What Separates Top Auto Dealerships on Google: Insights from Our GBP Study

If you’re a dealership owner or marketing manager trying to outrank competitors in local search, this one’s for you.

In our recent webinar, What Separates Top Auto Dealerships on Google, I revealed data-driven insights from our study analyzing thousands of Google Business Profiles (GBPs) across the U.S.

Whether you missed the live session or want the highlights, here’s a clear, actionable recap. And if you’d like to dive deeper, watch the full webinar on demand to see how I walked through the real data, screenshots, and examples.

Key Takeaways

• Local SEO for auto dealerships isn’t just about keywords and it’s about proximity, reputation, and consistency across platforms.
• Google Business Profile optimization remains the #1 driver of visibility for car dealers in local search results.
• Top performers post updates weekly, respond to every review, and maintain accurate hours, photos, and inventory info.
• Category selection, website link quality, and GBP completeness directly correlate with better map rankings.
• Dealers who treat Local SEO as a monthly discipline (not a set-it-and-forget-it task) win the long game.

What the Data Shows About High-Performing Dealers

Our study analyzed thousands of dealership Google Business Profiles across brands, markets, and regions to find patterns in who’s showing up most often in the “Local 3-Pack.”

The goal wasn’t to prove a theory but to let the data tell the story.

And it told us something clear:
Top-ranking dealerships don’t always have the biggest budgets, but they consistently manage their local presence better.

They treat their GBP as an active marketing asset, not a digital business card.

Why Google Business Profile Optimization Is the Real Differentiator

Every dealer wants to rank higher, but auto dealer SEO doesn’t start with your website, it starts with your Google Business Profile.

Think of your GBP as your dealership’s digital front door. It’s often the first impression shoppers get before they ever click through to your site.

We found that the most successful dealers:

• Keep accurate business categories (primary and secondary) updated
• Use UTM-tagged URLs to track GBP traffic
• Add inventory photos regularly (not just stock images)
• Post weekly updates with genuine local relevance

Even small updates like updating your holiday hours, highlighting service specials, or featuring your staff  send quality signals to Google.

If you’re working with a marketing partner, make sure GBP optimization is a standing agenda item, not a quarterly audit.

Local SEO for Auto Dealerships Is About Trust, Not Tricks

The webinar also underscored a bigger truth: Local SEO success for auto dealers comes from trust signals, not quick hacks.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Accurate info across all directories. Name, address, and phone consistency (NAP) is still foundational.
• Customer engagement matters. Responding to every review, good or bad, shows activity and reliability.
  
• On-site SEO still matters. Linking your GBP to a fast, mobile-friendly site with optimized title tags and local content gives you an edge.

Dealers that balance technical optimization with genuine customer connection win both in rankings and in conversions.

What This Means for Your Dealership

If your dealership isn’t showing up in the local map pack, it’s most likely not because Google has it out for you. It's because the competition is taking care of the details you’ve overlooked.

The dealerships dominating Google aren’t guessing. They’re running structured, consistent Local SEO programs backed by data, not just keywords.

By investing in Google Business Profile optimization and aligning it with your broader auto dealer SEO strategy, you can attract more qualified buyers right when they’re ready to make a decision.

Video Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining me here. I'm gonna give another minute or two for some folks to, join as well. So we'll get started here in just a few seconds.

I feel like I should have, make this look like one of those newsroom desks right where you see the, the anchors, and they're just kinda talking and writing stuff, and, I could fill the time a little bit better. But like I said, we're gonna give folks just a few more seconds to filter in, and then we'll get started. So, what today is gonna accomplish is, first, I'm gonna set the stage in the context of why we even really did this study. Right?

So, you know, I know the search ecosystem is changing, and you're hearing a lot of buzzwords, and there's a lot of shiny objects and bold promises. And then we're gonna dive into some of the actual true data points of GBPs ranking number one versus ranking tenth. And we'll kinda also give you some background information about how this was conducted. So the why, the how, and the what.

So I'm gonna give a few more seconds, and we're gonna go ahead and get started. So thanks for joining us here today.

Some more folks filtering in. Alright.

Well, as more join, they'll join in the midst of, what we're talking about. I don't wanna punish anyone else for other folks being tardy. So let's talk about what separates top auto dealerships in Google with regards to Google Business Profiles.

If you don't know me, my name is Dane Seville. I'm SearchLab's director of brand experience.

I'm the former director of SEO here. I also cofounded my own, agency with, friends. That agency still exists today. I'm a former director of content, oversaw content for a thirty three store group.

So I've been involved, with automotive for about fifteen years, and I have the, pleasure and the honor to to speak across the globe on SEO and content. So, you know, background in SEO, background in automotive, love this industry. So thanks for joining me. As I said, we're gonna cover some things to give you the context of everything.

Right? So the why. So you've probably been hearing a lot about AI overviews and LLMs and all these different things happening. And I conducted my own study outside of this.

