Drive More Leads and Sales Through Online Advertising for Car Dealerships

Drive More Leads and Sales Through Online Advertising for Car Dealerships

Drive More Leads and Sales Through Online Advertising for Car Dealerships

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In today’s digital age, most car buyers start their search for a new vehicle online. In fact, studies show that the majority of vehicle shoppers now use the internet in their research process before ever setting foot in a dealership. As a car dealership, you need to make sure your online presence captures this huge audience and drives them to your store through multiple channels – like Dealers United’s Full-Service digital solutions do for dealerships…

Implementing the right online advertising strategies can help you connect with more prospective buyers, increase leads and sales, and grow your business in a competitive marketplace. This article explores the most effective types of online ads for car dealerships and how to optimize each one.

Fast track your online advertising presence with Dealers United’s Full-Service digital solutions. 

Paid Search Ads

Paid search ads, also called pay-per-click or PPC ads, should form the foundation of your dealership’s online strategy. These small text ads appear alongside organic search engine results when a user enters a relevant keyword search.

For example, when someone searches for “Toyota RAV4 for sale,” your PPC ad can appear as one of the first results with your store name, discounted pricing offers, and a link to drive traffic to your website or special landing page.

car-dealership-branding-examples

Benefits of PPC ads for dealerships:

  • Highly targeted based on search keywords
  • Appear high in search rankings, above organic results
  • Get instant results and can measure ROI accurately
  • Control your budget and spend only when ads are clicked
  • Flexible, make changes to improve results

Follow these tips to maximize your PPC campaigns:

  • Research high-volume, relevant search keywords
  • Create targeted ad copy and landing pages
  • A/B test different ads to improve CTR
  • Set up conversion tracking to optimize efforts

Facebook and Instagram Advertising For Car Sales

80% of surveyed U.S. car buyers use Facebook for auto research. Facebook and Instagram  offer extensive targeting capabilities, allowing you to serve ads to users more likely to buy based on demographics, interests, behaviors and more.

For a dealership, effective Facebook advertising strategies include:

  • Retargeting ads for website visitors
  • Local ads for area shoppers
  • Offer-based ads like discounts on leases
  • Carousel image ads displaying latest inventory

Facebook and Instagram make it easy to create professional, eye-catching ads then monitor performance and capitalize on what’s working best.

car-dealership-branding-examples

Display & Video Ads

Beyond search and social, display advertising reaches car buyers as they browse sites across the web. These visually compelling ads appear on premium websites, news pages, informational content sites and more.

Video ads also capture attention as shoppers engage with interesting video content. You can retarget people who have watched certain videos with your dealership’s ads.

Benefits of offsite display and video ads:

  • Broad reach to an engaged audience
  • Innovative ad formats like 360-degree interactive
  • Frequency to drive brand awareness
  • Retargeting warm prospective leads
  • High visual impact
  • The key is placing these ads where your target audience is most likely to see them through strategic website partnerships and managed ad exchanges.

Track KPIs & Optimize Efforts

Implementing an online advertising strategy takes consistent measurement and optimization. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

  • Impressions
  • Click-through-rate (CTR)
  • Cost per lead
  • Lead quality
  • Inventory views
  • Sales conversions

Analyze this data regularly to determine what’s working and what’s not. Shift budget toward highest performing platforms, targets, and ad creative. Continual testing and improvement will maximize your dealership’s online advertising ROI.

Work With Dealers United for Proven Car Dealership Marketing

As you build an impactful digital advertising program, leverage the expertise of Dealers United – our dedicated team focuses on driving leads and sales for car dealerships like yours.

We handle setting up and managing your search and social campaigns while providing complete transparency into the results. With Dealers United, you get decades of dealership marketing experience focused on one goal—growing your business.

Click here to learn more about how Dealers United can help optimize your online advertising strategy and exceed your lead generation goals this year.

