Why Your Dealership Needs Separate Google Profiles for Each Department

If your car dealership has only one Google My Business profile, you’re probably missing out. You can have multiple listings for your location.

Most dealers are missing out on easy search wins by using just one Google Business Profile. Setting up separate profiles for your sales, service, parts, and collision departments can get you ranking for way more searches. It makes sense to split these things up and get noticed more in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) on Google, but how do you do this without violating Google’s rules?

Google gives you permission

Since 2020, Google has permitted new car dealerships to have multiple listings on Google My Business, ensuring you can have separate Google profiles for each of your departments. This means you can have a listing for your sales, service, parts, and any other department you might have. Before this time, Google restricted all businesses to one unique listing for each physical location, but that changed at the beginning of the decade. Unfortunately, the same rules don’t apply to used car dealerships, which must use one listing for their location regardless of departments.

Customer search alignment

Why would Google allow any company to have several business listings for the same physical location? It seems like this is simply giving that dealership an unfair advantage over other businesses, but that’s not the case. This change aligns a new car dealership with the different ways that customers search for what they need. This means a service department is listed separately from the sales department. It allows improved visibility depending on what customers are looking for, such as oil changes or collision centers. If your dealership hasn’t taken advantage of this change, although it’s been around for five years, it’s time to create multiple listings for each department.

The benefits of multiple Google My Business Listings

Your new car dealership should take advantage of the ability to have several listings based on various departments. Here are some of the benefits of these multiple listings:

Increased Visibility

Branded searches have increased dramatically, and customers are looking for specific vehicles and experts to service and repair them. Multiple listings allow your customers to find your dealership and the services you offer more easily. These listings allow dealerships to include the specific brand in the name and primary category for each listing. The name and primary category impact whether a listing will appear as a result of a Google search.

Better Management of Online Reputation

Each department of your dealership can receive reviews and ratings from customers thanks to the multiple Google My Business listings. This allows each department to utilize its reviews to increase online visibility, and for dealership managers to focus on the department that has the lowest review scores. A dealership can flag issues and identify strengths more easily with each department separated by a business profile listing, which means they receive separate reviews.

Individual Brand Support

Each automotive brand has an online branded personality. Dealerships can have difficulty matching this personality when limited to only one business profile listing. In these instances, each brand is allowed a Google My Business profile, allowing the listing to align with the website structure and the automotive brand’s online personality. You could have several brands under one roof, such as:

• Ford and Lincoln
• Chevrolet and Cadillac
• Hyundai and Genesis
• Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and Chrysler

Business Hours Differences

When a car dealership has multiple business profiles, each department can list its hours of operation separately, which allows them to be independent of each other. The service and parts department might have different operating hours than the sales department, and that can be listed on the profile. It can be frustrating to customers and the dealership to list operating hours for the dealership but not for each department based on the business needs of the dealership.

What challenges do multiple listings provide?

Having several Google My Business profiles can cause some challenges as well. Here are a few of them and how to solve each one.

Reviews are diluted

Multiple listings improves visibility for your dealership and you have several ways to get reviews that are specific to each department, but your number of reviews will be lower for each department. This makes it more difficult to build a large volume of reviews compared to a dealership with only one listing. Using a review request strategy that increases the number of reviews can help.

Sometimes Google flags separate listings as duplicates

You want to have consistency across your listings, but when you do, you run the risk of Google flagging your listings as duplicated. Once this happens, your listing won’t be displayed on Google Maps, which can be a problematic. This means there should be some significant differences between each listing, including images, phone numbers, and business information.

New car dealerships can operate and offer multiple Google My Business profiles and increase visibility across SERPs. This allows them to be seen by more customers who can find the services they need to purchase, service, and finance vehicles. Google has allowed this for five years, and if your dealership isn’t taking advantage of it, you’re missing out. Follow Google’s instructions for creating an automotive business listing for each profile and let your business enjoy greater visibility.