In fact, I'm gonna meet with our director of marketing, Ashley, later this week to kind of talk about how we can kind of present these data findings in the form that we did with this GBP study. But just know that in the study I conducted regarding AI, when it comes to transactional search, only about ten percent of transactional searches. So near me for sale, you know, city state, other modifiers in which they indicate an interest in actually looking at vehicles to buy, ten point five percent average. So still ninety percent of of search results that people see in automotive car searches, transactional, ninety percent.

Still the ten blue links in local pack triggering. So GDP is as important as it's ever been. So then also, just for extra context, ranges based on the market you're in. So for example, here in Pensacola, Florida, for the brands that I looked at for transactional searches, well, there's only one dealership that represents several of the brands I looked at.

So because there's only one dealership within within fifty miles of me, Google produced an AI overview at a much larger percentage than a Dallas market. Because in Dallas, there are multiple dealerships representing each brand. So what Google is doing is is is trying to satisfy my search by saying, look. Here's this dealership in your market, but here are your alternatives that might be outside the scope of where you might traditionally look, but it wants to give you those options.

So it's trying to personalize that search for where I'm at. But still, it was only about twenty percent total. So still, even in a smaller market, it's still eighty percent plus, of of of traditional search results triggering.

AI overview. So GBPs, in that study, I found that GBPs are actually being used as citations. So the the your GBP instead of just your website can be one of the citations in an AI overview. So when you talk about that zero click feature, when you talk about what data points and how you feed these information systems, GBPs are used, which well, that leads me to this.

LLMs, GVPs can be part of outputs and things like chat GPT. So, yes, there is disruption. Yes. Things are changing, but, yes, still, your website, your GBP is still a vital, a critical asset, in all of what you're doing for search.

So let's talk about the how.

We took six dealership keywords, Chevy dealer, Ford dealer, Toyota dealer, Kia dealer, Jeep dealer, used car dealer. We applied that to twenty different US cities just to get different, market trends and ideas, aggregate a larger dataset so that way we could really share a robust insight with you.

And of course, that yielded two thousand two hundred and sixty sales, primary sales Google Business Profile. So, again, this study focused on your primary, your main sales GBP as we looked at all of the data points.

We used Ahrefs for backlink and visibility data, and then we also wanted to understand and make sure we talk about some of the more important ranking factors. So there's white spark local search, factors report, you know, for individual wait points. They're in the study. I'm not gonna share them here.

Just know that we wanted to pull out some of the most important aspects of of of what influences not just ranking. We looked at ranking factors, but also conversion factors. Because let's be honest, especially as more and more people talk about zero click search, adoption of LLMs that don't have traditional ranking. Right?

You don't rank in an LLM like ChatGPT. You know, we wanna make sure that we're talking about, all the most important things, again, that that continue to influence, all these different systems.

So I don't wanna just talk about, you know, all of just the necessarily the differences. I even wanted to make sure we hit on some of the similarities between number one and number ten because, well, that just kinda reinforces the true importance of all of it that, you know, we're we're we're making sure that even just the fundamentals are being addressed. So let's go ahead and and dive into some of that. So profile setup.

So this is a ranking factor. Are the profiles claimed by the dealership? Right? So number tenth ranking, a hundred percent.

Number one, a hundred percent. So thank God that we're seeing that, you know, dealerships are owning their assets. Like, right, claiming their assets, that that can, you know, influence visibility. You know, that's why the so what?

Right? An unclaimed profile can't be fully managed. Right? Can't edit, can't make posts, can't review, respond to reviews, and that, of course, puts you at an immediate disadvantage.

So making sure that you have that single profile sales profile claimed. In that way, you can start making updates that influence visibility. Right? Social media, conversion factor.

Right? Are there social media links on the profile? For those ranking number ten, ninety three percent. Number one, ninety eight percent.

Right? So still there is a there is a degree of variance here. Right? But ninety three to ninety eight, I wasn't gonna bucket this into something being drastically different.

And, you know, so what? Well, social media links reinforce credibility.

Give customers more ways to engage. So make sure that you have your socials linked. But a caveat to that, Make sure the social's linked. You're using them.

There have been oftentimes where I'm looking at a GBP, and it's not necessarily part of the audit that we conduct at SearchLab for for folks, but, you know, I included as a note. Like, hey. Look. You have x linked in your GBP, and it's not even it's never been used.

There's not a single tweet or x. I don't know what the language is. But, you know, make sure you're leveraging that. But also remember, social media, more and more social media, being part of Google's index, seeing posts and reels from different platforms.

Right? So make sure that, hey. Look. It it can it can show up alongside your website links.

Right? But it's also an opportunity for people to see the experience they're gonna have at your dealership. See the lot. See happy customers.