Dominate Social ADS

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

Leverage Video to Drive Car Sales for Your Dealership

Leverage Video to Drive Car Sales for Your Dealership

Leverage Video to Drive Car Sales for Your Dealership

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Incorporating videos into your content strategy has become an essential component of any successful dealership. For car dealerships looking to boost sales, video provides an unparalleled opportunity to showcase inventory while building trust and credibility with customers. The opportunities are endless…and with the right video marketing approach, your dealership can drive more qualified traffic, increase lead conversion, and ultimately sell more cars.

Dealers United can help you incorporate custom social media video ads into your campaigns. 

Craft Compelling Dealership Videos

Well-produced video allows customers to experience your dealership and inventory in an engaging, low-pressure environment. Rather than salesy commercials, focus on crafting relevant, valuable videos designed to inform, educate, entertain or otherwise provide value for viewers.

For example, create walkaround videos highlighting key features of popular models on your lot. Produce explanatory videos answering common questions buyers have about financing, leasing, or how to use modern vehicle technologies. Share behind-the-scenes videos giving customers a feel for your service center and staff.

Brief video clips work well for social media, while in-depth videos are better suited for your YouTube channel or website. In all cases, high-quality video production is a must to convey professionalism and boost view rates.

Optimize Video for Search Visibility

The right optimization and promotion strategy can help your videos appear prominently in relevant YouTube or Google search results. For each video:

  • Carefully target keywords and organically work them into the title, description and captions.
  • Include your dealership name, location and other relevant identifying information prominently in metadata.
  • Insert links back to your website within video descriptions driving viewers to take action.
  • Promote videos across all your dealership social channels, email campaigns, and websites.
  • Monitoring analytics to see which videos gain traction, then doubling down on production of more content around popular themes or vehicles.

Build a Multichannel Video Strategy

While a YouTube channel serves as your video hub, extend the reach of video content by cross-promoting it across other marketing channels:

car-dealership-branding-examples

Email Campaigns: Share new vehicle walkaround or dealership videos via email outreach. Insert clickable thumbnail images linking to full videos.

Social Media: All major platforms now emphasize video content in their algorithms. Develop brief, engaging video clips tailored to each network.

Website: Embed relevant videos on inventory, financing or service pages. Videos can boost time-on-site metrics for better SEO.

In-Person: Install video displays in high-visibility areas of your dealership, showcasing current inventory vehicles, customer testimonials or other relevant content.

A cohesive video marketing approach connecting these channels will amplify viewership and overall impact on prospects and customers alike.

Why Dealers United for Your Video Marketing

As leading social media ad experts for car dealerships, Dealers United has helped our clients drive countless sales through custom created video initiatives optimized for today’s most popular channels. Our team can handle all aspects of ideation, production, optimization and analytics/reporting so you focus on selling.

Trust Dealers United as your dealership video marketing partner and start converting browsers into car buyers today!

Dominate Social ADS

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

Finding The Best Advertising Agencies For Car Dealerships

Finding The Best Advertising Agencies For Car Dealerships

Finding The Best Advertising Agencies For Car Dealerships

Finding the best advertising agency can make all the difference for a car dealership looking to increase sales. With so many options to choose from, it can be quite the challenge when determining which agency is best suited to meet your dealership’s unique needs and goals. Dealers United is an advertising agency specializing in helping car dealerships boost their sales through customized marketing strategies. Dealers United brings you this article that explores what car dealerships should look for when vetting potential ad agencies to partner with.

Defining Your Dealership’s Goals

Before beginning the agency search, car dealerships need to clearly define their goals and what they hope to achieve through advertising. Common objectives may include:

  • Increasing monthly or yearly unit sales
  • Driving more foot traffic to the retail location
  • Boosting leads across digital channels
  • Improving brand awareness in your local market
  • Highlighting current inventory or promotions

Once you’ve outlined realistic, measurable goals, these become the benchmark to evaluate agencies against.

Seek Automotive Industry Experience

The car business is incredibly unique; for this reason, dealerships should seek out agencies with specific experience in the automotive space. No one understands the intricacies of your business quite like those who have dedicated themselves solely to this niche.

