Automotive SEO techniques
After working at Nummero, we’ve discovered several fascinating phenomena.
Although traditional advertising channels continue to exist in the Internet age, digital marketing is fast expanding as firms realize how easy it is to reach their target audience.
Not only does digital marketing comprise display advertising and search engine marketing, but it also covers SEO, user-friendly web design, online reputation management, and online review tracking.
You must use correct local automotive SEO to attract more customers to your location.
What Is Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Automotive SEO is a sort of search engine optimization geared at helping car dealerships improve their rankings and qualified traffic.
On-page optimizations, local SEO activities, structured data utilization, and more are all part of automotive SEO.
Before my current position, I spent two years overseeing marketing efforts for nine dealerships, and it became clear to me that strategic web advertising and search engine optimization were critical to recruiting new customers.
Leaving the TV to the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) has proven to be the best strategy in my experience.
Why the battle for expensive airtime when you might spend your money on website improvements, boosting search engine ranks for specific local keywords, and collaborating with neighborhood organizations to increase your exposure and trust?
Our dealerships’ marketing focus shifted over time to include all things digital, including PPC, Display, SEO, and online reviews.
Television and radio were “necessary evils” that were becoming increasingly difficult to link to a positive return on investment.
According to 2015 market expenditure patterns, 28% of marketers trimmed their advertising budget to finance more digital marketing, while TV ad spending stayed steady, if not decreased.
Newspapers have also seen a 10% decrease in ad spending on average.
Local news has been hit the worst, with an 11.6 percent drop in 2014 compared to 2013.
Meanwhile, digital media spending in the United States increased by 15% in 2014, accounting for 30% of the market.
According to the August 2015 CMO Survey, organizations intend to boost digital marketing spending by 12.2 percent over the next 12 months, while traditional advertising will grow by -2.1 percent.
Local Automotive SEO Tips
1. It’s important to have a website.
They say, “You only have one chance to create a first impression,” and your website is the only first impression that over 90% of your potential purchasers will see, so make it a good one!
There were about 18,000 dealerships in the United States as of March 2015.
With the ease of shopping online and each dealership’s reach beyond their designated market area (DMA), your website is more important than ever to stand out against the competition.
The goal is to have a website that is carefully developed and maintained to rank well in Google’s search results.
Here are a few pointers:
- On your homepage, aim for at least 400 words.
- Make sure to put your address and phone number, as well as all of the cities you serve, on every page of your website.
- Make sure your pages have a title tag, H1, meta description, and, if applicable, image alt text and title.
- Include a search bar and social media sharing buttons.
2. Provide valuable information.
Fresh and relevant material is favored by search engines.
The goal of your digital content marketing campaign should be to provide relevant and original information that your clients will find useful.
Is there any new and intriguing stuff available at your dealership?
The majority of dealers’ websites only modify to update inventory or list any monthly promotions.
It will be difficult to outrank your competition if your site’s content is limited to these routine updates.
Instead, provide value to your potential buyers by creating a blog or news part of your website with information about the cars you sell.
Having someone from your IT department or social media team (if you have one) produce a weekly blog post between 350 and 500 words is an excellent approach to developing local content that people in your DMA will want to read.
It’s important to remember that it’s not all about you.
Be a good custodian of the neighborhood.
Information that people desire to know about should be included in the topics.
This could involve the following:
- local happenings
- upcoming model launches that are unique to your company (s)
- Possibilities for charity or fundraising
- news from the neighborhood
- Construction in the community that may have an impact on residents and/or traffic
Automobiles should also be discussed frequently.
Include seasonal auto care recommendations, new model debuts, current offers, holiday events, and so on.
Each post should be localized, which means it should include information about the city and state, as well as title tags, alt text, and meta descriptions.
Also, don’t forget to include a GMB (Google My Business) map in your blog entries or on your website’s homepage.
To help raise potential consumers’ interest in your vehicle, it’s crucial to provide high-quality and distinctive photographs and/or videos with your automobile listings.
Keeping the site up to date with daily or weekly updates and incorporating new and valuable material will help you stand out from the competition and enhance your website’s search rankings.
3. Create a Google My Business page for your company.
If you haven’t done so already, go to Google My Business and claim your business listing.
Businesses, products, brands, artists, and organizations can use it to manage their web presence with Google in a quick and simple way.
A Google My Business profile that provides accurate information about your company may boost not only your web traffic but also make it easier for people to find you and examine your inventory.
When creating your account, make sure to include all of your contact information, as well as categories, times, a profile and header image, and a description of your business.
Ensure that your business’s name, address, and phone number (also known as NAP) are displayed in the same format on both your Google My Business page and your website.
On all sites that mention your company, you should always utilize the same NAP layout.
4. Make use of the AutoDealer Schema.
Even though schema markup has been around for a long time, just a few websites use it.
Integrating schema mark-up into your website can help you stand out from the crowd.
So, what exactly is the schema?
Schema mark-up is a piece of code that you may add to your website to help search engines and crawlers better understand your content.
Not only does it inform search engines what your data says, but it also tells them what it means.
Schema mark-up, for example, can be used to inform search engines that the number listed on your website is a phone number.
It can also be used to communicate the distinction between new and worn inventory.
It may also be used to find customer reviews and their ratings of your company on a scale of 1 to 5.
Google’s Knowledge Graph also makes use of Schema.
Schema can also power Google’s knowledge graph, boost user click-through rates, and help (though indirectly) with search ranks.
According to studies, websites that employ schema mark-up rank four positions higher on average than those that do not.
Because of its increased visibility, this better position enhances click-through rates.
In brief, websites that use schema markup assist search engines in providing higher-quality search results to users.
‘Hours of operation,’ ‘address,” reviews,’ and ‘telephone,’ to mention a few, are excellent schema mark-up possibilities for auto dealer websites.
If your site’s backend doesn’t have AutoDealer schema, you should add it.
5. Compile citations
Mentions of your company’s name and address on other websites assist develop confidence with search engines and potential customers
by validating your trustworthiness in the community.
These citations are crucial for achieving high rankings in search engines like Google and Bing.
To name a few, you can work to have your website included on the website of your local chamber of commerce, reliable business directories, Facebook, and Yelp.
Getting extra citations is as simple as using an aggregator program.
Your dealership’s details are published across a broad variety of directory sites in a way that ensures your Name, Address, and Phone number
are listed consistently when you utilize tools like Moz Local or Yext.
6. Increase the number of local businesses that link to your site.
If you want to boost your website’s ranking, you need inbound links from reputable domains.
Getting links from local websites and organizations might help your site rank higher for location-based search queries
such as “Car Dealers in Washington DC.”
Car dealerships should consider all of the sponsorships and community events
they participate in throughout the year to obtain these local links.
These are excellent places to start looking for local links.
If you’re donating to a local children’s charity, for example, make sure you’re listed as a sponsor on the organization’s website.
Many dealerships already support local charities, sports teams, and vehicle meet-ups.
Conclusion
Dealership viability depends on digital efforts.
These local automotive SEO methods and suggestions will help you push your local car dealership efforts into the future
if you and your team are ready to move forward in the digital era of marketing.
These strategies can be implemented in-house even if you can’t afford to engage an SEO firm to assist with your digital strategy.
It’s also important to understand that these methods won’t produce immediate results; local automotive SEO takes time.
Maintaining a consistent strategy, upgrading an out-of-date website, creating trust signals,
and ensuring your information is consistent across all platforms can all help you succeed.
Contact nummero, the top web design agency in Bangalore, for the best internet marketing services.