See the folks they're gonna give their business to. So make sure you're leveraging these other platforms in smart strategic ways. And also, well, hey, that also helps feed more data points to all those different, know, AI systems that are out there. So make sure, yep, you have them linked, but only have make sure the ones that are linked are ones that you actively use, so make sure you have those strategies in place.

Google posts, again, not a ranking factor, a conversion factor.

How many Google posts per month are published?

Number tenth ranked about two posts per month. Number one, three posts per month. Again, hey. One more.

I don't wanna put that into a bucket of difference, because, well, it's off by one. Right? So but so what? Well, you know, here's the deal.

Regular posting helps you stand out from your competitors.

It helps drive pre site conversions. So position one dealers do post more often than those in position ten. Understand that here's an average. Right? Dealerships average just under four posts monthly. So, again, posts are an opportunity to Remember, your website is the only place your competitor's inventory is not.

So you don't have to necessarily reinvent the wheel or go overboard with strategizing on Google posts, but the juice is worth the squeeze that if we can drive some more folks through from the GBP to your website, that's an important, conversion point. But then even though they're not a direct ranking factor, if you drive highly engaged traffic from your GBP through to your website and that user scrolls and clicks and and discovers more information and goes on other pages on your site, all those signals are a ranking signal. Right? So let's drive more people strategically through whether it's post about sales at your dealership, posting about the experience at your dealership.

Or, hey. I can say use analytics. Right? Be data driven in your decision making. Where are people having where do you have the most highly engaged sessions on your website?

What content are people engaging with? How can we parlay that into a, like, a visual media rich Google post that we can hopefully drive more highly engaged sessions through to the website. So think strategically about not just, you know, just posting for the sake of posting, just like don't produce content for the sake of producing content.

Think strategically about how you can provide real value to real consumers that generate real results for your dealership.

Website link. Ranking signal. Is there a website link on the profile number ten? Hundred percent.

Ranked number one. Hundred percent. Thank god we found that. Right? Whoo. Didn't have your website linked.

That'd be a problem. So, again, fundamentals. Yes. Hopefully, since we're seeing a hundred percent really across the board, you're not you're not an outlier, to that.

So so what? Right? Customers need to see your site to decide if they want to buy from you or service with you.

Fifty four profiles in the study didn't list the website. So outside of just the scope of, you know, number one versus number ten, just holistically out of those two thousand two hundred and sixty profiles, fifty four didn't have, didn't list the website. So, you know, it does happen. So that's why we still included information like that despite seeing the one hundred percent in the tenth and first ranked positions.

Average rating, Ranking signal. Right?

Rating of of of your GBP and and review count. Review rating and review count, both important signals. What is the average Google rating from those Google business profile reviews? Tenth ranked, four point three.

Ranked first, a four point four. We kinda see that the real kinda like golden area of around that four point six, four point seven. You're gonna go, Dane, I want a five point o. Just understand that, you know, that that could look spammy, especially if a bunch of people who never left a review before and all they leave is just five stars and no context.

It's not bad to have bad reviews. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but what matters is that you respond to the negative reviews in a way that shows you're trying to bring a resolution for the customer that benefits the customer. So your review responses aren't really necessarily just for that person. It's for everybody.

Everybody who's going to see that it's a public relations play. You wanna demonstrate that you care about every experience everyone has. So think about where your rating is compared to, number one, number ten, and where you are with, you know, sort of that golden, you know, sort of the Goldilocks zone of four point six, four point seven. So think about those ratings.

Think about your review responses as well. So so what rate ratings matter?

I said four point six, four point seven. The study said four point four and four point seven. When, you know, in my sort of discussion there, I want a little bit more narrow because I wanna push the bar a little bit further. But according to the study, you know, four point four to four point seven.

That helps balance trust and that visibility. So, again, trust for people, visibility for those search engines. Right? And then also, again, when we go go back to talking about how LLMs like Chatuchite can use Google Business Profiles, guess what triggers when you type in things like best?

You know? So there's different sort of comparative terms. A lot of what the outputs use are things like Google Business Profile ratings to determine best. Right?

It's not throwing best in the title tag to to prove that you're best or that the search engine or LLM then thinks you're the best. It's really, truly, are you providing that cut level of customer service that gets you the user generated affirmation that you are indeed a really good reputable organization within your market. So let's talk about the different. Right now, here's where we're gonna get into the differences between number one and number ten, and this is probably gonna be where everyone here, listening live or listening, post, will really kind of go, okay.

Like, now I get it. Like, here here's where we need to maybe do some work. So let's dive into the differences between those number one and number tenth ranking. So categories.

So categories are a ranking factor. They're one of the top ranking factors, for Google Business Profiles. So how many unique primary categories were found? Meaning, that primary category, how many times did we see something different, something unique, from other dealers of, like, the same brand?

So how many times have we seen unique primary categories? And, of course, if you're a Chevy dealer, primary category typically should be Chevy, Toyota. Right? If, if you're the only brand in that market, you could do used and then secondary your brand.

