Reputation Rhino is a New York SEO company specializing in SEO for Car Dealers. We will help your auto dealership increase targeted traffic, achieve top rankings on relevant keywords, increase calls and foot traffic and sales, whether you and your dealership specialize in new vehicles, used vehicles, or parts and repair services.
Car Dealer SEO marketing has become increasingly competitive – there are dealers for every brand in every major city, with many dealers selling the same makes and models. Dealers must compete on warranty, credit, and financing terms, and of course on customer service. They also must complete online, because you can’t win a new customer if the customer finds your competitor first. You don’t want your dealership to be left behind.
How easy is it for customers to find your Auto Dealership online?
Choose an experienced Automotive SEO company to help you achieve and maintain top Google rankings.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Car Dealers is the process used to improve the online visibility of your business to increase targeted traffic, achieve top rankings on agreed upon keywords and increase calls, in-person visits, test drives and sales from people who found you first online.
Adtaxi reports that approximately 86 percent of car shoppers conduct online research before deciding to visit a local dealership.
According to Google, nearly 25 percent of all automotive searches are related to parts, service, and maintenance. Even among loyal customers, over 90 percent of car shoppers still consider at least one other automotive brand.
A recent J.D. Power survey reports that nine out of 10 automotive internet shoppers visit at least one automaker’s site during the shopping process, while 84% visit a dealer site and 79% visit a third-party site.
Lead generation and customer conversion start with a positive online search experience that leads directly to the dealer website. Cox Automotive reports that 83% of consumers want one or more steps of the purchase process to take place online and 7 out of 10 are more likely to buy from a dealership if they could start the buying process online.
Keyword research, on-site optimization (optimized design, user experience, content quality / relevance, information architecture), technical SEO (structured data, meta tags, site speed), off-site optimization (link building and establishing authority), monitoring and measurement all must work together for SEO to work for your car dealer website.
What is Automotive SEO?
Automotive SEO has evolved to become the powerful and effective digital marketing strategy to attract new customers in every local market.
Car Dealers SEO works to improve and optimize online content to rank higher on different search engines.
How Does SEO Work?
To improve the organic presence of your Automotive Website on Google and other search engines, our award-winning SEO company offers a range of services including the following:
- On page optimization following ethical (white-hat) SEO techniques
- Targeting a combination of category, product/service and location related keywords
- Integrating relevant content on-page and off-page for targeted keywords
- Building your Car Dealer brand online through offsite optimization
- Link building
On-Page Optimization
Top search engine rankings are achieved through a combination of on-page and off-page activities on an ongoing basis. On-page optimization refers to improvements in our top-rated Auto SEO company will make to your auto dealership website to help Google and other search engines rank your website for the most important keywords for your business.
Examples of on-page activities include:
- HTML code repair
- Improve Internal Linking
- Quote and Underline Keywords in content area.
- Review of content on page with proximity and prominence factors.
- Incorporate Title, Description and keywords to each important page.
- Sitemap creation and submission (ROR, XML, TXT)
- Check for broken links and repair them.
- Web page and Image Optimization
- Meta Tags analysis and Keyword density
- Integrate customer and user feedback form on website, etc.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is how our NYC SEO company will improve the authority of your website through external activities to help Google and other search engines recognize your site as high quality and authoritative.
Examples of off-page optimization activities include:
- Local Submission
- Business Listings
- Search Engine submissions
- Directory Submissions
- Article submissions
- Blog post submissions
- Press release submissions
- Link building – one way, two way, three way
- Creation and Submission of RSS Feeds
- Bookmarking and tagging
- Create profile pages
SEO Analytics and Measurement
We use Google Analytics for monitoring website traffic and ranking position for our automotive SEO services.
Google Analytics can track anything from referring source and referring keyword through lead conversion. Using Google Analytics we can determine the following:
- Total number of unique visitors to the website
- The number of enquiries or leads generated by our activities
- Referring source for site visitors along with keyword identification
- User demographics
- Goal setting and tracking drilling down to conversion ratio.
- Average page views per unique user
- Cost Per Click against organic search generated visitor conversions
We evaluate conversion ratios and SEO effectiveness using these metrics:
- Total number of inquiries and inbound emails originating from organic search
- Total number of unique visitors generated through organic search
Why Is SEO Important for Car Dealerships?
82% of business owners see SEO as more effective than traditional advertising. Why? Because people trust organic search results more than advertising.
Automotive SEO companies set up, strategize and implement ongoing link building and on-site optimization to maintain and improve results, but once you’ve reached high rankings you’re getting more website visitors on a daily basis.
Can paid advertising give you the same results? Not without paying several dollars or more for each click.
How is SEO for Auto Dealers Different from Traditional Marketing?
