Increase Brand Awareness & Drive Qualified Buyers with Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential part of finding and selling to modern shoppers. 

As retail continues to shift online, SEO is a major component to a complete digital marketing strategy. 

It’s the foundation of a well-optimized, relevant website and one of the primary ways to improve paid advertising and drive online traffic and sales.  

This article will discuss the foundational aspects of SEO and the role it plays in your overall digital marketing strategy. You’ll learn the benefits of a sound SEO strategy and a few SEO best practices that you can implement at your dealership to improve your organic search rankings.  

What is SEO? 

According to Search Engine Land, one of the foremost news resources relating to all things online search, SEO is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility on search engines. It’s an ongoing effort to keep your website aligned with search engine algorithms and atop the search engine rankings. 

As shoppers go online and input keywords, search engines, like Google, quickly perform three primary tasks: They 1) crawl webpages to understand content, 2) index webpages to quickly retrieve relevant information and 3) deliver search results based on the interpreted intent of the query.  

Search engines return both organic and paid search results. You might think of these results as owning versus renting website traffic. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads rent website traffic by appearing at the top of search results and paying an advertising fee each time someone clicks on the link. These appear as “sponsored” results in search listings.  

Organic rankings, on the other hand, own website traffic by earning their rank on search engine results pages. A well-optimized website with SEO can improve your default non-advertising search results and increase the number of searches that are relevant to you. It can also improve your relevance for terms you are already ranking for to boost your search rank and earn even more clicks to your website. 

The Importance of SEO 

The majority of shoppers are online. In fact, 53% of them perform some form of online research before they buy to ensure that they make the very best purchase decision possible. That’s the good news. The bad news is that your competitors are online too. SEO separates the serious businesses from the crowd of competition to improve search engine rankings and drive website traffic. 

Of all the digital marketing tactics, SEO is the only strategy where qualified buyers are coming directly to you, versus simply being shown your marketing message. This ensures that you reach targeted traffic and guarantees qualified leads because you know the people clicking on your website listing are already searching for similar inventory or services.  

SEO guarantees qualified leads because you know the people clicking on your website listing are already searching for similar inventory or services.

Simply put, SEO is the foundation of an integrated digital marketing strategy. It drives top-of-funnel leads and improves paid advertising by increasing your visibility in search engine results and the creditability of your business.  

Benefits of SEO 

There are many benefits of SEO. With the right strategy, you can improve visibility, boost brand recognition, drive website traffic and leads, increase sales, grow your business, and the list goes on. Consider some of the following benefits of adding SEO to your dealership.  

• Increases Website Traffic: SEO increases the organic traffic to your website. High-ranking websites receive more clicks and visits from users. 
• Targets Different Stages of the Sales Funnel: SEO builds awareness (location-based SEO), educating the consumer through blogs and descriptive webpages, driving shoppers to your dealership by way of online business listings and contact information.  
• Improves User Experience: SEO is not just about optimizing your website for search engines, it’s also for your website visitors. SEO makes it easier for users to find what they are looking for on your website. 
• Builds Trust and Credibility: SEO informs visitors that your website is credible and trustworthy. Users are more likely to trust and click on websites that appear at the top of search engine results pages. SEO can help your business be seen as an expert in your industry and gain backlinks from other trusted sites. 
• Provides Valuable Insights: SEO gives you insights on website performance, such as the keywords people are using to find your website, the pages getting the most traffic and the pages that need optimization. 
• Cost-Effective: SEO is a cost-effective way of driving traffic to your website. Unlike paid advertising, SEO does not require you to pay for every click or impression. You can earn organic traffic without any additional cost. 
• Long-Term Results: SEO provides long-term return on investment (ROI). Unlike paid advertising, SEO is not a one-time investment. In fact, it can improve over time to yield even better results. Once your website ranks higher in search engine results pages, it can continue to drive organic traffic to your website for months or even years to come. 

Best Practices for SEO in Dealerships 

To experience all the benefits SEO has to offer, it’s important to implement a few best practices. Use the following industry insights, tips and tricks at your dealership to get the most out of your SEO.  

Best Practice: Keyword Research &Targeting 

Identifying relevant keywords for your dealership is the first rule of SEO. With the rise in content marketing, keyword targeting is becoming more and more competitive. It’s best to use target keywords that are valuable to your shoppers, but that rank lower in competition.  

Use a keyword planner to see what keywords similar businesses in your area are targeting. Be sure to use target keywords at the top and bottom of the sales funnel to reach shoppers at different stages of the buying and ownership journey. You can even use long-tail keywords for specific unit models.  

Best Practice: On-Page Optimization 

SEO goes beyond the content that’s on your actual webpage. Search engines also look for websites with optimized meta tags and descriptions that users don’t always see. Each webpage should have a unique meta title and meta description that accurately reflects the content of that page. 

When writing meta tags, include relevant keywords naturally within the copy, but avoid keyword stuffing. Keep meta tags to around 50-60 characters in length to ensure that they are fully displayed in search engine results. Incorporate primary keywords and key phrases toward the beginning of the meta title to achieve maximum impact. Meta descriptions should be around 150-160 characters in length. Keep them concise and compelling—a general summary of the page's content that entices users to click on your website. 

Best Practice: Optimize URLs & Internal Linking Structure 

The right URL (with relevant, keyword-rich anchor text that describes your destination pages) can help drive users to your website. Once they arrive at your site, you can give users a great shopping experience by ensuring that your linking structure is optimized to facilitate navigation.  

Check for broken or outdated internal links that may negatively impact the user experience and hinder search engine crawlers from properly indexing your content. Your internal links should always connect to pages that are relevant in terms of topic and context.  

When it comes to content, you don’t always have to start from scratch. You can update existing content and optimize high-value pages, including inventory pages, educational blog articles, or your “About Us” page to reflect the current consumer market and your updated offerings. 