But, again, now we're getting now we're splicing hairs here. But just generally speaking in these larger markets, right, it should be your brand as your primary category. So number tenth ranked, we saw fifteen different unique primary categories found. Right?

So that's, you know, kind of problematic because we're going outside the scope of what really truly represents the business. Remember, Google policy. Right? Google's policy for Google Business Profile categories is that you have the right categories chosen.

Right? You choose you know, up to ten, but all of them that are most relevant. And as a franchise dealership, your franchise dealership, you should have nine or ten categories chosen because there are nine or ten categories directly relevant to your business.

So but narrowing scaling that back, coming back here to the point of unique primary categories, your primary category should be most reflective, most relevant, most accurate about what your business is. Ranked number one, we saw nine. So think. We had six different keywords that we looked at, right, etcetera.

So nine. So we still saw some outliers. Right? It still went beyond the scope of the expectation.

But, you know, that's just showing that the more consistent you are and aligned with The true accuracy of business description from nomenclature to categories, etcetera, really does matter. So, you know, so what? Well, the primary category is, the most influential for dealerships. Right?

Ranking number one.

As I said, we should have seen only six because we had six, you know, primary keywords we're looking at. So dealers should have either selected brand dealer or, like I said, used car dealer as their primary category. You know? But nineteen unique primary categories that many dealers are are are selecting incorrect categories.

So not only does that really break Google policy in terms of setting up your Google business profile, you are diluting your ability to be visible in search. So, again, when we talk about optimizing every opportunity we can to get in front of the right type of shopper, choosing that right primary category is important. So, you know, I would challenge when is the last time that if you were a dealer, you went in and and looked at your categories that are selected. Oftentimes even did an audit earlier today.

A CDJR dealer had, Buick as a as a secondary category.

Buick for CDJR dealership. Auto body, you know, auto repair. Right? Or body shop. Auto repair.

So, you know, there are they're oftentimes service categories selected for dealers in their sales category. That's bad. Right? You're diluting the core fundamental of what is your sales GBP about.

And you don't want to sort of conflate or or or obfuscate or deliver the wrong GBP when people are searching for service. And why is that? Well, because every time we make a customer have to click or apply filters or scroll or continue to navigate to find what they wanted to get to their destination, the more opportunity they have to bounce off the site, leave engaging with the dealer. And so making sure the right you know, the service or parts category surface for service or parts searches, well, the GBP is deep linked to your, right, your service center page. You can have your appointments link, in there. It's the right phone number, right hours of operation. So we're we're we're delivering the consumer directly to where they want to be instead of they get the homepage link on the sales site, they get there, and they gotta navigate the service, etcetera, etcetera.

Remove friction points. And so SEO is the devil's in the details. Right? There is no silver bullet.

It's a game of aggregate. It's applying best practices on every asset you have consistently. So let's make sure that, you know, you go in and task your agency, task your internal team, what categories do we have chosen, and why. Why are why are you why are you sure they're relevant?

Also, make sure that they have a cadence of checking for new categories. Google does add new categories, as they get more precise, and so there might be new categories expanded upon as as as search behaviors and even industries change. So make sure that there are at least some periodic checks to make sure that there's not anything missing. I I've seen recently more recently, you know, EV.

Right? EV dealer. It'd be a dealership that has literally EVs in their main navigation. They don't have EV dealer selected as a category.

So, again, a more recent update because of changing, changes in the industry and and search behaviors, so make sure you have those audited. So I probably talked more than I needed to about your categories. Right? Vehicles for sale.

Conversion opportunity. Again, this is a place where, right, anytime we can surface your inventory and people can see what you have available and they can get those vehicle details and we can remove more clicks, It's important important conversion opportunity. So how many did not have vehicles for sale on the profile?

Number tenth ranked, thirty one percent. Thirty one percent did not have vehicles for sale on the profile. Ranked number one, thirteen percent. So pretty big difference in percentages there. So a greater amount of those dealerships ranking number one have vehicles for sale on their profile. So again, caveat with that is it's not saying if you don't have vehicles for sale now and you add it all of sudden, you're definitely gonna rank number one. I'm right.

None of that is none none of these are saying that. Again, it's not one single thing. It's about, okay. We're trying to identify what consistently do those ranked number one do.

Let's let's mirror. Let's make sure that's being done because that gives you a better chance at that ranking. So again, caveat. There's no promise, no silver bullet.

But again, we see consistently ranked number one vehicles for sale on that profile. And let's be honest, even if, like, it weren't a conversion factor, even if the numbers we own were similar, it's still important to make sure consumers can see those vehicles, that inventory. So so what? Twenty nine percent of the dealerships in the study did not have vehicles for sale displayed on their GBP.

So Google add that almost eight years ago called cars cars for sale, at one point in time. And so, you know, research proves that, you know, vehicles for sale can have a big influence on those GBB conversions. So, again, we're talking about, hey. Like, you know, traffic, you know, zero click search traffic.

