Search your dealership’s name on Google and you’ll almost certainly come up first. That search was never the problem. A buyer who already knows your name is going to find you.
The question is the buyer who doesn’t: the one searching “tractor dealer near” their own town, or “zero-turn mowers for sale”. Here’s what to check, in order.
1. Is your website on Google at all?
Search Google for site: followed by your website address, no space: for example, site:yourdealership.com. You’ll get a list of your pages that Google has.
If it comes back empty, something’s badly wrong and your website provider needs to hear about it today. If it comes back with pages, your site’s on Google. Google notes that this search “doesn’t necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed”, so don’t worry if the count looks low.
2. Is your Google Business Profile right?
The map and the list of businesses under it come from your Google Business Profile, not your website. Google says those results are “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, and that “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
Make sure your name, address, phone number, hours and category are right, and that they match your website and your manufacturer’s dealer locator. We cover the settings that matter in Google Business Profile for equipment dealers.
3. Are you searching from the wrong town?
Distance is one of the three things Google weighs for local results. From your own lot, you’re the closest dealer. From a town thirty miles away you’re not, and your Business Profile alone will rarely get you in front of a buyer there.
That’s where most dealers lose buyers without ever knowing it. More in the towns around you matter more than your own.
4. Are your pages sticking around long enough?
New pages take a while to show up. Google says “it can take a few weeks for Google to notice a new site, or any changes in your existing site,” and that crawling “can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.”
Your machine pages come and go as equipment sells, and a lot of them sell before Google’s done much with them. That’s not your website failing. It’s what inventory pages are for. More in what happens to your Google traffic when a machine sells.
5. Look at your own numbers
Google gives every website owner a free tool, Search Console, that shows which searches your site came up for and how often. It’s the only place to know for sure. Here’s how to read it in ten minutes.
What nobody can promise
Google says it “doesn’t guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page,” and that it “doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more frequently, or rank it higher.” Anybody who guarantees you a spot on Google is guessing.
What you can do is give Google more reasons to show you, especially in the towns around you. That’s the part we build.