Did SEO Ever Really Help Sell Cars?

[csabatka1]

I was referring to my actual organic search referrals that could be tracked in Google Analytics. I am talking about the customers that actually came to my website, and what their search terms were.

clock tower auto columbus ne
clock tower auto
clock tower auto mall
clock tower columbus ne
clock tower auto mall columbus ne
clock tower auto mall columbus, ne
clocktower auto
clock tower auto sales columbus ne
clocktowerauto
columbus ne used car dealers
used car dealers in columbus ne
www.clocktowerauto.com
auto dealers in columbus ne
clock tower

In that order. I believe that I am going to search some of those non branded queries you listed and see if I show up?

Along the lines of this, why do so many of the organic search keywords show up as not provided?

Look at your non-branded keywords within Analytics. Non-branded are searches performed without your dealership's name (Clock Tower or similar).

Additionally, look at Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Queries. This will give you idea or what is getting searched and your website appeared, it's positioning, and clicks received.

Not Provided = If search is performed on a Secure Google search page, it will not pass this onto the website's analytics.

 

[Chris Leslie]

that list is great and all but without search volume they are useless. There are thousands of things people search to get to my site. But those thousand make up a fraction of the total search queries used to find me.

Its more cost effective to pay per click for those various terms then it is to pay a person to attempt to bring me some "quality" traffic. Those terms may be large in numbers but the overall traffic they bring is minor.

For example if a guy is searching Used Jeeps in Las Vegas. I highly doubt that a perfectly optimized page is going to woo him into buying that car from me. Doesn't matter how so called qualified he is, he is still shopping used jeeps and is going to look at all the used jeeps until he finds the one he wants.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Did SEO really help sell cars? Well... Lets ask the folks over at CarGurus.com if SEO helps to sell cars. I think the bulk of their entire traffic strategy to their website is strictly SEO. Dude... you can search any freaking town out in BFE and add a make and model to the town name and you'll see a cargurus organic listing on the SERP. The bulk of the leads they are sending dealers is the results of those listings on the SERP's. Has anyone here ever sold a Cargurus lead?

 

[Amelia Banks]

SEO doesn't answer basic consumer questions in a high-involvement purchase - "Is this a dealership I can trust?", "Is this the right car for me?", "Is this the right dealership for me?", "Is this right salesperson for me?" the list goes on...
That is the problem, and indeed, the beauty, of selling a high-involvement item.

Will SEO help you be a better dealer? No.
Will it help you earn customer's trust? I guess not.
Will it make your items better? Not at all.
You should do it all yourself. But it will make your production at least known. You can have the best cars in town. Your salesmen might be the most qualified of all. Your prices can be the lowest, and the content of your website might be super persuasive. But what the point, if it will be on page 2 of the any search? No one will see it. Because let's face it, some people, maybe even most of them, don't even scroll to the bottom of the first page. And that's why I think that SEO helps you sell your products.

 

[joe.pistell]

Gents,

Use an 'ol Uncle Joe analysis tool (Ed will remember this one ...

SEM traffic falls into 2 buckets White pages and Yellow pages.

White Pages = They Know Your Name.
Yellow Pages = They're not looking for you, but looking for what you're selling.

SEO & PPC for white page results is easy peasy. Google considers your site the authority or owner of [store name] requests. So... Clint looks in his GA and sees:

• clock tower auto columbus ne
• clock tower auto
• clock tower auto mall
• clock tower columbus ne

Next, Chad lists the yellow pages phrases that are NOT easy.

• used ford columbus
• columbus ford dealership
• used cars columbus ne
• certified ford columbus
• used ford dealer columbus
• new ford dealer columbus
• new ford flex columbus
• new ford taurus columbus
• new ford fiesta columbus

So, from Clint's POV, he sees lots of clocktower SEO traffic and little long tail SEO traffic (aka Yellow pages traffic).

edit: Chad's post above tells you how to track this in GA.

