In this week’s video, I talk about which categories you should choose for your Google My Business listing. I share a link to a tool that lists all available GMB categories and explain how it displays related categories. For all the car dealers out there, I walk through exactly which categories you should choose for each of your department listings.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. This week I’m continuing the theme of the last few weeks with more information about Google My Business listings. Today, I’m going to talk about which categories you should list in your GMB profile.

Between my recent videos about department GMB listings and my video about choosing the right primary category, we’ve gotten tons of questions from car dealers about which categories they should be choosing in Google My Business.

WAIT – don’t stop watching if you’re not a car dealer… I’ve got help for everyone today. Car dealers, stick with me for a minute, you’re gonna love what I’m sharing.

For everyone else, PlePer Tools has a full list of all the available categories in Google My Business, and it’s organized by country, so if you’re outside of the US, you can see which categories are available for you. The URL’s a bit wonky, so I set up a bitly link to make it easier for you. Head over to bit.ly/gmb-category-list to see the full list.

They’re listed alphabetically, but there’s a search field. Once you find a category that applies to your business, click on it, and you’ll see a list of all related categories. They’re listed by “percent occurrence”, or how often they’re listed with the category you clicked on. Check that list to see what applies, then click each match to see more related categories.

Keep in mind – you can only list ten categories in GMB, so pick the ten that most closely match what you do. If you haven’t seen my video on choosing the right primary category, head to bit.ly/gmb-primary-category to check it out.

Car dealers, here’s the good stuff…

I’m going to list all available categories for you, broken down by business center. I’m assuming you’ve seen the last few videos, so you know how to set up nested department listings. Since each department listing needs unique categories, it makes more sense to break them down per department. Don’t feel like you have to write all these down as I’m running through them. If you’re watching this video anywhere that’s not the SearchLab website, just head over to searchlabdigital.com/gmb-categories-for-auto-dealers and you’ll find the post with this video, and all the categories are listed in the text below.

Your primary listing should be your sales-related GMB. You should list the following categories:

  • Car dealer
  • Used car dealer
  • Car leasing service
  • Car finance and loan company
  • If you carry trucks, include Used truck dealer
  • If you’re a single brand dealer, include [brand] dealer – so that’s Toyota dealer, Ford dealer, or whatever brand you sell.
  • If you offer car rental, you should include the Car rental agency category as well.

If you’re a GM or FCA dealer and you’ve got separate departments nested for each brand, you shouldn’t use various [brand] dealer categories on your main listing. Each dedicated brand department should have its applicable [brand] dealer category listed as the primary category.

For your service department, things get a bit more complicated, because there are more than 10 categories available. You’ll want to think strategically and choose the ones that best match your business goals.

A quick note – I see a lot of dealers choosing “Car service” – you don’t want to use this one. That is a category for hiring transportation, like a taxi service or limo service – it doesn’t mean “service” like we use it in automotive. When you use categories that aren’t related to your business, you can cause visibility problems – so don’t use this one.

So for service department categories, here are the six you should always include:

  • Auto repair shop
  • Auto tune up service
  • Mechanic
  • Car repair and maintenance
  • Truck repair shop
  • Oil change service

Then, fill out the rest of the categories with whatever best fits your goals. The other options are:

  • Brake shop
  • Wheel alignment service
  • Transmission shop
  • Car inspection station
  • Auto electrical service
  • Auto radiator repair service
  • Auto air conditioning service

And then, depending on whether you offer them or not, you could also use:

  • Car detailing service
  • Car wash
  • Towing service
  • Auto wrecker

There are also several body shop categories:

  • Auto body shop
  • Auto bodywork mechanic
  • Auto dent removal service
  • Auto glass shop
  • Auto painting

And then for your Parts department, there are 11 categories available, so you’ll need to choose one leave one out… Here’s the list:

  • Auto Parts Store
  • Car accessories store
  • Car battery store
  • Truck parts supplier
  • Racing car parts store
  • Auto body parts supplier
  • Tire shop
  • Used tire shop
  • Muffler shop
  • Truck accessories store
  • Auto sunroof shop

In most cases, that’s the one you’ll want to skip.

So now you know which categories to include in your department listings in Google My Business, so you’ll be more likely to show up in searches for phrases that will bring in customers.

That’s all the time we’ve got for today, so you know what time it is… Put your hand on the screen right here:
We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.