Using certain keywords on your pages and in your SEO strategy can help improve your Google search results rankings and get more traffic to your dealership’s site. Typically, being as specific as possible with your keywords is a good tactic and thinking the way a potential customer would think while searching for a vehicle or dealership will be beneficial. Many dealerships do not realize the power of keywords in search engines, so if you are able to get ahead of the curve, you will be able to beat the competition.
1. Specific keywords
It does not take much research to find which keywords are the most popular when searching for vehicles and dealerships. Searches with “[brand name] dealership” typically have a low to medium amount of competition depending on brand which is important to note.
- “Car dealerships,” 368,000 monthly searches, low competition
- “Affordable auto,” 14,800 monthly searches, low competition
- “Dealerships,” 40,500 monthly searches, low competition
- “Ford dealership,” 550,000 monthly searches, medium competition
- “Car dealership near me,” 450,000 searches, medium competition
- “Buy here pay here near me,” 90,500 searches, medium competition
- “Used cars near me,” 368,000 monthly searches, high competition
- “Used trucks for sale near me,” 27,100 monthly searches, high competition
- “Used cars for sale near me,” 135,000 monthly searches, high competition
2. Classify your keywords
You should typically categorize your keywords into at least two different types, buying intent and research intent. Buying intent keywords are for vehicles searchers who are most likely ready to purchase a vehicle. If someone is searching for the phrase “Audi dealership Des Moines,” they probably know that they want to buy an Audi and are looking for a nearby dealership. Knowing this, you should optimize those keywords by putting them on your homepage and other pages on your dealership’s website. Those using research intent keywords are typically people who are “just browsing.” Although they might buy a car in the future, they are still doing basic research such as “safest cars of 2020.” While you should make these keywords a lower priority for your campaign, you should not completely toss them aside because they can be helpful for blog posts and other pages on your dealership website.
3. Focus on keyword sets
Sometimes if you put all of your focus efforts into one keyword at a time, you can lose the pull with other keywords. Oftentimes, when multiple people are searching for the same type of product or service but are using a slightly different arrangement of words, it represents a semantic wordset. An example of this would be three people respectively searching for “Honda dealers Des Moines,” “Honda dealers in Des Moines,” and “Des Moines Honda dealers.” After analyzing this, you should focus on the highest-volume term, the others can be used to supplement the main term. However, do not bombard your pages with those specific terms, Google will likely rank your page higher if you are providing actual value to users instead of overflowing the page with one key word.
Overall, doing the research to find what keywords you need to implement into your strategies is not a difficult task. Figuring out how the mind of a potential customer works is easy when you have tools like Google to help you get insights and keep track of current trends. While it may seem like an overwhelming process, it can actually be kind of fun to organize all of your keywords and see your business and leads grow because of it. If you are stuck and do not know how to move forward, we can help! Send us a message or call us at (515) 232-2024 and we can help get you on the right track.