How Car Dealerships Can Get More from Google Business Profiles

A Google Business Profile (Google My Business until 2021) is not just a pin on a map. It is a customer-facing dealership channel that displays current opening hours, reviews, directions, calls to action, photographs, offers and business updates in Google Search and Google Maps.

TL;DR

A Google Business Profile is a practical local customer channel for dealerships. Keep the core information accurate, ensure your dealership’s name, address, phone number, website and opening hours are consistent across every customer touchpoint, and use current photos to help people recognise the site.

Use Offers, Updates and Events when there is a genuine, time-sensitive reason for customers to act, with a relevant landing page and a clear call to action. Manage reviews as customer communication, track profile activity alongside website and enquiry data, and review every location regularly so the information remains accurate and useful.

A Google Business Profile (Google My Business until 2021) is not just a pin on a map. It is a customer-facing dealership channel that displays current opening hours, reviews, directions, calls to action, photographs, offers and business updates in Google Search and Google Maps.

For a dealership, that creates an opportunity to make a customer’s first local interaction more useful. A person searching nearby may be deciding whether to visit, telephone, enquire online or continue looking at stock. The profile should help them take the next sensible step with accurate, up-to-date information.

Optimising your Google Business Profile won’t guarantee a particular local ranking, but it will make your profile work harder for you and your customers. Local SEO is a broader topic. The aim of your profile should be to keep information current, use updates when there is something useful to say, and make the next customer action clear.

Start with the profile foundations.

A profile should have a named internal owner and be verified. Verification helps Google confirm that the person making changes is authorised to represent the dealership.

You should represent your dealership as it is consistently recognised in the real world, keep your address and service area accurate, and describe your business using as many categories as needed (but not more).

You should periodically check for duplicate profiles and incorrect public edits.

Keep one clear business identity across every customer touchpoint.

You shouldn’t consider a Google Business Profile in isolation. Your dealership’s core information should agree wherever a customer—or a system interpreting public business information—might encounter it.

This is often called NAP consistency: Name, Address and Phone number. In practice, it should also cover the dealership website, opening hours, location page details, and brand presentation.

The aim is to give customers reliable answers to basic questions: what does this dealership offer, where is it located, how can I contact it, and when is it open?

This also supports clearer brand recognition in search and AI-assisted journeys. There is no single known “AI ranking factor” for NAP consistency. Still, conflicting public information makes it harder for any system to confidently associate a dealership with its correct location, website and contact details. Consistency is therefore a sound customer information and data governance practice, not a shortcut.

Google supports the LocalBusiness structured data type for publishing business details such as name, address, telephone number, URL, and opening hours on the dealership website. Where used, it should align with the customer-facing location page and Google Business Profile.

Use posts to communicate something timely.

Google Business Profile supports Update, Offer and Event post types. Posts can include images or video, a title, relevant dates, an action button and, for offers, a coupon code. They can be scheduled or repeated and published to several profiles at once.

For dealerships, posts work best when they highlight a specific, current offer that gives local customers a reason to act. They should not become a stream of generic graphics or copy that is repeated across every other channel.

You should ensure that landing pages are aligned with the post’s message. An offer that says “Book now” should open a page where the customer can book now rather than your website’s homepage.

Google reviews posts before they appear. A post can be live, pending or not approved depending on its status and policy compliance. Ensure content is always in line with your professional standards, and use only links to trusted destinations.

Make website links measurable and purposeful.

The website link is often the bridge between a local Google search and the dealership site. Sending every visitor to a generic homepage makes it harder to understand what the profile is contributing and may create extra work for the customer.

Use the most relevant destination for the profile or post's purpose. A dealership-level profile should normally link to the location page; a service-focused post should link to the service-offer or booking page; an event post should link to its dedicated event page.

To make your reporting clear, you should add UTM parameters to the website and post links. For example:

https://www.your-dealer-website.co.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=business-profile

This does not change local ranking. It allows the dealership to distinguish profile-referred website sessions in Google Analytics.

Build visual confidence before a customer arrives.

You should use photographs and videos to show customers what you offer. The most useful assets are usually current and recognisable rather than heavily polished generic images.

Prioritise exterior signage, the forecourt or showroom, customer parking or entrance, reception and waiting areas where relevant, current team imagery and any facility that helps a customer understand what to expect. Replace images/videos when they become inaccurate.

You don’t need to fill your profile with as many images as possible. Your aim should be to help customers recognise the dealership and feel more confident that the profile reflects your business.

Manage reviews with a clear process.

You should have a process for responding to reviews. Positive reviews and useful replies can help your dealership to stand out. Responding to negative reviews is equally as important. Review management should be handled as a customer communication process - it’s not a sales exercise.

To achieve this, you should have a clear owner for new reviews, an agreed response timeframe, and an escalation route for complaints. This will help to maintain standards and consistency.

When you respond to reviews, you should not disclose personal information, discuss finance or vehicle details, or make commitments that cannot be honoured.

A word of caution: Do not offer incentives for reviews, approach only customers expected to be positive, or use other tactics that compromise the authenticity of the feedback. Profile content and review activity must comply with Google’s policies.

Use Performance data to decide what to maintain.

Once you have verified your Google Business Profile, you can view Performance information, such as views, clicks, and other customer interactions, across Google Search and Maps. You can review this information across all of your locations. To compare locations, you can download the data.

When you are reviewing this data, you should combine it with website analytics, enquiry data and the quality of the customer journey after the click to give you a full picture of performance.

Manage multiple locations without losing control.

Managing Google Business Profiles within a Dealer group can be awkward and complex. To maintain consistent standards across a group, there needs to be a repeatable governance process.

Depending on the group’s structure, access to profiles may be granted at location level, but it’s important to retain central visibility to provide checks and balances. A location-by-location review sheet is more useful than relying on memory or one-off checks.

When dealing with multiple locations, resist the temptation to copy a generic description, photo set or offer without checking that it applies to that location. Each location will potentially be competing for business against single locations and groups - it’s best to assume competing content will be extremely localised and specific.

An example monthly profile plan

The key takeaway

The most useful features in your Google Business Profile are not complicated:

• Accurate business information
• A consistent identity across channels
• Up-to-date images and videos
• Reviews that receive considered responses
• Properly timed posts and offers
• Clear Calls to Action and website destinations

Treat your profile as part of your dealership’s digital customer journey. It should give a person enough confidence and clarity to take the next step, then send them to a website experience that does the same.

If you would like help reviewing how a dealership website and its Google presence work together, please get in touch with the team at Autoweb.