There’s no magic recipe for how your dealership should be handling its search engine optimization. It all depends on what your goals for your dealership are. You obviously want to sell your inventory and meet sales goals, but do you also want to drive traffic to your site before they come to your lot? Do you want to have more people subscribe to your emails? Before you go forward with your dealership SEO plan you want to make sure you layout your exact goals and how you plan to keep track of everything. This blog post will help you decide what goals you want to set and how to achieve them.
Should My Dealership Be Using SEO?
Absolutely! When you create a well-rounded search engine optimization program for your dealership, you’re likely to see incredible results. From improved site traffic to higher conversion rates, there’s no reason not to start working on your SEO plan. Whether your transactions are typically done online or in-person, people are most likely looking at your website before even considering making a purchase. Not only should you have a responsive dealership website that works across all platforms, but you need to make sure you have an established place on the Internet as well. From the Google search results page to social media platforms, you need to place your dealership where your customers will see it.
1. Ubersuggest
Neil Patel has created a great SEO tool called Ubersuggest that can not only help you analyze your website’s “health” but also help generate keywords and content and find out how your site compares to your competitors. The tool is free and easy to use; you just put in your website URL and you have access to tons of data about your site. This tool is especially useful if you have a blog on your dealership’s site because you can find out exactly what keywords you should be using to generate more traffic. Additionally, the SEO analyzer will tell you “healthy” your dealership website is. It gives you data that shows your organic monthly traffic, backlinks, and most importantly, any errors that may be negatively affecting your dealership’s website. Although no website is perfect and you’ll probably have a few errors to fix, as long as none of your pages are completely broken and you have relatively fast loading times, you should be in good shape.
2. Blogging is Your Best Friend
If your dealership doesn’t already have a blog, now is the time to create one. By creating a blog, you are creating sharable content that your viewers will spread along to their friends and family. After reading your blog they will likely take a look around your site and see what else you have to offer. If you’re not sure where to start or what kind of content your dealership would write about, don’t sweat it, we’ve got you covered. If you’ve already got a blog set up and running on your dealership website, you might want to keep a few things in mind for future blogs. Don’t be afraid to use emotion or specific descriptive words in your titles. There is typically an increase of almost 14% in click-through rates when utilizing these words. Studies have shown that the most highly trafficked blogs typically have 76 keywords per post. This doesn’t mean that you should be trying to use as many keywords as you can or that you should be using the same keywords for every single post. You need to be strategic about the kind of keywords you’re using and what you think will drive the most traffic to your dealership website. Finally, you’re likely to see more success when you optimize your title to fit these keywords. You’ll have even more success if you use long-tail keywords. Do your research, because every industry is different.
3. Google My Business
This one should really not be a secret if you already have an established dealership. With Google My Business, you’ll want to have the name of your dealership, address, and phone number in your listing. Those are the basics. What many people forget about is having a category for their business. The category will make sure your dealership shows up when people are searching for car dealerships in their area. Additionally, there should be some photos available to see on your listing. I always think it’s helpful to have photos because the customer will know exactly what they are looking for when they eventually come to your dealership. Arguably the most important parts of this section are the reviews and questions and answers. You obviously cannot really control if you get bad reviews, but you have control over how you react to them. If someone leaves a bad review for your dealership, we recommend leaving a comment on the review apologizing for their unpleasant experience and offering some kind of olive branch in return. You could even give your contact information and have a discussion with the reviewer in order to really know what went wrong and what you can do in the future to ensure this does not happen again. You should also be checking this periodically to see if anyone is asking questions about your dealership before they come to your lot. It’s imperative to stay on top of this because you don’t want someone else answering a question for you and they end up spreading misinformation.
4. Focus on Your Customers
So many businesses are worried about the Google algorithm and pleasing the all-mighty site crawlers. You know your customers better than anyone else. If you just take the time to do your keyword research and maybe even see what your competitors are doing to drive traffic to them, you can figure out what works best for you. Track the trending keywords through Google over time and utilize that to attract your leads. It’s important to remember that there is no one size fits all approach to search engine optimization in the automotive industry. There are so many different types of makes and models, everyone wants something a little different. Do your research, talk to your customers, and know that it all takes time. You likely won’t start seeing results until about 30 days after implementing your search engine optimization strategies.
Whether you’re new to the search engine optimization game or you’ve been a long-time auto industry marketer, we all need a little help once in a while. If you don’t know what your next step is, let AutoJini guide you. Not only do we specialize in SEO and SEM for automotive dealerships, but we also create responsive websites and highly successful advertising campaigns. Please send us a message or give us a call at 515-232-2024 if you want to learn more.