Vet agencies on their experience across areas like:

  • Digital marketing strategies for car dealerships
  • Inventory management systems knowledge
  • Creative campaign production expertise
  • Long-term agency-dealer relationships

Going with an established automotive specialist likely yields better results than generalist agencies without the same level of focus.

Assess The Agency’s Creative Portfolio

An advertising agency’s portfolio reveals their creative capabilities and potential fit for a car dealership. When reviewing portfolios, look for:

  • Fresh, contemporary automotive creative concepts
  • Flexibility across multiple formats and channels
  • Campaigns that balance branding with hard sales messaging
  • Strong calls-to-action that drive conversions
  • Familiarity with digital and print advertising best practices

Agencies that are hesitant to share examples of past work may raise some red flags…So be sure to take note and use what you see in their books as a determining factor throughout the selection process.

Vet Their Media Buying Capabilities

Car dealerships invest heavily in paid media, so choosing an agency with proven media buying experience is vital. More specifically, look for:

  • Expertise in buying display, video, native advertising and paid search
  • Leveraging attribution modeling to optimize budgets
  • Targeting key demographic and geographic segments
  • Launching retargeting campaigns to past site visitors
  • Providing monthly campaign performance reports

Evaluating their strategic capabilities in this area gives you confidence they can plan and execute paid media that delivers.

Compare Agency Pricing and Contracts

Like most significant business investments, it pays off in the end to gather proposals from multiple advertising agencies before committing long-term. Different agencies will offer different services and charge different fees. 

Dealers United prides itself on having 100% transparency with all features included plus management fees. 

Key items to compare include:

  • Monthly or annual agency retainer fees
  • Mark-up percentages on media buys and outside vendor costs
  • Contract terms like length, opt-out clauses, fees
  • Incentive structures regarding performance metrics
  • Insights from checking agency references

This due diligence allows dealerships to secure fair, competitive pricing in a transparent way. Be wary of rates that seem too good to be true.

Choose a True Marketing Partner

While weighing all these factors, the most essential criteria comes down to choosing an advertising agency who operates as an extension of your dealership. The agency should:

  • Maintain clear, responsive communication
  • Geek out over your business, inventory and customers
  • Proactively inform you industry changes or competitive intel
  • Suggest new ideas to accomplish goals while respecting budgets
  • Support internal team members collaboratively

You want an agency, like Dealers United, who cares as much about performance as you do. Identifying that partnership mindset during the vetting process helps set the relationship up for long-term success. We cannot stress this enough.

Searching for The Right Advertising Agency

While the process initially requires effort, finding an automotive specialist with proven strategies and passion for driving dealer performance leads to major dividends over years of working together. 

The expertise of an automotive advertising agency gives dealerships an advantage through savvy messaging, expanded inbound leads, and sales driven by data-informed strategies. Consult an agency specializing in car dealership marketing, like Dealers United, whose expertise is in automotive SEO, SEM and Social Advertising to maximize your opportunities for sales growth and marketplace dominance.

Dominate SEO, SEM, & Social

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

What Services Do Digital Marketing Agencies Offer Car Dealers?

What Services Do Digital Marketing Agencies Offer Car Dealers?

What Services Do Digital Marketing Agencies Offer Car Dealers?

Digital marketing agencies, like Dealers United, offer a vast array of services to help businesses promote themselves online and drive more traffic, leads, and sales. As consumers increasingly go online to research products and services before making purchasing decisions, having an effective digital marketing strategy is critical for dealership’s that want to remain competitive and grow their customer base. 

The right digital marketing agency becomes an invaluable asset serving as a dedicated extension of any dealership’s online marketing team. They bring the expertise required to navigate today’s complex digital landscape – helping dealerships boost their brand, engage more customers and sell more vehicles.

