A car business's
first 30 days.

Most plans start with ads because ads feel like action, and a new campaign is easy to show the boss. For a car business that's backwards. If the price on your site differs from the comparison site, the Google profile shows sales hours to someone trying to book a service, and nobody records where enquiries come from, extra ad spend just pours more people into the same leaks.

So the first fortnight is fixing what's already public. It mostly costs time, not money, and it's work your own team can do: a sales manager and a service adviser with a spare hour a day will get through most of it. The second fortnight builds the pages and tracking that make paid ads worth running.

Pick dealer or workshop. Tick as you go: ticks are saved in this browser only, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Dealers: put every priced car side by side across your site, the comparison sites and your social posts. The prices should match, each used car should show its rego or stock number, and nothing should call statutory charges 'on-road costs', which NSW dealer ads must not do. Check your licence number is on the site and in ads if you sell online.

Workshops: put your NSW repairer licence details on the website as well as the sign, which the law requires where everyone approaching the business can see it. Then add one plain sentence about warranties. A 2026 survey found 44% of owners believe they must service at the dealer to keep their warranty, and nobody will correct that for you.

Google's guidelines say departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own profile, each with a different name, and that car dealerships use car sales hours (new car sales hours if new and used differ). So a dealer with a workshop usually needs a sales profile and a service profile, each with its own hours, phone and category.

Then reviews. Google says local results weigh relevance, distance and prominence, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help. Ask every buyer and every service customer, and reply to the critical ones calmly and in public. A short, polite reply to a one-star review is read by the next hundred people deciding whether to book.

Dealers: give each car a full page with real photos including the wear, the drive-away price, kilometres, history and which warranty applies, and decide what happens to the page the day it sells. The SEO page has the options for sold cars.

Workshops: one page per job people search for, saying what's included, how long it takes and what changes the price. If you're an authorised inspection station, the pink slip page is worth doing properly, because older cars need one every year.

Write down last month's enquiries and where each came from, and match them to sales or bookings. Add the source field to the website form if it's missing, set up call tracking, and put a separate, unticked marketing consent box on forms, because the Spam Act needs consent you can prove.

Then, and only then, add or adjust ads. Start with one campaign for the department you most want to grow, add negative keywords for job seekers and DIY searches, and judge it after a month on sales or bookings.

Repeat week one every month: prices, sold cars and hours drift faster than anything else in this industry. Look at the source sheet monthly and move money toward what sells. And every quarter, ask ChatGPT and Google AI Mode who services your make in your suburb, as the AI search page explains.