calls, and VDP views using a tool Google provides for Free!

Click Here fill out your GMB – Google Maps Analysis Form and get your results in 48 hours.