Local SEO Tips For Car Dealerships

[JoyHawkins]

I'm updating the guide we wrote on local seo for car dealerships and wanted to know what you guys find are the best SEO tips that specifically apply to auto dealers? One that I found that works pretty well is optimizing for tire keywords. Most sites don't do this and simply adding a bit of content along with optimized photos can make a difference.

I've also found that while you are allowed different listings for sales + service, you rarely want these. They cause more harm than good, and often the service listing ends up getting a pretty bad overall rating.

Chime in and share wins you've seen for auto dealers.

 

[Greg Gifford]

Yep, Joy's right about the tire thing - most dealers severely neglect fixed ops (service) terms - it's important to create a page for each service you want to be found for.

I have to disagree with Joy on the separate department GBPs though - It's much better to set them up for several reasons... most importantly, it's a better customer experience - your main profile will show the separate hours of operation, so customers understand immediately that service is closed earlier than sales. Also - it's actually nto a bad thing to have bad ratings on the service department GBP... Most of the bad reviews that dealerships receive come from service customers, so if those reviews are isolated on the service GBP, the primary sales-focused GBP will end up with a higher review score, which helps in a ton of ways.

Another massive opportunity is all the default content you get from your website provider or your OEM - you HAVE to update the content and make it your own

Get rid of the massive home page slideshows - customers don't watch them or click through them

Get rid of the massive home page popups - after the Page Experience update, Google penalizes for automatic popups

Choose appropriate GBP categories - don't pick non-auto categories because you're trying to make them fit. For the love of God, please don't select "electric vehicle charging station" or "car manufacturer" or "chauffeur service" - we see those all the time and they're VERY wrong.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I have to disagree with Joy

Oooooh already getting opposing views - LOVE it! This is why forums are still winning lol

 

[georgenenni]

We monitor several hundred automotive GBPs through a Looker/Jepto connection, and focus monthly on GBP search queries for each of the departmental profiles. Yes, we advise separate GBPs for sales, service, body shop, parts, Quick Lane (for Ford dealers) and even used cars if you have a separate building and mailing address (I know that @Greg Gifford may disagree, but we have them for several dealers, for several years, and their search queries rock!).

When optimized properly, the search queries for each GBP are differentiated, since we have zero overlapping categories. For sales, the queries will be branded, plus "Ford dealer near me", etc. For service, it could be tire-related search (agreed strongly @JoyHawkins most dealers aren't optimized). However, over the last 18 months, the fixed operations (service, body shop, etc) search queries have been lower in volume, and less relevant to the categories, not sure what is causing this. It is as if the fixed ops GBPs are simply showing up less for relevant fixed ops queries.

For the Service Department GBP, there is also monthly work requiered to curate the suggested GBP "services" that Google will suggest. Best practice is to approve all services relating to fixed ops, and say no to any that would relate to sales, parts, body shop, etc. You want clean delineation on the departmental profiles.

When creating those departmental GBPs, Google will ghost them until you get at least 20 reviews and 20 owner photos. We track views and actions on GBPS, and that is the inflection point when the department GBP will start showing up.

As far as driving reviews to the various departmental GBPs, OEM approved vendors like Reputation.com and Podium can fork the transactions in the Dealer Management System (DMS), so that the sales transactions drive automated surveys for improving the sales GBP reviews, and the closed repair order (RO) customers are driven to the sales GBP. Reputation can fork an unlimited number of times for $100/month for dealers, so a no-brainer. Once a dealer implements this, an average single-point Ford store should drive double digit monthly reviews to both sales and service dept. GBPs, while parts and body shop will also trickle in (less transactions). Most dealers process 3-4X the number of ROs, as cars they sell, so eventually the Service GBP should receive most of the reviews. Yes, it can be hard to maintain 4.5 to 4.7 stars for service, but top operators do this consistently.

One last thing, the reason you see so many car dealerships with chauffeur service, is that category was originally named "Car service", and plenty of people got this wrong. Including Ford themselves, when they automatically set up thousands of Ford service GBPs for their dealers 5 years ago. We usually find this mistake with Ford dealers. Maybe someone tipped Google to be more descriptive with that category?

I hope this is helpful Joy, thank you for all of your great content, we share it regularly with our customers!

-George

 

[JS Girard]

When creating those departmental GBPs, Google will ghost them until you get at least 20 reviews and 20 owner photos. We track views and actions on GBPS, and that is the inflection point when the department GBP will start showing up.

@georgenenni is that specific to department or a change across all GBPs? I remember it was big news when the 10 reviews inflection point was confirme in (IIRC) 2023.

 

[georgenenni]

@georgenenni is that specific to department or a change across all GBPs? I remember it was big news when the 10 reviews inflection point was confirme in (IIRC) 2023.

@JS Girard we don't usually see a fresh GBP on the sales side, unless a new dealership point has been opened, so mainly it is around the fixed ops side. When we compare review totals to monthly views or actions, we see a jump around 20 owner photos and reviews.

I remember reading a local SEO study that showed that after 100 owner photos there would be an exponential jump in views/actions, we've never seen that jump, and have plenty of GBPs with over 100 owner photos.

An established sales GBP for a car dealer generates 3-4,000 conversions (web clicks, phone calls, directions) per month, while a service GBP will generate 2-300 conversions per month.

 

[Joey Abna]

Back in the day when I was in the car biz we would create a page for new models. Then we would take one of the all new models to say Starbucks or other local shopping center. We would have our videographer interview people about their thoughts and impressions about the new model. We also did it for comparisons like Camry vs Altima with our new model next to a low mileage used model. Embed the video on the new model page and repurpose the videos across socials.

We would also take vehicles on location around town and take photos in front of recognizable local places. Parks, lakes, ball fields, movie theaters, venues, downtown, colleges etc. The manufacturers supply dealers with great photography but these in-house staged photos work well on dealer websites and socials.