Best Practice: Improve Technical SEO  

When properly optimized, your website and its internal infrastructure can assist search engines in returning relevant results for users. Technical SEO is the practice of making improvements to your website to improve your site’s search rankings. These improvements include optimizing speed and performance, ensuring a mobile-friendly and responsive design, and adding rich snippets to search results. 

Speed and Performance 

To optimize your website’s speed and performance, compress images to reduce file size without compromising quality. Use appropriate image formats, including JPEGs for photographs and PNGs for graphics. You may also consider lazy loading images to defer the loading of non-visible images until they are needed. Always monitor and test your website’s performance and monitor metrics such as page load time and time to first byte (TTFB).  

Responsive Design 

A responsive website design—one that automatically adjusts layout and content to fit different screen sizes and resolutions—can improve the user experience and your search ranking. Ensure that all images, videos and other media elements are responsive and use clear and concise menus. Avoid complex dropdowns menus to simplify navigation for mobile users. You may want to consider implementing a sticky menu or hamburger menu for easy access and to ensure that menus are easily tappable. Of course, it’s always a good idea to test your website on various mobile devices and screen sizes to ensure consistent performance and usability. 

Image Optimization 

All images should be optimized for the web. File size will depend on your website domain platform. For example, on the Dealer Spike website platform, images do not exceed 200kb in file size. In situations where images cannot be optimized below 200kb, such as background images, a separate mobile-friendly version of the image is created to keep the website responsive. 

Structured Data Markup for Rich Snippets 

Rich snippets are the special result snippets in Google search results. They add additional information to a normal snippet, which otherwise includes just a title tag, meta description and URL. While rich snippets don’t influence your website’s ranking, they provide additional relevant information that make your page’s search result more appealing, increasing click-through rates. 

Best Practice: Local SEO for Dealerships 

As much as 78% of consumers who search locally on their smartphone will visit a business within 24 hours. Local SEO, as its name suggests, increases business visibility in search results rankings within a specific geographic area. To optimize SEO for local users, it’s important to claim and verify your Google Business Profile. That includes completing all the fields in your Google Business Profile with accurate and up-to-date information about your dealership.  

Incorporate location-specific keywords within your website's page content, including headings, subheadings and body text. This will help search engines understand the geographical relevance of your content and improve your visibility for local searches. You should also acquire backlinks from local websites, directories and influential blogs or publications in your target area to establish authority and relevance within the community. 

Best Practice: Link Building and Off-Page SEO 

When other websites around the internet link back to your website, it can increase your search rankings and improve the reputation of your brand in the minds of consumers and the algorithms of search engines. Producing valuable and informative content that people actually want to consume is the key to effective link building.  

Create compelling blog posts, videos and other content that naturally attracts links from other websites. Focus on acquiring natural, authoritative and relevant backlinks from trusted sources by creating content that provides unique insights, solves problems and offers valuable resources to your target audience. In other words, link building should always prioritize quality over quantity.  

Partner up and pitch content ideas to relevant and authoritative websites within your industry that accept guest posts or contributions. When your guest posts are published, they often include links back to your website, increasing your exposure and generating valuable backlinks that improve SEO.  

Sharing your content on social media is another great way to build links back to your site. Actively promote your content and engage with your audience on social media platforms to increase visibility and the likelihood of others linking to your site. You may also want to participate in relevant industry discussions and communities, which can lead to link opportunities and added exposure.  

Best Practice: Monitoring Performance and Analytics  

Your SEO efforts don’t end when your site reaches the top of the search rankings. Your content might become outdated over time and your competitors are always looking for ways to move ahead through their own SEO campaigns. It’s essential to continuously monitor performance and analytics to stay on top.  

Utilize keyword tracking tools to monitor your keyword rankings over time. These tools provide comprehensive data on keyword positions, search volumes and even your competitors' rankings. Track the progress of your targeted keywords and your competitors' keyword rankings to identify opportunities for improvement. 

You can also track key SEO metrics to gauge the performance of your organic online presence. As you do so, look for any significant changes or trends to identify areas for optimization. 

• Total organic traffic: How many visitors arrive on a webpage from the search results page 
• Impressions: The number of times a page from your website is visible in a search engine result 
• Visits: The number of times a user visits your website (there can be multiple visits per click) 
• Leads: A website visitor who indicates an interest in your inventory or services 
• Organic conversions: Percentage of visitors from unpaid traffic sources (eg, the search results page) who perform a desired action, such as submitting a lead form or requesting a quote 
• Bounce rate: Percentage of website visitors who leave the site without interacting with the content, such as clicking a link 
• Average session duration: How much time visitors spend on your website per visit 

Of course, every good SEO strategy also involves keeping track of changes to the search engine algorithms. Google made 10 significant updates to its algorithm in 2022 alone. Enlisting the help of an SEO expert or vendor will help your website stay one step ahead of SEO trends. SEO experts are well-versed in these changes and can adjust their tactics accordingly. They proactively monitor algorithm updates, implement necessary adjustments and ensure the dealership's SEO practices remain compliant and effective.  

SEO is an essential part of any online business. It increases website traffic, improves the user experience, builds trust and credibility and provides valuable insights into your website's performance. With the right SEO strategy—one that incorporates industry insights and best practices—your business can enjoy the benefits of increased visibility, brand recognition and website traffic and leads to gain a competitive advantage.  

If you are concerned about the commitment of maintaining an SEO strategy at your dealership, you may consider outsourcing SEO to an agency to handle the strategic planning, technical optimization, content creation, algorithm changes and more. By leveraging the knowledge and resources of SEO professionals, you can maximize your dealership’s online visibility, attract targeted traffic and achieve sustainable growth in the highly competitive digital landscape.