We wanna shift the conversation and really should have been for a long time more about conversions.

So anytime we can get a conversion from a potential customer, you know, get that lead to turn them into a buyer, we wanna make sure we have that opportunity. So vehicles for sale clearly demonstrates that you can get more of those conversions and get real leads, not just vanity things. Right? Real actual people wanting to engage with your dealership.

Department listings. So making sure you have, you know, your at least, you know, your service and parts. Right? Service and parts, built in and nested, in that main, sales, GDP.

So how many how many GBPs did not have department, listings on their profile? So ranked number ten, forty eight percent. Almost half did not have any depart departments listed. Right?

Number one, it's thirty eight percent, ten percent difference.

Still clearly an issue that needs to be addressed. And like I said before, let's say it's not even let's say it's let's say that's a conversion factor instead of a ranking factor. Let's say let's even blow all that out the window. Again, it comes down to the consumer.

Right? I know we talk in SEO, we talk a lot about ranking and conversions, traffic, and all these other terms, impressions, whatever. But at the end of the day, needs to be about the consumer. Right?

No matter what no matter what aspect we're talking about, it's about people. It's about shoppers. And, again, those department listings help deliver the most relevant information for customers, for people. So forget about the algorithms.

Forget about Google. Think about the person and how you can ease their transition from search to conversion. Right? Search to, you know, the landing where they need to be to have the most likelihood of engagement.

So in separate profiles for service and parts, And the one thing I didn't talk about in in sort of, just my discussion here is it allows you to target more categories and appear in more searches. So when you think about the greater swath of the way that people look for things, having those categories, again, then you can dedicate all ten on your sales to sales related. You have those service segmented in your service.

You know, a lot of dealers still miss this easy win. So seeing in the data. Right? Even number one, thirty eight percent.

Make sure you have your departments created and nested within that main sales. Used car dealers rarely create service department profiles, you know, because most don't do. If we remove them from the data, it does drop to thirty six percent, but that still means one out of every three franchise dealerships still haven't set up a department GVP. So this is, again, really important.

Yes. Important for search, important for targeting more categories, important for being able to show up in a greater variety of searches. But, again, think about the person. You're trying to satisfy a need that they have.

And if they're looking for service or they're looking for parts, those listings better serve their needs.

Photos, a conversion, factor. Right? What was the average number of photos on the profile?

Number tenth ranked, three hundred and forty five photos on the profile. Number one ranked four hundred ninety nine. So a pretty more of a stark difference than that last of ten percent of forty eight percent, thirty eight percent. So a bit more of a difference here.

You know, photos are important again. You know, image searches, and you have, you know, showing off showcasing what people are gonna see right the experience they're gonna have. Well, you know, what are they gonna see when they come into the showroom? What what what are different areas of the interior of the dealership look like?

Identify, you know, the signage out front by the highway that you're located near, so they can kinda see the context of, you know, where you're located beyond just the address. They visually see it, you know, as well so they can spot you as they're hopefully not just staring at their GPS device. So, you know, photos are important for multiple reasons. And, it's it's consumer driven.

It's consumer oriented. We're thinking about the person and what they need to have to contextually understand why you why they should give you their business. So, again, another important point. Plus, freshness play freshness also plays a key role.

Right? Top dealers tend to have newer images thanks to both customer uploads and consistent updates.

Right? When photo gallery sit untouched for years, makes you look inactive, a little more untrustworthy, and that reduces customer engagement. Again, the keyword here is not algorithm. Right? The keyword here is customer. So customer engagement. We wanna make sure we do everything we can to engage every customer who sees our Google Business profiles.

Review count. So this was the difference. Right? Review rating, it was four point three and four point four.

Right? It was very close together. It was I kept it in the similar bucket. Right?

Review count, very different story. What is the average number of reviews on the profile? Ranked number tenth. An average of one thousand eight hundred and eighty five reviews.

Ranked number one, three thousand three hundred and eighty six. Pretty big difference. Now with that said, there is no magic number of, like, we're like, you know, like, oh, you had three thousand reviews. Right?

It's it's are you sourcing reviews more frequently than your competitors? Do you have more reviews than your competitors? So I don't wanna say take three thousand with a grain of salt, but it's like, that's not a threshold. Right?

That's not a threshold, but that demonstrates that holistically across this massive dataset of GBPs, more reviews clearly matter for how you rank. So it's it's not just us assuming that. It's not us, you know, you know, using intuition. Right?

We're confirming that with actual data points. So three thousand three hundred and eighty six to eighteen hundred and eighty five, pretty Big difference. So dealers ranking in position number one had nearly double the number of reviews compared to those at position at position ten. So, again, that confirms volume makes a difference.

Also, when you're getting those reviews, it's important to also, make sure you have a methodology. For our dealership partners, we always build a reviews page. And on that page, we directly link out to the different platforms that dealers are on, but we provide some context about how to leave a review. Right?

