Your dealership’s Google Business Profile (GBP) is like a second website, and much like your website, you can use it to draw in potential customers by showcasing everything your dealership has to offer. This can include the services from all of your departments, like sales, service, parts, financing and more. Utilizing your GBP is an easy way to increase awareness and engagement to your dealership online.
I’ve put together this handy guide on how to optimize your GBP, so read on to learn actionable steps you can take to get the most out of your GBP, including making sure your business information is accurate and complete, leveraging high-quality visuals, managing reviews actively, using GBP posts to drive action, utilizing products listings, monitoring insights, and working with a strong SEO team.
Make Sure Your Business Information Is Complete & Accurate
Wherever your dealership appears online, be it your website, your GBP, or even on listing sites like Yelp, you need to make certain that the information present there, especially your name, address, and phone number (NAP) match and are accurate. Information regarding your services and hours of operation should also be included on your GBP, as this better helps potential customers see not only what services your dealership offers, but also when you’re open and when is best to get in touch. Utilize your business description to highlight your dealership’s unique features, and make sure to write it naturally, as you don’t want to stuff all the keywords you can in there in the hopes it’ll make your profile rank higher (it won’t).
Primary & Secondary Categories
Select the categories that fit your dealership to a T, such as “Used Car Dealer,” “Auto Financing Services,” “Oil Change Service,” and more. This allows you to focus on particular audiences you want to get attention to, and also gives potential customers a better understanding of all your dealership is capable of offering them. Your main category is the most important one, as it is displayed publicly and can actually affect ranking. This should be the one most applicable to your dealership and what you operate as, so if you’re a Ford dealer, select “Ford dealer,” if you’re a Toyota dealer, select “Toyota dealer”, if you’re a used car dealer, select “Used Car Dealer,” and so on.
Secondary Google Business Profile Listings
Having secondary GBP listings for each of the brands you sell (such as having “EDealer Chrysler,” “EDealer Jeep,” “EDealer Ram,” and “EDealer Dodge” listings if you’re a Stellantis dealer) or for your individual departments (such as “EDealer Service Department” or “EDealer Parts Department”) is permissible under Google’s guidelines, and may seem like a smart idea on the surface, but it’s a practice we recommend against. Unless you’re actively putting proper effort into optimizing and serving these listings day in and day out for their specific services, it usually causes more harm than good, especially with splitting search and engagement from users, and possibly just confusing them on which one they should be engaging with. Instead, just stick with your main, primary listing and put all of your time and energy into making that sole one as good as can be.
Leverage High-Quality Visuals
Think of yourself as a potential customer looking to do business with your dealership. What sort of things would you like to see before the interaction begins? What sort of things as a patron do you look for online before visiting any kind of business? People like to see what a business location looks like before they visit, what the parkings like, how you enter, and all the different areas of the business. You have unique access to your dealership, so make sure you’re showing it all off, from your showroom, to your service department, and even your waiting area and amenities (people love to see this!), with high quality images and videos.
Further, make sure to add a proper cover photo and logo to your profile, as this helps complete your branded look online, and really puts the look and feel of your business front and centre on your GBP listing. Doing all this helps to build trust with customers, and lets them see who you are before they even step foot into your dealership.
Manage Reviews Actively & Consistently
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: nothing is more important than interacting consistently with your customers through their reviews and responding to them, so make sure you’re doing it! Not only does it create trust with past customers and a sense of community, but also lets potential customers (who often read reviews before they visit a business for the first time) see how issues on negative reviews were fixed and how you treated the customer that brought said issues to your attention. More and more, both traditional search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini use a business’s local online authority, through reviews and review responses, across the web to determine how they should rank or recommend you to those searching for businesses like yours. So, don’t just focus on the reviews on your GBP alone: respond on all other platforms (like Facebook and Reddit) where people can leave reviews about your business.
Use GBP Posts to Drive Action
GBP posts can be a great way to highlight special offers currently available at your dealership, such as a hot deal on a piece of inventory, a service offer, a special event, and more. As such, creating multiple posts per week is the best cadence, but at the very least doing so consistently and not forgetting about it and leaving big gaps is key. Let customers know about great deals and offers happening before they run out, and be sure to make the posts look their best with a high quality image, snappy supporting text, and a proper link to a landing page on your website that is promoting the offer.
Utilize Google Products Listings
The Products section on your GBP can be an easy way to showcase your services, such as oil changes, tire swaps, parts, accessories, and more. Do note, though, that you will not be able to showcase live inventory pieces, as this functionality has been sunsetted in Canada. You can utilize this section by making little cards with an image of your product/service, a description, and a link to it on your website. Make it that much easier for potential customers to see your evergreen dealership offerings right on your GBP, and make it simple for them to click through and take advantage of them!
Monitor Insights
Regularly check your GBP’s insight data, like website clicks, phone calls, direction requests, and more to measure and refine your current strategy. Feedback through data can help you see not only what is doing well on your profile, but also measure any responses on changes or additions you make to your profile. Supplementary tools that do things like heat map grid tracking are super helpful as well to determine how your GBP is ranking in your local area against the competition. If you’re uncertain how to use or read such tools yourself, our team at EDealer offers grid rank tracking like this in our Local SEO Accelerate package!
Work with a Strong SEO Team
When your plans to grow your dealership’s online presence are too large to do on your own, or if you’d prefer to hand the tasks off to a team you can trust so that you have more time to focus on your internal business dealings like selling vehicles and managing service requests, our EDealer team can step in and do all of the above for you! Our Local SEO packages specifically cater to optimizing your GBP as well as your presence online through citation building and correcting, which lets you show up where you need to online with all the correct info. From initial profile optimization to ongoing review responses, posts, and more, ensure your Google Business Profile is not an afterthought, and is working to make your business and brand even more visible online, with the services from our EDealer Local SEO Accelerate package!
Optimize Your GBP and More with Our Team at EDealer
Your GBP is most likely the first thing that pops up when you Google your business or a related query, so it needs to be looking its best! Our EDealer SEO team is ready and waiting to make your GBP shine with our Local SEO Accelerate package, along with your website through our New Vehicle and Fixed Operations content marketing packages, so get in touch with us today, and we’ll take care of the rest!
