Running a digital marketing campaign couldn’t be more different than fixing up a truck or selling a new car. But, innovative marketing is essential to the success of your dealership!
It’s the main thing that drives new business. It helps get people in the door to buy a car and it brings back old customers when they need a repair or yet another vehicle. Sure, you can invest in marketing tactics like radio commercials or billboard ads, but digital marketing is what brings the big bucks.
Here are 10 SEO tricks to use if you want customers to choose you above other auto dealerships.
1. Focus on Your Local Audience
Far too many dealership owners make the mistake of optimizing their dealership by using a general SEO approach rather than a locally targeted one. Then, they wonder why they’re not seeing results!
It’s not enough to use keywords like “car dealership” or “Ford trucks.” People all over the nation are searching for these terms. But, a much smaller audience is looking for “auto dealerships in Bradenton, FL” or “Ford trucks for sale in upstate NY.”
These are the people you want to reach. Take the popular auto keywords you’ve been using and making some of them more specific to your local area. Don’t underestimate the power of words/phrases like “nearby” or “near me”, either.
2. Get Listed in Online Auto Directories
Another way to make yourself more accessible to the local market is to get a listing for your dealership. Contact some of the newspapers and magazines in your local area and see if they put listings on their website. See if there are any popular auto blogs worth reaching out to, too.
These may not seem like big opportunities, but they can do a lot of good for your dealership’s overall web presence.
3. Leverage Your Google My Business Account
As great as third-party listings are, none of them can really compete with a Google My Business account. This is essential to your SEO success.
Google My Business not only improves your web presence, but it makes you more accessible to your local audience. This platform allows potential customers to learn everything they need to about who you are and what you do. They can spend just a few seconds looking at your Google listing and gauge the quality of service you offer, the kind of cars on your lot, and where you’re located.
You can even take users on a virtual tour of your lot and showroom! All you have to do is upload the visual content necessary for Google to offer this experience whenever a user clicks on your listing.
4. Clean Up Your NAP
The next thing you have to do to improve your SEO performance is clean up your NAP – name, address, and phone number information. This needs to be consistent across all of your landing pages, on your Google My Business account, and on your social media pages, too.
Every single detail should be the exact same. Don’t let your address be “5800 South St.” on one landing page and then “5800 S. Street” on a social media account. Keep everything consistent.
5. Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Responsive
If you’re working so hard to get people to visit your site, you may as well make sure you’re giving them a great user experience. A big part of this comes down to whether or not your site is mobile responsive and how fast each page loads.
Users in this day and age want everything fast. They want things to be simple and efficient, and they don’t have time to wait on outdated websites to work. Show them that you understand this by presenting your dealership on a website that is mobile responsive and easy to use.
6. Be Social
One of the best ways to take advantage of your customers’ mobile usage is to get on social media. Most of the time people spend on their phones these days is spent scrolling through social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Opening a business account for your dealership allows you to meet them where they are. It gives you yet another chance to engage your audience directly, while at the same time expanding your online presence.
7. Educate Your Audience
Speaking of expanding your online presence, have you thought about starting a blog for your dealership? If not, you need to get on this right away.
Blogging is one of the best ways to generate new content. It keeps you relevant in the minds of users and it provides Google bots with more valuable information to crawl and rank you with.
It also creates a sense of authority around your brand. When you take the time to write about at-home auto care and ways to improve fuel economy, you’re telling users that you want them to have the best experience possible with their new car. You’re making them want to read more about auto financing and maintenance, and eventually, persuading them to check out your dealership.
8. Adjust to the Rising Use of Voice Search
There’s one more thing to keep in mind about auto SEO: voice search. This is becoming more and more popular, and you need to be prepared for how voice search will affect your organic search rankings.
Research how users speak to their devices when they’re looking for auto information as opposed to when they type things into Google directly. Optimize all of your content based on the results you find and track your analytics to check whether or not you’re headed in the right direction.
SEO for Auto Dealerships Made Simple
There’s no quick fix to SEO. But, there are all kinds of SEO tools and tactics at your disposal – use them! The only way to get better rankings is to try a few different things, see what works and what doesn’t, and adjust.
The world of SEO is always changing, but it doesn’t have to leave your dealership behind. For more optimization tips to help you compete against other auto dealerships, click here.
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