Ever since Google stood up the business listings on their own, that dashboard continues to be a great source of information about your customers, how they search for your business listing, and what they do after they find you.

The GMB dashboard can be overwhelming at first, so I've outlined the 3  important parts of insights you should be looking at and using as part of your digital strategy.

Search Queries: This is a new feature Google has rolled out this last month. This section will show you the most popular search terms used to find your Google My Business listing, sorted by the number of users who completed the search. This is the first time Google has released this level of information about searches and a business listing. This list of queries can be used to help develop your website content strategy. Do customers write Chevy more than Chevrolet? Are they still using an old dealership name to find you? Now you can know the answers.

Direction Requests: Did you know that Google will tell you, down to the city or zip code, where people are when they request driving directions? Slice this data by the last 7 days, last month or last 90 days. This is a great piece of information you should be sharing with your advertising partner. Have a zip code where most of the driving directions are coming from? Why not switch up add copy to give reasons why they should come to your dealership.  

Photo Views: With the changes Google made to image search in February, optimization of your business listing photos is more important than ever for local SEO. Google is moving to customizing the photos it shows customers based on a search, so your photos should be engaging and representative of your dealership. Not only will Google tell you how many people are looking and clicking on your photos, it will tell you how you compare to other dealerships in the area. Don't know where to start with your photos? Try adding in some product photos of new models. 

Hopefully, this serves as a good starting point for Googly My Business Insights. We all know it's a matter of time before Google rolls out something new that we can talk about! As I always say, it's Google's world and we are just living in it.

Last year at this time, Google brought back posts to the business listing. This is a chance for a business to share a piece of information, photo or news that will be seen by every customer searching for that business. This was a great win for businesses, who now had the chance to brand and customize even more what they look like on Google.

Fast forward a year with Google announcing 4 new types of posts on GMB; what’s new, events, offers and product posts. There are two new types of posts, offers and products, that dealers should be aware of and start taking advantage of today.

Offer posts are just that, a post that provide a promotional offer or sale for customers. For a dealership, this is a chance to push out your offers to a whole new set of customers. These types of post also allow you to put in any terms and conditions for that particular offer. Research has shown that posts with numbers or offering a sale price have the most engagement.

Product posts are ones that highlight a specific product that a business sells. This is a type of post that every dealership should take advantage of. As we move into new model year season, this is a chance for your dealership to highlight every time you get a new model on the lot. Talk about the upgrades, changes or new features for each model while providing customers with the link to your vehicle search results.

There are few chances Google really gives a business to customize the search results, and you should be taking advantage of everyone opportunity you get. Happy Posting!