If you are running a car dealership in 2019, you need to have a strong focus on SEO.
SEO or search engine optimisation is the process of changing your brand profile to ensure that you get the most traffic online. Unfortunately, SEO is constantly changing. It can be hard to keep track of all the latest trends but here are the key areas to focus on this year.
1) Ratings And Reviews
It’s true to say that customers are more cautious than ever when they purchase cars from a dealer. No one wants to be disappointed with their purchase and in 2019 consumers know that there is absolutely no reason to. Particularly, when they can check to see if your business does have reviews and ensure that your company can be trusted. Google provides users with the chance to submit reviews directly through the search engine. So when people search for your brand or even the service that you offer, these reviews are readily available.
Anything less than 3½ stars on average will lead to issues for your brand. It suggests that you are delivering poor service and that you can not be trusted. Poor reviews are also going to impact SEO directly. Remember, Google only wants to provide quality results to their users. If you have low reviews, this is going to impact ranking.
As such, you do need to make sure that you address poor reviews. There are a few steps to take here. Think about responding to particularly negative reviews. Try and turn it into a positive by offering the solution that they need. This also shows that you are attentive to customer needs which is a great message. You also need to keep a check on the bad buzz around your business and reply when necessary. Also, encourage customers to leave reviews. The more you have, the more likely you are to get that positive average.
2) Chat And Messenger
Instant chat and messengers have an open rate that is around 80%. That’s huge and popup chats on your site also provide great benefits for SEO. One of the key issues that will drive your ranking down on your dealership website is a high bounce rate. This is when customers click on and click off the site in minutes. It suggests to Google that your site is not a high-quality resource leading to it dropping off the charts. That’s the last thing you want and it can be avoided.
With messengers and chat, you can quickly provide the information customers need. For instance, you can inform them about car financing options on how to schedule a test drive and much more. A live chat setup ensures that they don’t have to search for this information themselves.
3) Voice Searches
Do you have a smart home control system? You’re not alone and we guarantee the customers searching for cars from your business probably have one too. They could be using Google Home, Amazon Echo or even Siri. it doesn’t matter because they all provide users the ability to ask direct requests. This reduces the need to rely on short keywords like ‘used car in my town.’ Instead, they’re asking questions like:
“What’s the best dealership within ten miles?”
Or:
“How many miles should be on a used car?”
That last one is particularly important because it provides the option for actionable content. You can deliver the answer that your customers want and ensure that you are seen as a valuable resource to them. This means that you do gain the chance to impress the client and ensure that they feel as though you can be trusted. It also does help your SEO. But the key thing to remember here is that you should be using these kinds of questions in your content. This is going to help your SEO and critically could lead to your content being chosen as one of the answers that appear in the Google SERPs. If this happens, then traffic for your car dealership website is going to go through the roof.
4) Video Content
You should be working towards adding more video content to your site. Why is this? Well, in the next five years, 80% of the content online is going to be video. This should provide a clear picture of why you need video on your website. The video will help your bounce rate too because it’s more likely that users will watch a video than wait around to read a full two thousand word article. It’s also easier to deliver key information in the video format and it’s more engaging as well. There’s really no downside here because it even makes your website look more professional which Google will love.
You can use videos to welcome new customers, showcase the latest cars you’re selling or provide more useful content including what to look for when buying a used car.
5) Mobile Is Key
Finally, you do need to think in terms of handheld devices. In fact, a survey by Google suggested that 58% of users will only use a handheld device to search for info when buying a new car. This means your website does need to be ready to work on a range of different devices including tablets and mobiles. Be aware that a lot of customers are already going to be out and about when they are looking for the right car dealership with them.
This can also be connected to your social media campaign. The same survey suggested that you could complete a sale by ensuring that staff from dealerships were easy to access and interact with through social media. Accessibility will be key if you want to ensure that you beat your competitors. Remember, when buying a car clients do want to build a relationship with the dealership. This will also help with the reviews we discussed at the beginning of this article.
We hope this helps ensure that you get SEO right for your car dealership. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with a higher number of customers and clients visiting your business. You can also ensure that you get actionable leads that will ensure you make plenty of sales.