Some people have some consternation about leaving reviews because they don't know what to write. Maybe they're they feel, you know, insecure about how they write. So we give them some guidance. Right?

Like, you know, what vehicle did you buy? What service did you get? Who did you work with? Right?

Those details matter because there's a thing called review justifications. Meaning that if there is a review that has the exact sort of, like, keyword in the review that someone is searching for, that helps you with visibility. Not it doesn't help you with ranking, just overall, but it helps you with visibility showing up in that local pack for that particular search because Google is justifying through the review why they're showing your GBP. So don't just try to get five stars.

Get get whatever, you know, hopefully, four or five stars, with context, with pictures. That can also influence what shows natively in in most relevant. Right? When the GBB populates, it defaults to most relevant.

Right? Those things like those additional details, images in the review, those help help those reviews stay natively there in most relevant. She can kind of influence the narrative people automatically see without having to toggle through, you know you know, highest, lowest, etcetera. So most relevant, you build relevance through context.

And so ask for when you ask for those reviews, make sure, again, you have some methodology for guiding the customer for leaving a a well written review. Right?

Auto dealer schema. It's ranking factor. We we see it as, and and, you know, it it clearly helps delineate, you know, information for systems to understand that information. I know you're probably seeing a lot of debate out there on both sides of the fence about schema and LLMs, but let's be honest, when systems need to crawl data and there's a way to make the data delineated and and and with greater clarity for those systems to understand, I'm probably gonna air on the side of it's important. You know? So how many profiles were missing auto dealer schema markup?

Ranked number tenth, twenty three percent were missing auto dealer schema markup. Number one, eighteen percent. So a smaller degree of variance. Right?

But when you get to about five percent difference to me, that is a difference. Right? Five percent, like one percent, not not so much. Five percent more of a difference.

Now buyer beware. Right? Like, caveat to this as well. There can be schema, and and just because you have schema doesn't mean it's really the full schema markup.

Right? We'll often see missing details like geo coordinates or, you know, missing hours. Like, there there are a number of of attributes that you can build out.

So don't just go use a tool like SEO pro extension. Like, you just click. You're like, oh, it shows. Like, I have auto dealer schema.

Like, open that up and and look at the details. Look at the attributes because there are multiple pieces that you can put into that auto dealer schema. You know? And I see that often.

Again, in in the audits that we do for for folks, you know, is auto dealer schema on the site? Yes or no? Right? And we'll do yes.

Oftentimes, I'll make a note saying, look. You're missing a lot of a lot of a lot of the the relevant information. Like, you got credit for having the schema, but FYI, there's some work to be done there. So, you know, one out of, five dealership sites in the study didn't have the correct local business schema markup.

Again, schema sends a clear machine readable signal to Google about your dealership.

When schema, when the wrong schema is used, excuse me, when the wrong schema is used or when there's multiple types of, you know, auto dealer organization, etcetera, you know, or when auto dealer schema is missing entirely. So whether you have wrong schema, Too much schema. Right? Like, you need to only have the schema that is most appropriate.

Again, it's like choosing categories. Be deliberate. Be discerning. Be strategic. Don't get sloppy with it.

Right? Search engines get conflicting information. So wrong schema, duplicate duke duplicative sort of schema, missing schema, wrong schema. You're missing that that that information.

You're providing, conflicting information, and that can hold back your visibility. So make sure that things are are are cleaned up in in that in that markup. So, again but make sure you have it. Right?

First and foremost, make sure there's at least some of the the the fundamentals. Right? Even, like, the basic pieces, name, you know, local, business type IDs, things like that. But there's a lot more to flesh out beyond that as well.

So make sure you have it.

Homepage word count.

So we consider that, you know, included as a ranking factor because, you know, the more robustness of content you have, the the the greater variance of types of searches you're gonna show up for.

You know? I'll talk more about this after I share the stat. But what is the average word count on the dealership's Home page. So ranked number ten, about fifteen hundred words.

So fifteen twenty two average word count on the home page of the dealership That is ranked number ten. Ranked number one, one thousand six hundred and thirteen. So about a hundred more words, a bit more context, a bit more opportunities that maybe added another relevant heading. Again, not monumental difference, but still proving that, the correlation between context and and, you know, ranking.

Again, you don't want to and here's a caveat to this too. And and the study didn't dive into this, I'm just gonna share this. Right?

The the words and and the headings, everything need be relevant to the core topic. Right? Needs to be that core topic. And so all of the the you know, there's again, there's no magic word count. Right? There's no magic word count that you absolutely have to hit.

But time and time again, being proven that the more substantive, the more robust, the more precise, the more detailed you can be, Again, you capture the greater variance of the way that people search. And when you talk about things like LLMs where people go, well, in ChatGPT, you know, the average prompt is, know, like, fifty two words or twenty three words. I don't even know what the average is right now. But think about the even greater variance beyond Google.

