Jeff Kershner

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@georgenenni continues to find more and more enlightening ways to look at Google My Business for dealers. It also doesn’t hurt that he just released his second version of his book: A Car Dealer's Guide to Google My Business.

We will go into the real world looking at how dealerships can best to set up their GMB while using GMBSpy to pin point the best categories to utilize.

Download the latest version of GMBSpy for Chrome plugin - https://www.generationsdigital.com/gmbspy
Purchase the latest edition of A Car Dealers Guide to Google My Business - http://bit.ly/GMB-Book

We go LIVE on Facebook tomorrow (Friday) at 1pm est. - https://www.facebook.com/dealerrefresh


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Morning Refreshers~! & George!

When discussing our Google My Business Listings with our agency this morning, they were not in favor of us having multiple listings for all the departments within the dealership. This has been a "Best Practice" for what seems like the last year, when did it change? I created ours last year during the Automotive Analytics and Attribution conference....do I delete the additional department listings now?

This was the response I received from our agency:

"We cannot control which GMB listing will fire with which query, reviews are split, potentially harming reputation and SEO, for Paid Search, only 3 location extensions are allowed per account; not a strategy we can leverage via paid, and logistically difficult to manage; there is no central GMB portal allowing for more potential for inconsistent/incorrect GMB listings.

You are better off with one GMB for the dealership and we can include whatever you would like within the one GMB listing. There is the offerings and categories section which will tell Google that if some one searches for used cars, to show your listing. "
 
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Morning Refreshers~! & George!

When discussing our Google My Business Listings with our agency this morning, they were not in favor of us having multiple listings for all the departments within the dealership. This has been a "Best Practice" for what seems like the last year, when did it change? I created ours last year during the Automotive Analytics and Attribution conference....do I delete the additional department listings now?

This was the response I received from our agency:

"We cannot control which GMB listing will fire with which query, reviews are split, potentially harming reputation and SEO, for Paid Search, only 3 location extensions are allowed per account; not a strategy we can leverage via paid, and logistically difficult to manage; there is no central GMB portal allowing for more potential for inconsistent/incorrect GMB listings.

You are better off with one GMB for the dealership and we can include whatever you would like within the one GMB listing. There is the offerings and categories section which will tell Google that if some one searches for used cars, to show your listing. "
Hey @Jenna Popp I would run in the opposite direction as your agency doesn't seem up for the task, and will likely not execute around a plan they don't support. They are not performing searches, looking at how local SEO is evolving, and then giving you the best advice (which may not be their easiest path). I'm glad to recommend some alternative vendors that will execute with this new approach, email me ([email protected]). Here's some data behind my recommendations. Try some local Google searches and see who is appearing in your market "Car repair near me", "Body shop near me", "Brake repair near me". Most likely you will find dealership Service GMBs, or Body Shop GMBs. If you take this agency's advice, your single listing will not appear, and your competitors who built out there department pages will show up. We are doing this and seeing the results for dealers every day. Local SEO is all about departmental GMBs. Here's another test you can do, try these queries "Bakery near me", "Deli near me", "Pharmacy near me", you will see Walmart's department pages appearing in map pack and maps search results. If Walmart took your agency's advice, they would be limited to 10 GMB categories, and would have to choose what they want to show up for. Likely only "Grocery near me" or "Department store near me".