Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method of improving the amount of traffic your dealership’s website gets from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo by targeting keywords and increasing the quality of your site or web page while decreasing the amount of time it takes for someone to find what they are looking for on your website.
According to StatCounter, Google is responsible for 92.48% of all web traffic as of May 2022. With so many people using Google to research local businesses and compare products — including cars — optimizing your dealership’s website is a must. If your dealership’s website is not optimized for search engines, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with your customers and get sales.
In this day and age, Automotive SEO should be a top priority if you’re a car dealership owner. And if you’re still on the fence about implementing it, here are the top 10 benefits of SEO for car dealerships.
More Organic Traffic
One of the top benefits of SEO is that it yields more traffic. More traffic means more potential customers and increased sales for your dealership.
To achieve this, you will want to make sure that you are using quality keywords on your website that relate directly to what people would search for while looking for a specific brand or make of a vehicle. This way, when someone searches using these keywords, they will find your car dealer website first because it’s optimized with those terms.
You can also use SEO to build links that point back to your site, increasing its authority in Google’s eyes. As a result, you’ll get more traffic from Google search results over time!
More Targeted and Qualified Leads
Let’s face it: leads are the lifeblood of any business, and using SEO to generate leads for your auto dealership is a great way to grow your business. By defining your target audience and creating an online presence that speaks directly to them, you’ll be able to attract more potential customers to your dealership.
You can also use SEO to generate leads by building a strong website that provides useful content and helpful tools for consumers. This will increase the number of people contacting you directly or filling out forms on your site.
High Conversion Rate and Engagement
Using SEO best practices can produce high conversion rates and customer engagement.
In the early days of the internet, SEO was all about keywords and link building. Enter Google’s Panda update and Penguin 2.0 updates. These major algorithm changes forever changed how we do SEO by focusing on quality over quantity.
With the rise of voice search, personalization, and social media marketing, SEO has taken on a whole new meaning that goes beyond just keyword optimization.
SEO now is more than just writing articles or blog posts — it’s about understanding what your audience wants to read about and how they want to read it. That means optimizing your content for search engines like Google and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter will help you get maximum exposure across all channels possible.
And this is why SEO can produce high conversion rates and customer engagement: it allows you to reach more people with your message!
Bigger Profits and Less Expensive
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have a much higher upfront investment than SEO. SEO costs way less than PPC advertising because it mostly relies on content and quality keywords instead of paid ads. Each SEO campaign involves many factors in deciding your target keywords, but generally speaking, the more specific your keywords are (i.e., “Toyota Highlander SUV Boston MA” vs. “SUVs near me”), the lower cost per click they tend to be.
Another difference between these two strategies is that PPC is generally only useful if you want immediate results, while SEO helps drive traffic and sales over time. You may have to wait months before seeing any substantial SEO results. However, once those results start rolling in, they will continue for years — and unlike PPC campaigns, SEO will pay off for as long as your site is still up and running!
More Customers and Foot Traffic
People search online to find businesses near them, and car dealerships are no different. Consumers use Google Search to find the nearest dealership and then visit either the website or a physical location. With Local SEO, your website and car dealership address will be easier for people to find in search results and on Google Maps, which will translate into increased website traffic, customer base, and personal visits.
Builds or Improves Brand Credibility and Trustworthiness
SEO is a way to improve your online presence, which helps you build a reputation as a trustworthy auto dealership. A good online marketing strategy will help you build trust with potential customers by showing that you’re reliable, knowledgeable, and committed to providing quality products or services.
If your site has great content or information, people will want to visit it again and again. This will also tell Google that your site is worth linking to and recommending. So if you want people to trust what you say about your product or service, make sure they can find you when they need advice, information, or answers quickly!
SEO Helps You Outrank Your Competition
This is the most important reason to have an SEO strategy in place, as it allows you to get more exposure than your competitors and receive more traffic from Google. If they’re on page two of the search results while you’re on page one, customers will be more likely to find out about your dealership and shop with you instead of them.
This also means that if a potential customer makes a search query like “used cars near me” or “car dealerships near me” and then sees one of your listings within the first few pages of their search results, they’re going to click on yours over all others! Not only does this mean more traffic for your site (and thus more leads), but also better conversion rates because those who do land on it were already interested in what they saw displayed upfront.
Gain Market Share
By ranking higher in Google Search, you get more market share. This is because when you’re on page one of Google, you’ll be displaying your dealership to more people who are already looking for what you have to offer.
In fact, BrightEdge Research found that 76% of clicks go to the results in Google Search’s page one, and the top five organic results account for 53% of all clicks! Thus, if your business has a page one listing and another dealership does not, you’re going to gain market share simply by being more visible online.
SEO Is Easy to Track, Measure, and Analyze
You can see how well your website performs by using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which will show you how many visitors go to your site each month, their demographics, and where they came from.
You’ll also be able to see how long people stay on your site before leaving, which pages are the most popular, and how many people click through from one page to another. This information can help you improve your website and make it more effective at reaching its goals.
SEO Is Easy to Scale
Scaling your SEO efforts is a breeze. In fact, it’s one of the benefits that makes SEO so appealing to car dealerships. You can start with a small budget and gain real traction for your business without breaking the bank. As you begin to see results, you can scale up your budget and get even more visibility for your dealership in local searches.
This works because SEO is an investment in long-term growth, not short-term gains. The longer you are around and continue to build up positive content about your auto dealership online, the more likely it will be that people looking for car deals will find their way to you through search engines — and stick around once they do!
Let’s Implement A Good SEO Strategy, Stat!
With all of these benefits, it’s no wonder why more car dealerships are turning to SEO for auto dealers. It can be a great tool for improving your business’s online presence and helping you reach potential customers who may not have known about your business before.
If you need to kickstart your digital marketing journey but don’t know where to start, get in touch with us! We offer SEO services to any auto dealership in the U.S.
We’ll review your website and make recommendations for improvement based on your goals, budget, and current traffic. Then we’ll implement those changes and ensure that they work as expected. For more information about what we can do for you, you can contact us at (302)-394-6940!