Auto Industry Update: Discovery Searches Turn One-Time Visitors into Lifetime Customers

November 17, 2020 8:00 am

Car dealer marketing is arguably within one of the most advanced and highly influential industries for local SEO. Find out how discovery searches contribute to consumer traffic and sales.

In this article:

Defining Discovery Search
How Discovery Search Work in Local Car Dealer Marketing
From Discovery Searches to Traffic: The Locl Way

The Power of Discovery Searches in Car Dealer Marketing

Defining Discovery Searches

In Google My Business, a ‘discovery search’ is one of the three types of insight queries, of which the other two are branded and direct queries. Unlike branded and direct searches that require a specific product or service name, discovery search returns results from generic queries for information about a product or a service.

For instance, a discovery search is when a potential customer searches for what they want nearby (i.e. ‘Used Car Dealerships’ or ‘Tire Shops open near me’) and not using the brand or dealer name.

Discovery search is a significant insight we are observing for car dealer SEO. A discovery search contributes to the majority of queries which indicates that it is a lead indicator of the performance of the map’s listings and demand generation.

How Discovery Search Works in Local Car Dealer Marketing

Although car buyers are willing to travel across the country in search of their next used car, many new car sales are location-driven.

According to a November 2019 survey, almost a third of online consumers in the US go online to search for local businesses daily. An additional 16% did so several times per week.

This is where local search comes in. While discovery searches refer to generic keywords used in inquiry, local searches help businesses promote their products and services to local customers in real-time.

Typical local searches not only include information about “what” (name of the product, business category, and keywords) the site visitor is searching for but also the “where” information such as the city name, street address, and postal code. In searches, this is where the phrases “near me” or “in (place/ city name) are usually featured in.

Fundamentals of Local Search Marketing

Auto dealerships tend to be big investors in local search. Most dealers are up against the county-wide competition and with average order value so high, dealers must take their Google My Business listings seriously.

To gain a competitive edge, it is essential to master the fundamentals of local search marketing that go hand in hand with car dealership marketing. The elements may comprise of the following:

Google guidance compliance
Site authority
Site quality
Site optimization
NAPW (Name, Address, Phone Number, and Website)
Publishing strategy

Ensuring you have visibility in your local area leads to the right consumer visiting your dealership site, which will ultimately lead to higher sales.

From Discovery Searches to Traffic: The Locl Way

Having an active presence on maps and leveraging features that lead users to take action, dealerships show up more frequently across a wider variety of searches. We call this ‘casting a wider net’ and the results are incredible.

The average across dealers in the US and Canada are in the 80-90% range in local searches. Specifically for Truro Toyota in Canada, 81% of their local searches are discovery searches.

By leveraging Locl’s software, they have experienced 12,082 more discovery searches compared to September of last year which has proven to correlate to increased revenue tied metrics like website visits, phone calls, and direction requests.

This all means that ultimately the average car dealership is going to be returned in more results for more localized searches especially if their departments like a used lot, oil change, tires, service are listed on maps. Many dealers are not aware of the new guidelines to add these types of departments and locations which allow them to compete with local oil or tire focused businesses.

Do you need assistance in managing and organizing your business online? Locl helps millions of businesses drive billions in additional rev and bring clarity to a messy marketing world. We use Google My Business and Google Maps to help drive more customers into your door.

Businesses can sign up for Locl for free with their Google My Business account, no credit card needed, and start using it right away. Click here to start.

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