Types of Digital Marketing Services Available Today

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Website Design and Development
  • CRM & Email Marketing Solutions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of improving a site to rank higher in search engines like Google for relevant keyword searches. Higher rankings means increased visibility and website traffic for your dealership. SEO agencies offer comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) solutions to improve dealerships’ visibility on search engines like Google. 

SEO services digital agencies provide include:

  • Keyword research – Identifying high-value keywords and phrases related to the business to target
  • On-page optimization – Adding keywords to page titles, headers, content, etc.
  • Technical SEO – Ensuring fast load speeds, proper site indexing, fixing errors
  • Link building – Getting quality sites to link back to the site to boost rankings
  • Local SEO – Optimizing for local searches by city/state
  • Reporting – Tracking keyword ranks, traffic from organic searches, etc.

Paid Search Marketing (SEM / PPC) 

Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising allows businesses to promote their site and products across channels like Google through sponsored listings and ads.

PPC advertising platforms like Google Ads are leveraged by agencies to promote dealership ads across the web. Any good search engine marketing campaign will include a solid PPC strategy. Agencies need to handle setting up and managing search and display campaigns to reach local audiences actively searching for vehicles to buy. Advanced tracking, bidding strategies, call tracking numbers and comprehensive analytics provide insight on a particular PPC campaigns’ performance.

PPC management services include:

  • PPC campaign setup and optimization
  • Granular targeting by location, interests, behaviors
  • Writing compelling ad copy that drives clicks
  • Monitoring performance and tweaking campaigns to increase ROI

Social Media Marketing

Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn are extremely popular channels for consumers. Building an engaging social media presence on these platforms is key for branding and lead generation. 

Services related to social media marketing include:

  • Social media account setup and optimization
  • Content creation – visual assets, videos, posts
  • Paid social advertising – promoted posts and ads
  • Community management – responding to comments, messages
  • Performance reporting – tracking engagement, sales from social

Website Design and Development

One of the most basic yet crucial services provided by digital agencies is website design and development. An attractive, easy-to-use website that engages visitors and motivates them to take action (e.g., make a purchase) is the foundation of most digital marketing efforts. 

Services in this category include:

  • Designing visually-appealing site layouts and interfaces
  • Programming functionally robust and fast-loading websites
  • Ensuring sites are mobile-friendly on all devices
  • Integrating features like calculators, charts, forums, etc. to increase engagement
  • Connecting websites to lead generation and sales tools such as shopping carts

CRM & Email Marketing Solutions

Digital marketing agencies provide Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and email marketing solutions that allow advanced tracking and segmentation of leads based on engagement. Customers expect a seamless sales process and personalized, relevant communications from dealerships; and automated lead nurturing email campaigns help guide users through the sales funnel.

Email subscription lists can be a valuable marketing asset, allowing businesses to directly reach customers interested in their products/services.

Email marketing services provided by agencies include:

  • Email list building – collecting opt-in subscribers
  • Designing email templates and call-to-action graphics
  • Broadcast email campaigns – sending promotional messages
  • Automating drip campaigns – pre-scheduling email series
  • Reporting on open rates, click rates, conversions

Overview of Services Digital Marketing Agencies Offer

This overview shows the diverse mix of digital marketing services offered by specialized agencies today.

Partnering with a knowledgeable, experienced. full-service digital marketing agency, like Dealers United, allows companies to tap into these critical areas of expertise rather than trying to manage complex and ever-evolving digital strategies internally. This ultimately helps them cut through the digital noise to reach their target consumers effectively, driving more sales and ROI. 

Dominate SEO, SEM, & Social

Written By Lauren Blackwell
Lauren Blackwell is a skilled content marketer who has spent the past 3 years working in automotive advertising technology and now brings her unique experiences to Dealers United. From running ad campaigns, to curating auto-specific resources, Lauren is empowered to create valuable content to help automotive dealers thrive on social media.

