Have you ever gone to add your auto dealer website to Google Places only to find someone else has already claimed and verified it? We run into this from time to time while setting up listings, and recently found this information on what to do.
First, make sure no one in your dealership has already taken the initiative to set up and claim your businesses listing. Once you’ve done this, here are the steps to take:
Create your listing, making sure that:
- Your dealership name, address, URL, and email address are exact
- Add a local phone number, not an 800 number
- Create a 200-character or less description of your dealership
- Make the listing as interactive as possible with up to ten images smaller than 1MB and 1024×1025 pixels, as well as links to up to five videos.
- Describe what makes your dealership different from your competitors in the additional details section.
- Verify your listing through Google.
After you have your completely accurate listing created and verified, you have to tell Google Places that there are duplicate listings. Go to the listing you didn’t create (that you want removed) and click on “Edit this Place”.
Select the “Place has another listing” button and enter the URL of your accurate listing and state that you want the previous entry removed. Make sure you check back to ensure the listing was removed within a few weeks–you may have to go through the removal process multiple times.
