Why Dealerships Who Pay for SEO Services are More Satisfied

[TabFlythe]

The proof is in the data. Business owners that pay for SEO services at $500/month or more are more likely to be overall satisfied or even extremely satisfied with the SEO standings for their business, according to Backlinko.

We took this methodology and applied it to our dealer SEO clients. With month-over-month increased ranking results on Google and Bing - our clients see value in the SEO solution that we offer.


So here is the question of the day - how satisfied are you with your current SEO solution?

Read on for the full blog.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

I think most of us will agree a strong SEO strategy can do wonders.

BUT.

How do you measure it?

Let's say you onboard a client with 5000 UVs a month (with fluctuation through seasonality), how to you show SEO efforts only got them to 6000 UVs YoY?

There are so many variables in the market, it's hard to pinpoint.

Let me know what you think!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I think most of us will agree a strong SEO strategy can do wonders.

BUT.

How do you measure it?

Let's say you onboard a client with 5000 UVs a month (with fluctuation through seasonality), how do you show SEO efforts only got them to 6000 UVs YoY?

There are so many variables in the market, it's hard to pinpoint.

Let me know what you think!

One variable that's often overlooked is the fact that car dealers are local brick-n-morter businesses, yet optimizing for inventory/keywords that are not only national but also international. This can bring about a substantial increase in web traffic (agencies tout the amazing job they're doing - increasing the dealers unique website traffic) yet often the larger portion of that traffic is NOT geo-relevant.

How are dealers taking this into account when measuring their SEO performance?

 

[Marc Lavoie]

One variable that's often overlooked is the fact that car dealers are local brick-n-morter businesses, yet optimizing for inventory/keywords that are not only national but also international. This can bring about a substantial increase in web traffic (agencies tout the amazing job they're doing - increasing the dealers unique website traffic) yet often the larger portion of that traffic is NOT geo-relevant.

How are dealers taking this into account when measuring their SEO performance?

Very good point. This is why the mandate has to be clear from day 1 and track results on mutually agreed upon KPIs.

 

[Christopher Connor]

Using an analytics software (Google Analytics, annotated with SEO initiatives), and a rank tracker such as White Spark, individual keywords being tracked from several zip codes surrounding the dealership, is an effective way to measure increases in organic traffic and local search results. Your service provider will also have access to industry software such as Moz, ahrefs, and/or SEMRush, to name a few.

Good article, but run from any package offered at a $500 pricing point. "Any one local SEO initiative will likely realize diminishing returns". Not to be cynical, but you can see the cost within this article necessary to realize a local business' organic potential - SEO spends at this level unfortunately is largely throwing money out the window.

A good but overlooked way to evaluate a service provider is reading their Glass Door reviews. If you sense internal chaos this will certainly be reflected in the quality of work and ROI on your SEO investment.

 

[Christopher Connor]

Very good point. This is why the mandate has to be clear from day 1 and track results on mutually agreed upon KPIs.

One way to do this would be still focusing on organic traffic in aggregate, but having access to the granularity of which keywords have lead to these increases, and the specific initiative behind it. Pretty reasonable expectation.

Here is data on organic click through rates within search engine result pages you can use to estimate increases in traffic for a keyword based on an increase in ranking position (or decrease ). You can use freemium tools like Moz to estimate search volume for the keyword.

 

[Marc Lavoie]

One way to do this would be still focusing on organic traffic in aggregate, but having access to the granularity of which keywords have lead to these increases, and the specific initiative behind it. Pretty reasonable expectation.

Here is data on organic click through rates within search engine result pages you can use to estimate increases in traffic for a keyword based on an increase in ranking position (or decrease ). You can use freemium tools like Moz to estimate search volume for the keyword.

Makes sense, this is wayyy advanced benchmarking for the average dealership, since we're pretty far from selling cars when going deep into SEO. Great stuff!

 

[TabFlythe]

Very good point. This is why the mandate has to be clear from day 1 and track results on mutually agreed upon KPIs.

Exactly. The agreed key performance indicators are how a dealer should measure the success of a solution or not.

Agreed @Jeff Kershner. National (or as we like to call them, vanity) keywords might be nice if you are just looking to beef up traffic to your site... but how does that help you move inventory? Honestly, not much. The key is looking at keywords that rank for your area (and the places that shoppers come from to buy from your store) so that your SEO efforts are focused on audiences that will lead to a sale, not just increase users to the site.

Your website is your dealership's constant, evolving billboard. You want the eyes that are actually going to make a purchase with you see it. High ranking in a national sense might lead to all the "warm and fuzzies" but it really isn't going to do a lot when it comes to monthly sales.

The buzzword "Content is King" has floated around forever... We say "Relevancy is King."

 

[Ryan Everson]

One variable that's often overlooked is the fact that car dealers are local brick-n-morter businesses, yet optimizing for inventory/keywords that are not only national but also international. This can bring about a substantial increase in web traffic (agencies tout the amazing job they're doing - increasing the dealers unique website traffic) yet often the larger portion of that traffic is NOT geo-relevant.

How are dealers taking this into account when measuring their SEO performance?

Our SEO landing / entrance page reports have filters in place to only show local traffic. Sure we miss out on reporting on out of state traffic that may turn into buyers but this gives us a much more accurate picture overall.

 

[Leonore911]

Nice article! Thank you! I like it.