7 Nearly Effortless Ways to Make Your Gas Station or Truck Stop Extra Money

We put together seven tips to nearly effortlessly increase your savings at your gas station or truck stop. As you'll see, "Google My Business" is a prime opportunity for optimizing your gas station's marketing. We hope this helps you: 1: Your gas station or truck stop should take advantage of "Google My Business" to show up high in the search rankings of Google Maps & Google search, maybe even first or second. Imagine someone looking for a gas station or truck stop in your area, and you show up first. Guess which gas station a motorist looking for fuel will visit? Your gas station.

First, a few tedious details to get you started with "Google My Business": if you already have a "Google My Business" account, you’re way ahead of the game & can skip the rest of this paragraph. If you haven't already created a “Google My Business” for your gas station or truck stop, simply set it up here: https://www.google.com/business/. You may need to claim your business on the top right of Google when you enter the name of your gas station or truck stop & are not already managing your "Google My Business" Account.

After you're in "Google My Business", carefully check the location of your gas station in Google Maps to make sure you're pinning your location in the right place. Google Maps often has trouble pinpointing the exact location of a gas station or truck stop on the map, so it’s important you get your gas station's location right. We’ve seen cases on Google Maps where the location of a gas station or truck stop shows up 5 or 10 miles away, or doesn't show up at all. Unfortunately, this gas station owner was out of luck when it comes to driving free traffic to their store, which would have increased their monthly volume. This tip won’t apply to most gas stations & truck stops but will make a significant difference on your bottom line if this isn’t optimized.

Check out this awesome page from Gas Pos’s first customer: Whispering Pines Truck Stop & Casino. As a cool side-note, their truck stop can never be down more than 12 hours, or they lose their casino license. They trusted Gas Pos from day one, and we’re proud to have them as our first customer.

Specifically, check out how Google knows they are a “truck stop." Thus, they do well for any searches near Greensburg LA for a truck stop. The trucker searching for a truck stop will likely go to Whispering Pines.

Check out this "Google My Business" Page of another customer of Gas Pos, a popular small-town gas station in Wallowa, Oregon.

2: Set up your description in "Google My Business" using the “info section.” Simply enter the 750 character description of your business. I would strongly recommend entering 700-749 characters so you can increase your chances of showing up in different search terms. This will help you show up in the search engines and will give you a significant competitive advantage when competing for lucrative search traffic. When someone goes online, the main way they search is “nearest gas station” (301,000 searches nationally each month), “gas station near me” (2,740,000 searches nationally each month), “gas station” (1,000,000 searches nationally each month), “convenience store near me” (301,000 searches nationally each month) and if you’re not showing up your competitor will get the extra fill-up, not you.

Avoid the mistake of repeating gas station or truck stop a bunch of times, which could get you hit with a Google penalty. Instead, use any words that make clear you’re a gas station or truck stop such as lottery, fuel. Here’s a hypothetical example: “Speedy Mart is a family-run small-town gas station conveniently located in Sherwood, Arkansas and offers gasoline, diesel & all types of snacks & candy.” Play with different words, give it a few days, and see where you rank in Google. Keep on testing & iterating!

If you’re a truck stop, you’ll want to show up for terms such as “truck stop near me” (301,000 searches nationally each month) “diesel fuel near me” (33,100 searches nationally each month), “nearest truck stop” (40,5000 searches nationally each month, “closest truck stop” (9900 searches each month), & truck stop (201,000 searches nationally each month).

If you’d like to explore further, you can use Google Adword’s Keyword Planner for precise estimates of searches, but you’re targeting any phrase that indicates someone is going to a gas station, convenience store, or (if you’re a truck stop) your truck stop.

3: Make sure you have photos of your gas station/convenience store on Google Maps. You can upload these photos onto your "Google My Business."

4: Introduce cash discounting at your gas station or convenience store so you can offset your processing fees. Learn more by watching the Gas Pos demo

5: Introduce yourself to your town. You can dig up e-mails using Hunter.io & either send them manually or use an e-mail software tool such as Mailchimp (gives you 2000 free contacts before you have to start paying). If you’re a new gas station owner opening your store for the first time, you can celebrate your grand opening by reaching out to local gas station owners. Then your customer will tell their friends about the new gas station in town, and you’ll generate referrals for your business at no cost to yourself.

The best part of e-mail marketing that it always can be free since all you have to do is e-mail from your inbox without using any special software.

6: We estimate a truck stop or diesel lane can make extra with advanced pricing optimization. To find out an estimate of your exact amount, find out your newfound profits with our long haul profit calculator.

7: Ask your best customers that come into your convenience store all the time to recommend you to their friends. You likely already have an extremely high NPS (Net Promoter Score) why not spread the word in your local city or town. If you’re a truck stop, you can use the same idea for truckers that frequently visit your truck stop and like your truck stop. Your truck stop is their place away from home.

To learn more about how Gas Pos helps your gas station or truck stop, please check out gaspos.co, or call 1-800-209-1241 Ext 1.