Don't make these common mistakes with your website and SEO efforts!

[Greg_Gifford]

We audit a TON of automotive sites, and in this week's episode of my video series, I share the most common mistakes we see (make sure you're not making the same mistakes!)

Common problems with car dealer websites

These are the most common problems we've seen when we audit car dealer websites and Google Business Profiles - make sure you're not making the same mistakes on your site!

searchlabdigital.com

 

[Alex Snyder]

Thanks for throwing your weekly updates on DealerRefresh, Greg!

 

[Generic Salesperson]

Hey Greg, thank you for that post. I can't imagine the best solution is to roll your own, so what new/used car dealership website software manages this critical SEO concerns best?

 

[Greg_Gifford]

SEO is a manual process - it can't be automated with software. So really, your options are to hire someone to handle it in-house (which is at least a 75-80k a year role), or to find a reputable SEO agency to handle it for you...

 

[Generic Salesperson]

SEO is a manual process - it can't be automated with software. So really, your options are to hire someone to handle it in-house (which is at least a 75-80k a year role), or to find a reputable SEO agency to handle it for you...

Hi Greg,

I have some experience in SEO and I do appreciate that insight. Aside from the developing incoming links I'm wondering if there is a specific dealer web software solution that let's you build better page titles and headers to help google parse the page. I guess I was wondering more, is there a better starting point in terms of existing dealership www solutions out of the box. I'm wondering what tools allow a dealership to managed things like: "Your primary GBP for the dealership should only have sales-related categories. Service categories go on your service department GBP and parts categories go on the parts GBP." That sort of thing.

Also, what should a single store dealer budget to hire a consultant like your firm?

Thank you

 

[Greg_Gifford]

Pretty much all of the automotive website platforms let you edit title tags/h1s/meta descriptions - so there's not really one that's better "out of the box" - and none of the website platforms are connected to GBP, that's something that has to be managed separately.

and budget is all over the place. There are vendors out there that sell SEO for $800 a month, and on the other end, there are dealers that spend more than $10k a month on SEO for a single rooftop. Realistically (and I've said this for provably 10 years at every automotive conference), dealers should expect to spend a minimum of 2500-3000 a month on SEO. Anything less simply can't be effective, since SEO is billed based on time spent and expertise of the people doing the work.

If you're asking specifically about SearchLab, we don't have packages - everything we do is customized for the dealers we work with - but the minimum point of entry is $3500 a month (and that's where most of the dealers we work with are)

 

[Ryan Everson]

Listings Management Tools:

• Widewail - big fan of what Matt and the team are doing
• Whitespark - just launched a GBP management tool that is only $1 /month!
• Moz Local - the OG SEO company
• Yext - make sure to ask what happens to your listings if you ever cancel and the pricing on GBP department pages. I'm mainly including them on this list because some OEM's require or co-op Yext.

SEO Writing Tools:

• Clearscope - Helps your writers optimize your content to rank and drive organic traffic that is relevant
• SurferSEO - Similar to Clearscope but with more AI features.

Other SEO Tools:

• Semrush
• Ahrefs
• Moz Pro
• Screamingfrog - Good to identify and clean up technical SEO issues
• LocalFalcon - track and report on local SEO performance

As you can see, many different SEO tools are available, and I'm only scratching the surface. The monthly costs can quickly add up. And this doesn't even take into account the training and salary expenses. Simply buying a hammer isn't enough; you must know how to use it.

That's why so many dealers outsource SEO; in-house SEO really only makes sense for a larger group with the scale to justify the expense and be able to attract the talent and knowledge necessary.

 

[Greg_Gifford]

Great list, Ryan - for everyone reading this thread, stay away from Yext. There's zero reason to use them as a dealer unless you're required by your OEM - and honestly, even if you're required, you should just pay the bill and not use the product.

And Ryan's definitely right about cost stacking up - I spend around 8k a month on SEO tools, and I don't have anywhere near all of them... You shouldn't really be spending ANY money on SEO tools unless you have a full-time SEO employee at the dealership (as in, that's all they do - not an internet manager or marketing manager that also does some SEO stuff). It doesn't make sense to spend money on tools unless you have a full time person - or better yet, a full time team - who understands exactly what the tools do and can use them appropriately to help the dealership...