 

[joe.pistell]

IMO, SEO sells cars. The debate is how efficiently it sells them.

For example.
Car dealers sell about 1.5% of it's total web traffic (ratio of unique visitors/sales). Because we live in a catalouge website world with no shopping carts, we ALL have no idea what shopper conversion rates are for SEO, PPC, Referrals (e.g. 'Trader, Gurus, FB, etc) or direct traffic.

Look at your site traffic & do the math, divide unique visitors by sales. What's your conversion ratio? (my old store was 1.2%).

Next, look at your Yellow pages SEO traffic, what % of it is high quality?? ( # of pages viewed, Time on Site, repeat visits, etc)

IMO, inside that number is your SEO yield.


Here's my back of the napkin formula for assessing SEM efficiency (example uses 1,000 SEO visits)
1,000 <--Total SEO visitors
300 <-- Net visits after I removed the White pages traffic
110 <-- After I remove all Yellow Pages traffic with a low engagement score.

So, in this example, we have 110 high quality SEO visits from shoppers that don't know your name. Assume your SEO conversion is 1/2 your avg site conversion (.0066% in my case), that nets us roughly 1 sale (110 * .007%).


Before anyone pounds me on my numbers, stop for a second and look at the workflow... look at the end game. The end game is all about yield. Obsess about creating an engaging visit.

“Car Shoppers spend most of their time on other sites... not yours."
#ThinkHoneyNotHammers​

And... that is the secret sauce to Google's top SEO criteria.

 

[ed.brooks]

“Car Shoppers spend most of their time on other sites... not yours."

#ThinkHoneyNotHammers​

And that, perhaps, is the heart of the issue - In highly-involved sales, no one site or source is key. And yet our CRM systems are built to attribute a sale to a single source even though Google says car shoppers conduct thorough research relying on multiple sources.

There is a disconnect.

 

[Chris Cachor]

For example if a guy is searching Used Jeeps in Las Vegas. I highly doubt that a perfectly optimized page is going to woo him into buying that car from me. Doesn't matter how so called qualified he is, he is still shopping used jeeps and is going to look at all the used jeeps until he finds the one he wants.

The only thing it's going to help you with is competing for his attention. After that, you'll need a well organized plan on why he should do business with you. That's IMO really where the optimization is important. I don't remember who said it on here but it boils down to: What car, what dealer.

If you ever look at very competitive listings, say for vacation rentals in Maui, pay close attention to the strategies of the well rated popular real estate companies. I think those strategies would translate well for dealer sites too.

And that, perhaps, is the heart of the issue - In highly-involved sales, no one site or source is key. And yet our CRM systems are built to attribute a sale to a single source even though Google says car shoppers conduct thorough research relying on multiple sources.

Never understood this either - I think it's more or less everyone wants all of the credit for the sale when really the shopper is hopping around the internet one link to the next.

 

[joe.pistell]

And that, perhaps, is the heart of the issue - In highly-involved sales, no one site or source is key. And yet our CRM systems are built to attribute a sale to a single source even though Google says car shoppers conduct thorough research relying on multiple sources.

There is a disconnect.

Yup. CRM lead sources are totally useless EXCEPT for when it's done by machine (e.g. leads from forms). Even then, the form lead can't tell you about the 3 month journey your car shopper was on before you got the lead.

It's an amazingly simple concept once you see this video:

 

[ed.brooks]

Yup. CRM lead sources are totally useless EXCEPT for when it's done by machine (e.g. leads from forms). Even then, the form lead can't tell you about the 3 month journey your car shopper was on before you got the lead.

It's an amazingly simple concept once you see this video:

The video is PERFECT for eCommerce businesses, however... AutoMarketing is not eCommerce. The video assumes that all traffic has to be funneled thru the website, where the 'conversion' occurs.

The only conversion that most car dealers really care about is the one that happens on the showroom floor.