How To Boost Auto Sales With Car Dealer Marketing

How To Boost Auto Sales With Car Dealer Marketing

How To Boost Auto Sales With Car Dealer Marketing

Want to boost inventory sales at your car dealership? We hear this all of the time from dealers…

Our advice for them is always the same: To boost inventory sales at your car dealership, you’re going to need a strong car dealer marketing strategy.

It’s simple —  an effective digital marketing strategy will help you reach more qualified buyers and sell more vehicles. 

And since Dealers United is stacked with experts in specifically car dealer marketing, we thought we would help by creating a guide that covers some of the key strategies for marketing your car dealership, online.

Craft People-First Content That Delivers Value

First things first – regardless of the platform you are using, focus on delivering quality content to your viewer base. Focus on creating content that would be useful for potential customers even if they didn’t find it through a search engine. 

Provide original insights, data, tips, or analyses beyond just summarizing other sources.

Make it easy for viewers to trust you by citing sources clearly and establishing your dealership’s expertise.

Remember, the goal is to help car buyers make informed decisions, not just gain search traffic

We can’t tell you how many different campaigns that we have audited for dealers that resulted in an increase in traffic, but the traffic was not the type meant to convert into car sales. Keep the focus on delivering value – not just increasing traffic.

Optimize Your Dealer Website for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps potential customers find your website when searching for terms related to buying a car in your area. If you aren’t actively optimizing your dealer site for SEO, you are way behind the curve. 

While a comprehensive SEO campaign can be somewhat complex, we went ahead and narrowed down some of the key areas to optimize:

Use Relevant Keywords

Include keywords car buyers may search for, like “Chevy dealers [City]” or “buy used trucks,” naturally throughout your content. Avoid overusing keywords. Craft content for users first. Search engines no longer require someone stuffing a ton of keywords all over your page in order to determine what a page is about. Please do not do this. It will scare your viewers away, and likely not lead to any sales.

Create Useful Meta Data

Optimized metadata, including page titles and meta descriptions, helps car dealerships improve their search engine rankings and click through rates. Compelling title tags that accurately describe the content help search engines understand what each page is about. Meta descriptions that summarize the page in an engaging way can entice more searchers to click on your listing over competitors. This increased clickthrough helps improve your search rankings over time.

Crafting meta titles and descriptions that speak to car buyers’ needs and include relevant keywords can significantly boost traffic from organic search, making metadata optimization a valuable activity for any dealership’s SEO strategy.

Enhance Mobile Experience

Mobile is everything: Today the average person has approximately 40 mobile apps on their phone, and their time is primarily spent on 18 of them – in fact, users spend ~224 minutes/day on these apps…

Users are constantly on mobile, and mobile usage only continues to grow – that’s the truth.

With that being said, ensure your site is mobile-friendly and easy to use on phones.

Update Site Architecture

Make it easy for search engines to crawl and index your site with a sitemap and internal linking between relevant pages. Our SEO specialists at Dealers United can perform a detailed audit of your site and recommend ways to improve SEO.

Get Your SEM Campaigns Up and Running

Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to paid search activities, like Google Ads, along with SEO. Use both SEM and SEO together for maximum impact. 

Paid search that comes from a source like Google quickly drives traffic, while SEO delivers long-term sustainable results. These days, you need both.

Develop your dealership SEM campaigns with relevant ad copy and landing pages for keywords potential car buyers in your area search for. Geo-target ads to reach local customers.

Let Dealers United handle the busywork of managing paid search campaigns while you focus on your dealership. Our SEM strategists stay on top of the latest best practices for driving conversions.

Leverage Social Media Ads

Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube let you display targeted ads to likely car buyers based on location, demographics, interests and more. We’re going to be very honest with you – a majority of car dealers need to advertise on social media platforms, but they neglect doing so. 

We’re in a new age of social media, and you need to capitalize on this movement.

Create ads showcasing current inventory or special offers. Retarget people who have already engaged with your dealership to drive them to convert. Implement remarketing ads across channels.

Social ads complement your overall marketing mix as another way to engage prospective customers. If interested, our team can help you effectively incorporate social ads to sell more cars. This is what we’re known for.

