Digital Dealer - October 2019 - 36

M A R K E T ING & ADVERT ISING: SEO/SEM

By George Nenni
Founder & Principal Consultant,
Generations Digital

4 Secrets for
Google My
Business Success
If you've ever searched
for a business online,
you've experienced Google
My Business. Google My
Business (GMB) is every
dealership's most important
secondary website. Why do
I say this? 100 percent of
the time you search for a
dealership on Google, their
GMB appears at the top of
the search results page.
Think of GMB as the dealerships white/yellow page
listing on the internet. Best
of all...it's free!
Now many dealers
already know this, and are
paying some attention to
their GMB listing, primarily as it relates to Google
Reviews. These dealerships use companies like
Podium or Reputation.com
to help manage their online
reputation and respond to
the occasional negative
review. However, there is
much more regular work
that needs to be done on
a dealership's GMB page.
We recommend GMB care
and feeding weekly, or at
the very least monthly. Part
of the reason dealers need
to regularly revisit the GMB
page is that Google has
been fairly active in launching new features.
Dealerships should rec36

OCTOBER 2019

ognize that adding content
to their GMB page will
feed directly into Google's
Knowledge Graph. What
is a Knowledge Graph? It
is everything that Google
knows about a particular
dealership, for instance
what products and services
they offer, what geographic
areas they service, etc.
Here is a list of four (4)
of the most commonly
ignored secret ways to feed
Google's Knowledge Graph,
and how dealerships can
unlock all of the free goodness that GMB has to offer.
Each of these four are located in the main "Info" tab
of the Google My Business
admin page:
1. Business Description
- While this may seem like
basic blocking and tackling,
I am shocked by how many
dealership GMB Descriptions are blank. I recently
audited a few dozen new
dealership GMB listings and
90 percent of their business
descriptions were empty.
This is an easy fix, and
a good time to revisit the
dealership's "Why Buy?".
Additionally, since the business description will feed
information directly to Google's Knowledge Graph, it
is critical to include (but not

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

overstuff) some keywords in
the description.
2. Categories - These are
predetermined descriptors
a dealership can choose
to properly categorize their
business. Keep in mind a
dealership can choose up
to 10 categories, and the
order of the category listing
is important. A new car
dealership should start with
their branded category (i.e.
"Chevrolet Dealer"), and
then follow that with 9 other
appropriate categories.
Here is an example of the
10 categories a Chevrolet
dealer might choose (in
order): Chevrolet dealer,
Car dealer, Used car dealer,
Truck dealer, Tire Shop,
Brake Shop, Car repair and
maintenance, Car service,
Muffler shop, Battery store.
3. Services - Once a
dealer has chosen the
proper categories, they can
then go into the "Services"
section to choose services
within each category. These
services are created by
Google based on the categories that were chosen.
For instance, the above
category of "Car repair and
maintenance" allows the
dealer to choose service
such as "Air & Cabin Filter",
"Body & Trim", "Air condi-

tioning", and so on. This
allows Google to know
more about the more
granular fixed operations
services offered at the
store.
4. Amenities - This
is another area where
Google creates potential
data points, but it is up to
the dealership to approve
them. Google automatically creates various
Amenities based on their
Knowledge Graph about
the dealership. During
periodic review of the
GMB page, the dealership should approve any
amenity categories that
Google has suggested.
Keep in mind that a dealer
can only approve suggested amenities, they cannot
add custom ones. Typical
amenities Google might
create would include:
"24-hour service drop-off",
"Certified factory-trained
technicians", or "Free cost
estimates."
The amount of effort
outlined in this article is
minimal, and the impact for a dealership is
significant. Dealerships
should assign an internal
resource to care for and
feed their Google My
Business on a weekly or
monthly basis. Shoot me
an email with any questions or additional ideas!
GEORGE NENNI is founder
and principal consultant
with Generations Digital,
helping automotive
dealers reduce waste and
improve the efficiency of
their digital marketing and
advertising. EMAIL: george@
generationsdigital.com
http://www.Reputation.com http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Digital Dealer - October 2019

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