Repair Shop Advice

Establishing a strong online presence is crucial for attracting the right type of customers to boost your car count and improve your average repair order (ARO). While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to being discovered by potential customers searching for auto repair services, several key steps exist. One essential action is to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile.

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What are online directory listings?

Online directory listings (also known as citations) are the backbone network of local businesses on the web. Google, Facebook, Bing and Yelp are some of the more well-known online directories. As an example, your Google Business Profile is a listing. There are many more directories across the web where businesses are listed.
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If your auto repair shop is currently not using Instagram, now is the time to do so. Instagram has updated their map functionality to make it easier for users to discover local businesses. Thinking about joining Instagram? Well now is the time to put your official Instagram account on the map!
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The short answer is yes, but there’s more to it than just posting a quick response. 

That’s especially true if the review is negative. I’m writing this blog because we’ve seen a lot of unprofessional responses to negative reviews lately. Before you get mad at me for typing that, please understand that I know how frustrating it can be to see a negative review, especially when you’ve done everything you could to help a customer. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a lot of confusion among auto repair shop owners about how consumers search for auto repair services on the web. Our goal in this blog is to clear up the confusion and help you understand how most consumers search for auto repair services so you can better understand how your website is performing in search.
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Most of the repair shop owners we talk to either love the idea of allowing customers to schedule real appointments online…or they absolutely hate it. The resistance is understandable. It’s difficult to manage a shop’s schedule with cars, customers and techs coming and going.
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When it comes to your web presence and search engine results pages (SERPs), it can be easy to confuse the many different elements. You may even be suspicious that Google does it on purpose so that normal people can’t figure them out. Today we are going to focus on one of those elements – the Local Pack – and why it’s so important to auto repair shops.

The Local Pack is the grouping of 3-4 businesses that shows up just below the map on the SERPs when you search on Google for anything that Google sees as local business services. It definitely includes repair shops, as well as restaurants, stores, contractors, libraries, accounting firms, barber shops – you get the picture. Here’s an example:

This is a search for auto repair in Wilmington, North Carolina. The blue dot with the circle around it on the map is the origination of the search – where the searcher was at the time they typed auto repair into the search box. The Local Pack is represented by the three shops you see below the map.

Here are some key points you need to know about the Local Pack:

The Local Pack Holds Prime Real Estate on SERPs

In many cases, the Local Pack shows up just below the ads on the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is almost always true when Google can determine that the searcher is definitely looking for local services like auto repair. So, you want to do everything you can to maximize your shop’s chances of being shown in the Local Pack.

The Local Pack Is Made Up of Google My Business Profiles

If your shop doesn’t have a Google My Business profile, it will never appear in the Local Pack. If your Google My Business profile is not complete, includes the wrong category or hasn’t been updated in a while, your shop is much less likely to appear in the Local Pack. We’ve been emphasizing the importance of a Google My Business profile for a while now and this is part of the reason. When you show Google that you like to play by their rules, they are much more likely to reward you.

The Local Pack Gets Clicks

A comprehensive study conducted in late 2018 by BrightLocal showed that nearly 33% of searchers clicked on at least one of the listings in the Local Pack.

The Local Pack’s Most Important Factor Is Proximity to the Searcher

And here’s the rub…how close your shop is to the person who searches is the number one factor in how likely you are to show up in the Local Pack. You can see this in the example above. Shop #1 and Shop #2 are both .5 miles away and then Shop #3 at .7 miles away. This is also why when you search for auto repair in your shop, your shop comes up first!

How To Increase Your Local Pack Performance

You can’t pick up your shop and move it closer to the searcher, but there are things that you can do to increase the likelihood that you show up in the Local Pack. Check your Google My Business profile for these things:

1. Make sure you choose the right category – Auto repair shop (or something more specific if you specialize).
2. Make sure your name, address, and contact information are correct.
3. Complete the description – write about what makes your shop better and the services you specialize in.
4. Choose the services you offer. Auto repair shops can choose things like brakes, air conditioning, engine repair, exhaust, oil change, transmission and more. Google will use these like keywords to match up to what the searcher puts in the search box.
5. Get more great Google reviews!
6. Respond to your Google reviews.
7. Make sure you have a link to your website. Your website can significantly impact Google’s evaluation of your credibility and relevance.

Only a small handful of people at Google truly know all of the factors that go into how they determine what businesses show up in the Local Pack, but all of these seven steps have proven to impact the listings. And with 1 in 3 people who conduct a search clicking on at least one of the businesses in the Local Pack, the stakes are high and you want to do everything you can to ensure you get the best results.

If you’d like help optimizing your Google My Business profile for the Local Pack, contact us at 855-394-6397 or Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com.

The four local search tactics are:

• Get a consistent flow of Google Reviews
• Make sure you have a dedicated page on your website for each service or service category that you offer
• Get links from other locally-relevant websites to your website
• Make sure you have links from the internal pages of your website to your home page

Please read on for all of the important information behind these suggestions! Or, skip to the tactics you specifically would like to read more about.
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As always, the speakers at ATI’s (Automotive Training Institute) 2023 SuperConference were outstanding. One of my favorite things about the event is the power-packed schedule with lots of learning opportunities from ATI coaches, ATI members and professional speakers. You don’t want to miss a single session because they all provide a great deal of value.

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One of the things we are always encouraging our customers to do is to get local links. What are local links and why are they so important? Let’s dive in so you can start boosting your website’s performance through local relationships.

The three core pieces of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are Architecture, Backlinks and Content. The acronym is easy to remember – ABC. Backlinks are links back to your website from other websites. Going forward for this blog I’m just going to refer to them as links.

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