And, well, our AI our AI overview study showed that on average, the average word count is about five. Right? So type in five words into the into Google. You know, LMs are greater, but just think about the greater variance you can capture by understanding not just the what people are searching for, but how they're searching for it.

And leveraging things like user generated content, mining your reviews, mining competitor reviews, leveraging, Reddit and Quora, using People Also Ask. You can either use, like, a a a scraper as a as a Chrome extension or you can use a tool like People Also Ask or Answer the Public. So, again, let's let's really dive more into, again, not just keywords in the what, but the how. Right?

More of the conversational aspects of it. So so what dealers rank in the top position generally had more balanced pages with both images and more meaningful content, more relevant content. So, again, caveat to just more. Make sure the more is relevant to the core topic of the page, and that you're not getting what I call fluff garbage, which you often see that on pages of content like new inventory page will be new new inventory page, and they'll talk about, you know, it's like service, and they'll have, like, two, three paragraphs dedicated to service.

Right? Make sure everything is is relevant to what brought that person to the website.

Inbound links.

Ranking factors. So, you know, there's people talk about the diminishing value links. Clearly, links still really matter. We know that.

What is the average number of inbound links to the website? Right number ten, two thousand nine hundred and twenty seven.

So that's the average number of inbound links. Number one, four thousand four hundred and thirty. So, yes, you're hearing conversations about brand mentions.

Yeah. Brand mentions are important. You wanna make sure that people are talking about your business, But don't leave this strategy behind. Right? Don't chase the shiny object. Yes. You want brand mentions, but don't leave behind other tried and true proven tactics that work.

Clearly, links, still do matter. So so what? Right? Dealers ranking in position one consistently had more inbound links and more unique referring domains than those at position position ten.

That confirms that links remain a powerful ranking factor. However, not all links are equal.

Dealership can have millions of spammy inbound links that may still struggle to rank compared to small compared to a dealership with a smaller number of relevant trusted and local links. So don't ignore local links as a local business that the local algorithm triggers to find results for people. So don't abandon that, initiative.

Keywords.

Conversion factor rank. What is the average number of keywords the dealership rank for? Number tenth, GBP ranked, you know, ranked for, one thousand eight hundred and fifty five. Number one, four thousand four hundred and fifty five. So, again, pretty big difference.

Seeing greater numbers of those keywords and rankings. So so what? The more relevant keywords a dealer ranks for, the more chances they have to capture chat traffic and generate conversions. Again, get to that wider swath of how people are searching for things, understanding both their explicit needs, so what did they actually type to find something, But then understand their implicit needs. What are the additional what are the additional questions, objections, concerns, needs? What are what are what are more questions they might have that they don't even know to necessarily ask yet?

And you build out that content based on that. Address the explicit need first and then build upon that with addressing implicit needs.

And sometimes that requires that there will be an implicit need that maybe is requisite of its own page of content.

And then you build that page of content and you interlink the two. Interlinking is a is a tactic that many agencies in automotive are really bad at. But then you interlink those two topically related pages of content that address similar but two different intents, two different needs.

You're building out a topical cluster of information.

Think topics, not keywords. I know these data points are about keywords. But, clearly, if you're ranking for more keywords, you're get those keywords are coming from more topical coverage.

So be be I I I say be the tour guide.

What do people need to know next, and where do they need to go next? Right? If you're writing an informational blog, I often see where that informational blog about, like, what are the new features of the Honda Civic? And the first link is to new Honda inventory.

Yeah. We do wanna get the consumer to Honda inventory, but does that make the most sense for their journey to to to have them further engage? It feels disingenuous and untrustworthy, right, if you just immediately try to get them to somewhere that you want them to go, not just where they need to go to to satisfy that search.

So, again, topical coverage, you get great greater numbers of keywords, greater topical coverage, greater opportunities to cover more land of of knowledge, and then build out a better informational architecture, informational hierarchy, informational interlinking, on your website as well.

And then let's narrow that down to top three. So keywords were they they're they're in the top three ranking. Right? So what is the average number of keywords the dealership ranked for in the top three organic positions? Number ten, fifty seven. Number one, a hundred and four. So about double.

Almost double top three ranking keywords. So, again, performance matters. I talk about, like let's not talk about, like like, ranking all the time. Ranking is one of many factors to consider.

It it is an indicator of success. But, again, making sure that we're talking about the right types of keywords and making sure that we're talking about the right types of topics. So but, again, still Double the number of top three organic positions.

Also in that AI overview study, did, forty percent of citations were in the top five and sixty percent in the top ten. So clearly also, when you talk about those higher funnels, issues where AI over AI over use trigger, you know, ranking plays a role there, too. So it's all about visibility. So again, what's the so what here dealers in position one ranked for more than twice as many keywords overall compared to those position ten? This shows that consistent optimizations across your GBP, website content, and technical factors expands keyword coverage. And that more keyword coverage again clearly indicates greater, topical coverage, which is much more important for where search is is evolving.

