To attract car buyers, a comprehensive auto dealer SEO campaign is needed, consisting of both on-page and off-page optimization and strategy. When done correctly this helps to position your automotive dealership at the top of Google’s search results and attract qualified leads and prospects who are in the market for a new car.
Search engine optimization is responsible for improving the position of your website in the search results as well as having your dealership displayed at the top of the local Maps results, helping to increase your inbound sales inquiries as well as website traffic.
The more consumers that find your dealership online when searching relevant keywords, the more opportunities your dealership has to attract buyers and push more volume off your dealership’s lot. Consumers want instant results online, so if you are not positioned towards the top you are losing potential sales to the competition.
Automotive SEO is also important for branding. Many consumers begin shopping before they are ready to make a new card purchase. When your dealership has a strong presence and prospects begin their car shopping online you become top of mind for when it comes time for them to pull the trigger on a new purchase.
Let’s dive into five automotive search engine optimization tips that will help you improve your online visibility and attract more inbound interest, leads, and sales.
1. Target the Correct Keywords
When a consumer is in the market for a new car they will typically turn to Google and type in relevant search terms and phrases according to what kind of car they are looking for and their location. The only way your dealership will be found for these keywords that have purchase intent is to target them in your automotive SEO campaign.
Proper keyword research is very important and you need to have a full understanding of what terms have purchase intent, and then write optimized content specifically for these keywords. To start, you will want to create a seed list of basic keyword ideas based on the following:
- The kind of cars your dealership sells, specifically what manufacturer or manufacturers are under your roof.
- The models of cars that each manufacturer makes and you keep in your inventory.
- The automotive services your dealership provides.
- The areas and locations that your dealership serves.
- The estimated search volume is less important than the intent behind a specific term. A keyword such as “Ford F150” might have a lot of search volume, it doesn’t indicate the person searching that term is in the market to buy a new truck. They might simply be looking for images of the truck or some other information not related to a purchase.
On the other hand, someone searching for “Ford F150 finance specials in San Diego” is showing purchase intent and specifically looking for Ford dealerships in San Diego, California.
2. Leverage Your Google My Business Profile
Your Google My Business profile is crucial for showing up in the local Maps results, which is where the majority of attention is focused on when local consumers are searching for car dealerships. Claiming your GMB profile and optimizing it for the best local search performance requires the following basic information:
- The full name of your automotive dealership
- Your car dealership’s complete business address
- The main phone number for your dealership
- Your dealership’s website URL
- The hours of operation
- A full description of your dealership, including up to 750 characters that describe the makes and models of cars your dealership sells along with the areas you service
Photos of your dealership, including the showroom, service area, lot, and staff
Maintaining an active Google My Business page is important, and you will often find many customers have questions that you will need to reply to. Doing this shows that you are active and place customer service as a high priority.
Utilizing the Posts feature allows you to keep your current customers as well as prospects up to date with special events, new financing specials, and new inventory. The content you post also has the potential to show up in the search results, helping you to gain even more organic exposure.
Make it a habit to ask all of your customers to leave a review on your Google profile, as these not only play a role in the search results algorithm, but consumers are more likely to be drawn to a dealership with a higher number of reviews. To them, this is a signal of a pleasant experience and a dealership that goes above and beyond for its customers.
3. Publish an Automotive Dealership Blog on Your Website
Publishing a blog that is constantly updated with new posts is great for your website visitors, as it gives them helpful information to engage with and Google loves it, as its algorithm favors websites that are constantly putting out additional content.
The keywords that you identify from the first tip above can be used in your blogging campaign. By creating posts that are optimized for these keywords you can attract quality traffic to your dealership’s website.
It’s important to create topics around your keywords that will be interesting to those who visit your website. A mistake many dealerships make is writing content specifically for Google, ignoring the fact that potential customers will be reading their blog.
If you publish spammy content that doesn’t provide value to its readers you risk pushing away potential customers. Provide helpful information that is relevant to the car buying process, and be sure to always include a call-to-action at the end, including your dealership’s full contact information and a way for the customer to contact you immediately.
4. Optimize Your On-Page Elements for Each Website Page and Post
For each blog article you publish it’s important to make sure all of its on-page elements are optimized for the specific keyword you are targeting. In addition to including your keyword in the post title and throughout the content, you will want to address the following on-page factors:
- The URL slug to include your main keyword at the end
- H2 and H3 headings
- Alt-image tags
- Meta description to include the keyword and a strong call-to-action to attract clicks in the search results
Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing and writing content specifically for Google. You need to satisfy Google’s algorithm while delivering quality content that provides value to the readers. By constantly publishing new content it signals to Google that your website is updated often and it will begin to be visited by Google’s bots and crawlers more often.
Over time this results in your posts being indexed and discoverable in the search results faster. Publishing frequent content on your car dealership’s website also helps to improve the authority of your domain, which contributes to higher search engine rankings.
5. Commit to a Long-Term SEO Campaign and Monitor Your Results
Auto dealer SEO is something that needs to be viewed as a long-term marketing strategy and one that doesn’t deliver results overnight. It takes time to build a strong search engine optimization foundation that will help your dealership achieve its online marketing goals.
When a car dealership search engine optimization campaign is done correctly it can give you a steady flow of inbound customers calling your dealership, visiting your website, and showing up to your showroom floor looking to make a purchase.
SEO is something that you need to be fully committed to. Some businesses fail when it comes to search engine marketing because they give up too quickly. They want immediate results, and that is not realistic, especially considering the automotive industry is one of the most competitive when it comes to SEO.
Monitoring your results is also important, and you need to look beyond just keyword rankings and website traffic. That data is important, but it’s your lead and phone call volume, along with sales that can be attributed to your SEO effort that are the data point you need to be paying attention to.
When you have a complete understanding of how your SEO is performing you can identify areas of improvement that will help drive even better results. It’s a constant game of monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing.
Final Thoughts
Ranking on the top of Google’s search results is incredibly important, yet extremely competitive for car dealerships. The tips above are a great starting point, but most auto dealers don’t have the time or resources to manage a full-time search engine optimization campaign in-house.
If you would like to learn more about our full-service automotive dealership SEO services or have any questions related to search engine optimization, please contact us to set up a time to speak. Our team of car dealer marketing specialists will be more than happy to answer your questions and explain how our search engine optimization campaign management works.
We will also be more than happy to audit your current SEO and identify areas of improvement that can be addressed immediately to improve your rankings and drive more warm leads to your dealership, providing you with an opportunity to move a higher unit volume off your dealership’s showroom floor month-after-month.
