Ready to boost your local search traffic? In this edition of DealerOn University we break down how you can leverage local business listings to increase your search rankings.
You can increase your search rankings by claiming your local business listings and keeping those listings accurate.
Take your dealership SEO to the next level with local business listings.
SEO comes in two varieties. The first is traditional SEO, which is the process of optimizing your site to rank better in any search. Then there’s local SEO, where you’ll work to make your website rank especially well in local searches. Most of your customers are going to be local searches, so while SEO is important, local SEO is indispensable to a car dealership.
There are a variety of different factors in play regarding ranking highly in local searches. Your on-site SEO such as keywords and meta tags play a role, as well as your customer reviews, and social media presence. But your off-site signals in the form of local business listings may be the most critical local search signals of them all.
Building and maintaining the accuracy of your local business listings is paramount to the success of your dealership. Doing so can help vault you to the top of “near me”-style searches, get your dealership featured in Google Local Pack, and greatly increase the organic web traffic your website receives. In this article we review steps you can take to increase local business listing strength and show you how you can easily maintain the accuracy of your listings.
Claim Your Google Business Profile
The first step in any local SEO strategy is to set up your Google Business Profile (GBP). Formerly known as Google My Business, GBP is a free profile offered by Google that shows prominently on search engine results pages (SERPs) that match with your store. If you haven’t claimed yours, do so now and come back later. Your GBP is just that important for the long-term success of your dealership.
GBP helps potential customers learn about your dealership at a glance. Containing information on hours, location, directions, reviews, and even blog articles, customers get a snapshot of who you are. Because you are the one who operates the profile, you choose the snapshot you’re providing. It’s a powerful tool that sometimes falls through the cracks.
The numbers tell the tale of just how critical GBP is to local businesses. According to a recent BrightLocal study, 64% of consumers use GBP to find contact details for local businesses, 94% of calls to local businesses come from GBP on weekdays, and an average business is discovered in over 1,000 searches per month. And to put an exclamation point on just how important GBP is, car dealerships receive the most direct search traffic of any industry.
That means if you haven’t claimed your GBP, or it contains inaccurate information, you could easily lose a customer to your competitor, even when they are searching for your specific dealership.
Claiming your Google Business Profile is a critical first step in establishing a strong local SEO strategy.
Get Featured in Local Directories
GBP is just one place your business listing needs to be featured online. You need to maintain a presence in as many local business directories as possible. Most of these directories allow you to link directly to your website, providing you with backlinks. Backlinks are a strong signal to search engines, and the more authoritative, relevant backlinks you have, the greater your search benefit will be.
Your dealership should be featured in all the major directories such as Apple Maps, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, and Foursquare. Maintain a presence on as many of the smaller directories as you can as well. Directories such as Yellow Pages, Hot Frog, and Brownbook will all add local SEO value to your dealership.
Your dealership should be featured in all the major directories such as Apple Maps, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, and Foursquare.
You can’t stop at simply adding your dealership to these directories. Maintaining consistent and accurate information across these platforms is just as important as submitting your dealership to them. The reason is Google and other search engines actively look for complete and consistent info when ranking search results and will ding your site if it finds data that doesn’t match across platforms.
Keep Your NAP Accurate
The number one factor search engines are checking for when establishing the accuracy of your business listings is NAP. NAP is an acronym for Name, Address, Phone number, the minimum information one would need to contact you.
If search engines find inaccurate NAP information across directories, it can greatly harm your overall search rankings. According to a Moz study, NAP consistency is one of the primary factors that contribute to local SEO rankings. You must remain vigilant in maintaining the accuracy of your local listings, or your search rankings will pay the price.
Increased search rankings are just one benefit of keeping your NAP information accurate across the web. Keeping those listings accurate will also prevent issues with customer experience. Inconsistent NAP information, such as mismatched addresses or outdated phone numbers, can frustrate customers and create a poor impression of your dealership.
Don’t risk losing search rankings or upsetting your customers. Keep those business listings accurate so that when someone needs to contact you, they aren’t sent on a wild goose chase that ends with them at one of your competitors stores.
Download our free guide to auditing your online business listings to see if your current listings are accurate.
Accuracy Increases Visibility
The correlation between locations with complete and accurate listings and those with major visibility gains is shockingly high. In fact, the top 10% most accurate locations had 18 times the search visibility compared to those with the least accurate information.
Higher visibility drives more engagement in search results. Higher engagement means more leads. It’s a direct line from accurate and complete business profiles—in GBP and anywhere else your store appears—to more business and higher profits.
The top 10% most accurate locations had 18 times the search visibility compared to those with the least accurate information.
Providing customers with timely and accurate information in their searches is critical to your success. But keeping up with all those listings is incredibly challenging and time consuming due to the sheer amount of moving parts involved. Staying on top of the wide variety of listings your dealership appears in can be daunting, but there are tools available that can make it simple for you.
While there are a variety of listings management tools available, you need one built from the ground up specifically for car dealerships. One that can take the guesswork out of maintaining the accuracy of all your listings, whether you’re a single rooftop or have a group of stores.
Listings Manager Is Your Solution
Listings Manager, available exclusively from DealerOn, will save you time, money, and ultimately, grow your local search rankings. By syndicating your critical contact information across a wide variety of directories, Listing Manager automatically keeps your business listings accurate and up-to-date.
Listings Manager gives you the power to quickly and easily manage all your critical business listings simultaneously, directly from the DealerOn platform.
With Listings Manager, you can create and sync your store’s contact information and hours across all major marketing channels, including Google Business Profile, Facebook, Bing, Yelp, Apple Maps, and many more. Gain access to advanced analytics, including Google Performance Report, Location Scoring System, Local Search Engagement, and Google Search Analytics. You’ll never have to wonder if you’re missing out on valuable search rankings or if your customers have access to accurate contact information.
Listing creation, syndication, and accuracy are just one piece of the local SEO value Listings Manager brings to your dealership. With Listings Manager you gain access to a wide array of reputation management and social media features to bolster your local SEO strength:
- Monitor customer reviews on major channels such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, and Apple. Directly respond to reviews on Google, Facebook, and ReviewBuilder.
- Show customer reviews directly on your DealerOn website. Choose which channels and specific reviews you want to feature and place them anywhere.
- Interact with your social networks, schedule posts, publish and answer on Google Q&A, monitor hashtags, and track engagement metrics all from your Listings Manager app.
Schedule Your Listings Manager Demo
Listings Manager gives you a single source of truth where you can manage your critical business information wherever it might appear online. All of your information is guaranteed to remain accurate and consistent across every platform. And best of all, your SEO gets the shot in the arm you need in the highly-competitive battle for local search dominance.
Schedule your Listings Manager demo today. We’d love to show you how Listings Manager can take your dealership’s local SEO to the next level.