There were some anomalies. So there were some things that were unexpected surprises, but the some of these things are, you know, still best practices to make sure we're doing the best that we can here. So what are some of the anomalies?

Reviews. So conversion, how many reviews have no responses? So how many reviews on GPP had no responses? Number ten, seventeen percent. Ranked number one, thirty five percent.

Again, it's conversion on a ranking factor. But, again, like I said, review responses or public relations play. Responses are not just for that person, but even more importantly, for everyone else who's going to see that response. Make sure that you are responding. That is a best practice, but surprising to see that those ranked number one were worse at responding to reviews than those ranked number ten. So, you know, it's been best practice for years to respond to customer reviews. Surprising to see that nearly one out of five reviews had no owner response.

Schema. So how many dealers had more than one type of local business schema? Remember, just a little bit ago, I said, you know, there's the difference of of schema one to ten. You know, ranked number one, more often had, auto dealer schema.

And I said, you gotta be careful about the types of schema that you use. You need to be discerning. You just don't just stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff. You wanna provide that clarity and what matters most important.

So how many dealers have more than one type of local business schema?

Those ranked number ten, thirty percent. Those ranked number one, thirty three percent. So not a huge difference, but still shocking that the number was that high regardless of number one or number ten. So, you know, again, when the wrong scheme is used, it's missing. They get search engine get conflicting information. And as Google rolls out more AI powered search features, structured data, like I said, becoming even more critical in determining which businesses appear in those types of generative results.

So that brings us to this. Talked through a lot of data points. You know, had a lot of of information to share.

Hopefully, you you know, maybe took some notes and you're gonna benchmark yourself against maybe number ten and number one. Right? So we wanna share this data, and then we wanna take this next step is that QR code, you can scan it.

That provides us the opportunity to do an audit for you. Right? I've said earlier, I think at, know, near the top of the hour of of the of the, conversation that, sorry. I'm looking over to my left because I'm doing this solo here, and I think there might be some categories here.

I'll look at some, the questions here. I think one or two came through or maybe some comments, but we can do a An audit for you guys. So I'll leave that up there while I kinda look at, what is here.

Here we go. So I have one question here and alright. I couldn't remember I had a question slide or a thank you slide there.

Account for the number ten ranking maybe. So how do you account for the fact that the number ten ranking may be ranking due to distance from where Google is localizing the search.

Yeah.

That is a great question.

So, you know, Centroid, you know, matters. So proximity does, matter.

So that that that would have an influence, proximity naturally, but that's why we want to choose multiple keywords and a number of, metros, both large and small, to try to mitigate, you know, the the idea of of of, proximity. Yes. That still would play a role, naturally.

And we didn't look at it at, like, at, like, different, like, micro, like, geographic areas where we didn't, like, you you'll parameter it and look at different, sort of, you know, North Dallas versus Southwest Dallas.

So that's why we try to have a much larger dataset to help mitigate, other influencing factors like that. Clear that still did, you know, have some influence in there.

But then again, as we extrapolated that and looked at more and more data points, saw consistencies in comparing the two.

You know, that kinda demonstrated that, you know, there were shared similarities, and there would be, again, a variance of that number tenth ranked and and where they are in proximity to the centroid of the the the market.

But then again, you know, we're seeing confirmation of time after time after time, these shared similarities of, you know, averages and numbers between number one and number ten. But very good point. There will be a degree of variance just like there will be a degree of variance when people talk about ranking. Like, oh, here's where you rank.

Right? Search is very personalized. So your previous click history and click data can influence what you see, in the search results. So not saying that this is, you know, the one hundred percent absolute, infallible, perfect, you know, taking, you know, all personalization into account.

But, again, as we looked at the greater swath of data and confirming more and more of those points based on, again, those those shared similarities and traits. That's ultimately sort of how that was, you know, the derived. So it was sort of it was sort of a matter of of diversity and breadth to to help address that, but great.

I already have a report. How do I get the audit?

So I'm not sure the answer. If you have a report that would be the audit, if you scan that QR code, it's it's our matrix that we do. So if you scan that QR code, you'll get into our system.

I'll know that you want one. We'll conduct the audit, and then we'll jump on a Google Meet where we'll go over it, and then it's shared with you. It's yours to have in perpetuity. It's not something that you just see in the meeting, and then it's it's gone from your life forever.

It actually is one for you to have. So it will be for your resource, whether you have an internal team agency partner doing the work for you to be able to do. So I have that up there for just one more second, and then I'm gonna go to the last slide, which just says thanks. So but I'll just thank you now.

Thanks, everyone, for joining. I really appreciate the time you all have spent with me, and I hope you'll join us for our next webinar, which I'm sure will be out promoting very soon. So thank you very much, everyone. I really appreciate your time.