Control Your Dealership’s Story with SEO
Over half of all website traffic originates from organic search results¹. These are the non-paid listings that appear on search engines like Google, and the way to achieve higher organic rankings that are more likely to earn clicks is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Seventy-five percent of people never scroll past the first page of search engines² and it’s safe to say that most don’t scroll very far down the page, either. Earning one of those top positions in organic search is key to capturing those online looking for a dealership like yours.
Implementing SEO into your dealership’s digital marketing strategy means optimizing the content on your site to attract search engine algorithms, which determine your ranking. Search engines favor websites that serve as valuable resources for people making related searches. The more high-quality, keyword-rich content on your site, the more helpful those algorithms deem your website to be.
Beyond optimized content on your website pages as well as a blog platform, there are other ways SEO helps you manage the online narrative for your dealership. These include:
- On-site maintenance of content – related to both quality and organization. As a dealership, it’s important to optimize your inventory pages by unit type, make, and brand. This sets customers up for success when they are browsing your site for specific units they are interested in. And, as a business that largely serves customers in your community, a geographic focus within your content is key as it makes your site relevant to local searchers. Proper SEO implementation assures that the content on your site is organized in the most optimal way for website visitors and the quality is top-notch too.
- Off-site maintenance of links. Outgoing links appear on your site. Examples of outgoing links that could negatively affect your business include broken links, spammy links left by website visitors in any comment sections on your site, and more. Incoming links, also called backlinks, bring traffic to your website from other sites. Examples of bad backlinks include any that have been paid for to manipulate search engines, links from low-quality online directories, and more. Proper SEO helps manage both kinds of links, and a great SEO provider can also advise you on how to build good backlinks for your site that help it earn increased traffic and more credibility.
- Maintaining a clean citation profile. Your dealership’s business listings should match on all platforms where it appears online. Many businesses have inaccuracies and/or inconsistencies when it comes to things like their name, address, phone number, and hours listed on business listings sites like Google Business and Yelp as well as social media platforms like Facebook. These “messy” citations cause search engines to find your dealership website unreliable and are less likely to give it a high ranking because of it.
- Online reputation. This includes the ratings and reviews that your dealership receives on business listings sites and social media platforms. Managing this feedback, positive or negative, and responding in a timely manner is key for maintaining your business’ online reputation. Your dealership’s ratings and reviews will appear in search results and are one of the most influential aspects of local ranking. Roughly 15% of how search engines rank businesses depends on average rating, number of reviews, frequency of reviews, and different types of reviews. Not only does the positive or negative status of your digital reputation matter, but regularly receiving online feedback is important too.
The different puzzle pieces of SEO play a big part in your dealership’s online appearance, but you have the chance to help tell the story. By implementing these SEO tools, you can take steps to be sure that your dealership is portrayed in a positive light. Not only is this good for your business, but putting in this extra work will help customers and prospects discover your dealership online more easily too.
¹Brightedge
²Hubspot
³BrightLocal