Google my Business Cleans Up the Dealer Search Platform
If you’ve been following the buzz in search marketing these past few weeks, then you’ve likely heard the news about Google’s new suite of tools, Google my Business.
Because of its rather apt and obvious name, you can probably guess that this Google’s new system to help ordinary Joes everywhere (observe: the lower-case M) organize and run their online marketing, all in one place.
Well, you’re right!
After having to put up with managing multiple, competing profiles through recent years in Google Places, Google+, and Google+ Local, dealers can now organize everything they need in one spot. (One site, one login, one password—hmm, where have we heard that before?…)
Source: Google.com
Goodbye Google Places
Gone is Google Places, useful at one time, but now shed like training wheels for this maturing search engine.
In case you don’t remember, this was the little box in the top margins of your Google search results that listed your name, phone number, and a map to help find you, littered with a load of lettered red tabs that may or may not have had to do with your dealership.
Now that your memory has been refreshed, look forward to someday reading a BuzzFeed article about “21 Hilarious Internet Search Results Pages that’ll Totally Make You Nostalgic for 2010 (Number 17 is so true!!).”
Things look little rosier now. All your SEO juice will be, um, concentrated in a clean, straightforward, and user-friendly platform. Look forward to posting general information, photos, and even include a virtual tour of the inside of your dealership, as well as automatically tracking website insights with these tools, such as clicks and new followers.
The Google my Business user interface now combines these six search elements in one system:
That’s right—all your AdWords data, analytics statistics, SEO-boosting social media, and dealer videos in one place.
Q: Why?
A: To get you higher visibility and “curb appeal” in Google searches, maps, and Google+. So make those dealership selfies extra chic!
Source: Google.com
Reviews
Perhaps the most welcome change of the bunch: all of your online reviews collected and compiled in one spot. Save your marketing manager the time it takes to scan each and every entry from their bookmarked folder of online review sites, and have all of those linked reviews at your fingertips, instantly.
We all know that reviews are time sensitive; you want to know what people are saying about you, when they are saying it. Not two or three days later.
Locate, review, respond, neutralize.
Turn slighted customers into happy ones, and have your happy ones post reviews on the third-party sites that people are actually following in your area. Yep, Google my Business lets you discover this, too.
Source: Google.com
Mobile Access
The Android app has just been released, and its iOS counterpart is not far behind; screenshots of both apps look promising so far. This means that not only can you manage your search marketing campaign at the office, but on the go, wherever you have access to your cellphone or tablet. Just don’t be obvious about it in the bathroom.
Let Us Keep You Informed
You trust Strathcom Media to keep you up to date with the latest online automotive tech trends; trust us with Google my Business, too.
If you have any questions, or if you need to be advised on setting up you Google my Business profile, contact your Strathcom representative and prevail in local search, today!
Stay tuned for a post on How to use the new Google my Business.
EAT (Authority), Google My Business (GMB), Off-Page SEO Tactics
