One More Reason Why Car Dealers Need a Google+ Page

Google has started to list Google+ Pages in the search results.  This was announced yesterday on sproutinsights –  http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2011/12/google-plus-pages-search/   As of right now, the Google+ page results appear to only be showing for a limited number of brand (business names) searches.

One of the automotive searches that we've seen result in a Google+ page in the serps is for the term “Toyota”.  Below is the image for what Google returns –

As you can see, the Google+ Page is added to the sitelink search results.  In addition, Toyota's last two posts on Google+ are also listed.  This gives Toyota much more ownership of the Google page 1 search results for their brand name, and with more attention grabbing images in the result as well.  This is a big deal for owning your space on the front page of Google.

I've tested just about every other automotive brand that I could think of and Toyota was the only one to have the Google+ information in the Google search results.  With the minimal roll-out of this feature, it could definitely be a test Google is running, but I would look for more of this type of integration of the Google+ information in the search results in the future.

If you haven't set up a Google+ page for your dealership, go and do it now. You'll want to make sure that you are on Google+ and have an active presence so that if/when Google pushes this feature and other Google+ search result tie-ins that are sure to come in the future that you'll be ready.