Car Dealers need to show up on Google for local searches. Things like “Honda dealer in Houston” or “2021 Hyundai Sonata in San Francisco” or “Acura dealership near me”.
To rank for location-based auto dealer searches, you need help from an experienced team who understand SEO for auto dealer websites. SEO helps put your business in front of motivated customers looking for a new and used car, and unlike traditional advertising, online marketing can be accurately and reliably measured with available online tools.
5 Tips for Your Automotive SEO Strategy
Improve your Car Dealers SEO strategy with a straightforward process.
- Choose the Best Keywords
You have to determine the keywords you need to rank for, but how? Start by thinking about your brand and what people might be searching for. If you are a card dealership trying to rank in a competitive market like Baltimore, your broad-search keywords might be “car dealer Baltimore” and niche keywords like “Subaru dealer Baltimore,” or “2019 silver Subaru Forrester” and, of course, you must rank on the top of Page 1 for your auto dealership brand name.
- Dominate Local Search
If you are to rank your bar or Auto Dealership, you must optimize for local searches. Optimizing for your location means getting your Google My Business listing to the top of the Google Map Pack, and getting your website to the top of “[BRAND NAME] dealer in [CITY NAME].”
- Go Mobile
Over 53% of automotive internet shoppers use a mobile device when searching for automotive information according to J.D. Power. Google favors Websites that prioritize the user experience on mobile devices with higher ranking than websites that are not mobile-friendly. If you don’t know if your website is mobile-friendly, it’s not too late to fix, Google offers a free Mobile Friendly Test now.
- Create Quality Content
Car dealership websites will typically have hundreds of pages for each make and model of car, highlighting features, pictures, videos and more. The only problem? Every other car dealer has the exact same content. And unique content ranks higher than duplicate content, in some cases, duplicate content won’t rank at all. Automotive search engine optimization can help implement dynamic content on your website or expand your blog to help rank for the local keywords that matter most.
- Schema for Car Dealers
Google and other search engines use Schema.org as a preferred structured markup to make it easier for its crawlers to scan pages and deliver relevant search results for users. Google recommends the JSON-LD format, this is included as a block of script in the head of your page. You might want to see if you could use JSON in combination with the structure of your current content. Another option is RDFa, and then Microdata both of which are expressed as in line properties in the body of your page.
There are four Schema types to consider for Car Dealers SEO:
For Car Dealers, the Auto Dealer schema markup is available under the Automotive Business category, as part of the Local Business schema. You can include Address, Opening Hours, Aggregate Rating, and more. If you are wondering how to increase SEO for Car Dealers, structured data is the way to go. You can even test how things will look once implemented using the Google Structured Data Testing Tool.
- Optimize Google My Business
Keeping up with your Google My Business profile will provide immediate benefit for your brand. Adding car photos, videos, posting accurate store hours and a well-written business description, gaining positive online reviews, and highlighting your dealership’s special offers and events are hugely important for getting higher map rankings.
The Importance of Local SEO for Car Dealers
88% of people who do a local search on their phone visit that establishment the same day. Local SEO for car dealers has never been more vital as a way to book more appointments and take your car dealership marketing to the next level.
Social media marketing can be helpful to promote sales events and showcase new models, but search engine optimization is the gasoline that powers your car dealership revenue — especially on the local level.
Local SEO requires more than verifying a Google Maps listing and hoping for the best. You need to have a review generation strategy in place so you can acquire positive reviews and remain at the top of Google’s local map pack.
Online reviews are more important than ever, and no one understands Online Reputation Management better than Reputation Rhino. 70% of car buyers always check online reviews before contacting a dealer. 72% of car buyers and 63% of service customers would drive 20-60 miles to a dealership with good reviews.
Negative reviews have convinced 94 percent of consumers to avoid a business.
Choose an SEO Company that understands the importance of online reputation for car dealers.
Choose Reputation Rhino as the Best Car Dealer SEO Company to Increase Car Sales
Landing on Page 1 for the keywords that matter may seem impossible, but it’s a lot easier when you have an experienced Automotive SEO company on your side. Increasing your search rankings will increase sales and revenue for your dealership.
Before we start implementing a new project for a new Car Dealer SEO client we need to first understand your current performance and the gap between your auto dealership and your top competitors.
Until we’ve completed this SEO audit, it’s not possible to understand exactly what work is needed and what level of investment is required to see meaningful and measurable SEO results. What the audit gives us is a roadmap of our Auto Dealer SEO strategy, helping inform exactly what we need to focus on to increase the amount of leads you generate online.
By using detailed analytics and goal tracking, you’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your SEO campaign on a daily basis. You will see more phone calls, more foot traffic and more informed buyers.
Contact us today to learn more about Reputation Rhino and our affordable Car Dealer SEO services designed to increase leads, grow your revenue and outrank your competitors.