Summary – Gain More Market Share by Using an Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Dealership

This article covers primary digital marketing strategies for car dealerships. We took some tips out of the Dealers United playbook, and gave them directly to you to use…

Remember that no single tactic works alone – you need a strategic combination across channels. 

Not interested in doing all of this yourself? Dealers United offers a full suite of services, including SEO, SEM, and social media advertising, to generate more leads and drive inventory sales.

Schedule time here to let us customize a data-driven marketing plan tailored for your dealership’s specific needs and goals.

Dominate The Search Engine

Looking For An Automotive SEO Company? Start Here:

Looking For An Automotive SEO Company? Start Here:

Looking For An Automotive SEO Company? Start Here:

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become essential for those in the automotive industry, where the competition for ranking highly on search engines is intense. Partnering with an experienced automotive SEO company can provide significant benefits for auto dealerships, repair shops, parts suppliers, and other automotive businesses. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the different ways a tried and tested SEO company that specializes in the automotive world can help increase the number of cars sold per day. Yes, per day.

How Automotive SEO Companies Help Your Website Rank Higher

Automotive SEO requires an understanding of both SEO best practices as well as the nuances of the automotive industry. An automotive SEO company will have experience optimizing websites for local searches related to cars, trucks, repairs, parts, and more. They know which keywords are most valuable and how to optimize your site architecture, metadata, and content accordingly.

Specific services an automotive SEO company may provide include:

  • Keyword research: this is a necessity to identify high-value search terms and phrases. These relate to makes/models, parts, services, location-based searches, etc.
  • On-page optimization: by optimizing title tags, headers, meta descriptions, image alt text, and schema markup, you can give search engines a better understanding of exactly what your website is about.
  • Content creation: blog posts, guides, local pages, and videos (to name a few pieces of content) are all necessary to develop the framework to rank higher.
  • Technical website audits: to identify and fix issues hurting SEO, these audits must be done. These audits include site speed, mobile optimization, internal linking, and proper site structure.
  • Link building: backlinks need to be built through high-quality directories, blogs, and other automotive websites to increase authority.
  • Ongoing optimization and reporting: a true search engine optimizer is never ‘done.’ There is always some sort of refinement or optimization that should be conducted to help remain at the top of search engines, like Google or Bing.

Chart of Automotive SEO Company Services

Choose an Automotive SEO Company with Industry Expertise

Not all SEO agencies understand the automotive industry well enough to deliver strong results. When researching automotive SEO companies, ensure they have specific experience with auto-related websites.

Look for case studies, client examples, and a portfolio that demonstrates their success in increasing organic visibility and website traffic for automotive businesses. The ideal automotive SEO company will also be up-to-date on the latest Google algorithm updates and how they impact automotive sites.

Investing in a strategic partnership with an automotive SEO company almost always provides a positive ROI. By making your website more visible for relevant local searches, you can connect with more qualified customers and grow your business.

Try this! Before you select an SEO company, check how that company’s SEO stacks up! Type in keyword strings like “auto dealer SEO” and see where they land in the search results.

Top Rated Automotive Search Engine Optimization Companies

Dealers United is considered one of the top-rated automotive SEO companies within the United States. With over a decade of experience specializing in automotive digital marketing, we have a proven track record of boosting leads, sales, and most importantly, reputations, for dealerships across the country. Our expertise across on-page and off-page optimization makes us a top choice among the many other automotive SEO companies you’ll find when searching for one online.

Our highly qualified SEO department knows all of the in’s and out’s of what it takes these days to rank a website in organic search engine results pages, also known as SERPs. Gone are the days where you can simply make a page and stuff it with different car dealership keywords, and watch it sky rocket to the top. This is a highly competitive industry, and dealers continue to choose us over the competition because we know what it takes, and we deliver results – nothing less.

Automotive Search Engine Marketing vs. Automotive SEO

Automotive search engine marketing (SEM) and automotive SEO are two major digital marketing strategies used by car dealerships and auto-related businesses to drive increased web traffic and sales. While both focus on improving search visibility, there are some key differences between these two terms.

The most fundamental difference is that SEM centers around paid advertising platforms, like Google Ads and Bing Ads. Dealers will buy ad placements that appear at the top and side of search engine results pages when users search for relevant keywords. This allows dealerships to essentially pay for instant visibility and traffic. In contrast, SEO involves ongoing optimization of a website to earn high unpaid organic rankings in search engines through relevance and authority building.

While SEM delivers direct visitor traffic instantly when ads are clicked, SEO provides indirect traffic as visitors find your site through earned prominent organic results placements.

The Difference Between Automotive SEO and Automotive SEM

When it comes to effort, SEM requires regular budget investment to fund continuous ads. SEO demands investment into website optimization elements like metadata, content, technical site enhancements, and off-page authority building through digital PR and link earning strategies. The rankings and visibility gained through SEM can fluctuate daily based on advertising bids and budgets. However, organic rankings achieved through effective SEO are more stable, and typically more trusted from a user’s point of view. We live in a world where everyone knows that the top results are tagged with terms like ‘sponsored’ or ‘paid’, and aren’t as trusted as an organic search results that isn’t labelled as such.

Search users tend to believe that since a dealer paid for the top placement, it isn’t necessarily as accurate of a search match as something that organically comes to the top. Roughly 90% of search users will skip past all paid placements, and choose organic search results.

Common Questions About SEO For the Automotive Industry

Dealerships will usually have several questions when it comes to how search engine optimization works for their automotive website, and rightfully so. While we prefer to cover most of your questions and concerns on a quick call, here are some of the more common inquiries we get at Dealers United.

How long does it take to rank my automotive site in Google?

The amount of time it takes to rank an automotive site in Google will vary depending on site history, the amount of backlinks your have, prior SEO work done, and your site structure (among other criteria). That said, we tell most car dealerships to expect to see great results in roughly 9 to 12 months. This doesn’t mean you cannot get good results sooner, this is just a very general answer to a very common question that is tough to answer without digging into your website details.

What are examples of some automotive SEO services?

While we have different services depending on the package you choose, you can expect the following SEO work to be done (regardless of your package):

  • Keyword Research: Identifying high-value keywords and analyzing keyword difficulty to target for the client’s website and content.
  • On-Page Optimization: Optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, internal linking, etc. to improve relevance for target keywords.
  • Content Creation: Writing new blog posts, guides, local pages, etc. optimized for ranked keywords.
  • Monthly Reporting: Providing insights into website analytics including organic traffic, rankings, conversions and more.
  • Local SEO Tactics: Building local signals like Google My Business and citations to rank for local searches.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO refers to the optimization of your automotive site for local terms and phrases. For example, car dealers (generally) want to sell to people in their general area of operations. A car dealer in Tampa, Florida, would want to rank for ‘Tampa Car Dealer’ related terms, not ‘Seattle Car Dealer’ terms. We make sure to effectively target your local area when it comes to search users and your vehicle inventory. All of this is developed as part of our on-boarding process with your dealership.

What Is Local SEO For Car Dealers?

How do you track SEO results?

Dealers United will monitor your rankings, organic traffic, and even conversions – depending on the package you choose. We use data platforms like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Page Speed Insights, and a few others.

What are the most important ranking factors for a car dealership website?

Optimizing for local SEO signals like city name and dealer names, location-based schema markup, and overall user experience prove to be the most important ranking factors that we have seen. Keep in mind that Google is constantly updated their algorithm, so we always have to stay on top of the latest trends and news from Google Search Central. Many SEO agencies fail to do this, and you end up with outdated ranking tactics that simply fail over time.

 

Want to learn more about Dealers United’s SEO Solutions?

Register for the webinar, “The 3 Biggest Facebook Mistakes Even Advanced Dealer Marketers Are Making”!

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