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SEO?

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#23
SEO – when done right, designed to expose your site to new audience and help people find the solution/product that you are offering via search engines. Ask yourself a question: “Do my target audience know that I exist and what I do?” For most dealers the answer is “YES” … why would you spend thousands of dollars (sometimes a month) trying to accomplish what has already been accomplished?

SEO strategy is very important for niche businesses that are “non- traditional” and mostly online based. They need to produce unique content, build relevancy, and show up in front right organic audience. When a prospect decided to start shopping for a new truck, for example, they will start their search on manufacture sites, 3rd party review sites, owner forums and so on. Only after they narrow down their search to 3-4 brands will they visit dealer site for any of the following: 1) check your inventory, 2) Learn more about your financing, 3) research what you will give them for their trade.

SEO should not be your priority because there is nothing “unique” about your product; everyone knows if you want to buy a Ford you just go to a local Ford Dealer. Even if you spend all the money in your digital marketing budget and show up #1 on every search engines for your targeted keyword you will still not see any increase in ROI simply because you can only be considered in your local market.

Obviously if you are a niche dealer specializing in very “unique” vehicles and people are willing to travel across country to your store, then it’s a different story.
 
#24
leadlocate said:
SEO – when done right, designed to expose your site to new audience and help people find the solution/product that you are offering via search engines. Ask yourself a question: “Do my target audience know that I exist and what I do?” For most dealers the answer is “YES” … why would you spend thousands of dollars (sometimes a month) trying to accomplish what has already been accomplished?

SEO strategy is very important for niche businesses that are “non- traditional” and mostly online based. They need to produce unique content, build relevancy, and show up in front right organic audience. When a prospect decided to start shopping for a new truck, for example, they will start their search on manufacture sites, 3rd party review sites, owner forums and so on. Only after they narrow down their search to 3-4 brands will they visit dealer site for any of the following: 1) check your inventory, 2) Learn more about your financing, 3) research what you will give them for their trade.

SEO should not be your priority because there is nothing “unique” about your product; everyone knows if you want to buy a Ford you just go to a local Ford Dealer. Even if you spend all the money in your digital marketing budget and show up #1 on every search engines for your targeted keyword you will still not see any increase in ROI simply because you can only be considered in your local market.

Obviously if you are a niche dealer specializing in very “unique” vehicles and people are willing to travel across country to your store, then it’s a different story.
Click to expand...

The product may not be unique, but each dealership is.

What happens when you aren't the only "local Ford dealer"?

For example, there are 8 FCA dealerships in Calgary (and more if you move slightly outside the city). If you honestly believe ranking 1st or 8th for a term such as "Calgary Dodge Dealer" makes no difference... well... I'm not sure you really understand the value of SEO.
 
#25
Josh Seifarth said:
The product may not be unique, but each dealership is.

What happens when you aren't the only "local Ford dealer"?

For example, there are 8 FCA dealerships in Calgary (and more if you move slightly outside the city). If you honestly believe ranking 1st or 8th for a term such as "Calgary Dodge Dealer" makes no difference... well... I'm not sure you really understand the value of SEO.
Click to expand...

Josh, I understand where you are coming from, and SEO is important. The issue is there is only so much that you can do. 1) Make sure your dealer contact information is accurate across all online listing sites. 2) You have unique and well written content on Home Page, About Us Page, Credit App Page, and Trade-in Page. 3) You have vehicle descriptions on your VDPs.

Search engines use so many data point to produce results that excessive SEO effort will not get you the results that you are looking for. Car dealership serve a local community, search engines understand that and use that information when producing result pages.

If a customer is looking for a Calgary Dodge Dealer and you have 8 dealers here are some of the most important factors that will be considered when producing result pages:

1—User location (what dealer is closest)
2—Accuracy of “Local Business” page (phone, business hours, full address, is business verified)
3—Reviews (when was the most recent public review posted)
4—What type of device mobile or desktop user is searching on, is device moving (like a car driving)
5— Data from analytics account installed on the site like bounce rate and average new user duration on site

The list goes on before algorithm starts to rank the sites based on SEO factors that website webmaster has control over. Search engines are so smart now that you can’t really trick them into ranking your local business over identical local business. Search engines will use external factors that you have no control over to make a decision on what pages to display.

I see dealers pay companies to write blog posts, build back links, create non-organic social mentions, and produce a bunch of other useless information that is no longer even considered by search engines.

I say spend your digital dollars on measurable marketing and lead engagement improvements. Now, if your site is outdated, you have wrong information posted, and you don’t have analytics installed then you need to get to work and get your basics SEO covered. The best part, basic SEO can be done by anyone with a pulse and a webmaster login.

I recommend reading:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in SEO, I just don’t believe that you need to pay an SEO company for snake oil when your sales process is broken, your team can’t manage leads properly, and your customers are not 100% satisfied with the experience they leave at the store. Spend your money on things that you do have control over 1st then concentrate on other factors like SEO.

Let me know your thoughts. I work with dealers across United States and manage accounts for independent and franchise stores; most dealers just don’t see any results from any “extra” SEO work.

If you have a success story to share with me please do.
 
#26
What does Google want? They want relevant, real content on the internet that people want to read and tell other people about. If Google doesn’t bring you the most relevant content when you search, they aren’t doing their job. So by definition, even the word Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means to “game” the Google search engines (and others) to get your valuable content ranked higher than it would be if left alone to the forces of the Web. The bottom line is that all external SEO efforts are counterfeit other than: writing, designing, recording, or videoing real and relevant content that benefits those who search, within a quality user experience.

We can sit around and act like we're not trying to take advantage of Google's algorithm (would be a lie), but the fact of the matter, they change it up because SEO groups get VERY GOOD at manipulating it for organic ranking purposes. Google is quite happy fiddling with their algorithm for "best practice" reasons, but in reality, they just want to convolute the ranking equation process in order to get you to BUY more of their PAID AD space. Now that the space (itself) has been limited, it's even more competitive.

BTW, don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with fundamental SEO work and choosing quality web platforms (Dealer Inspire, Dealer Fire, DealerOn, DealerX, fusionZone, etc.). However, let's not lie to ourselves about the manner in which many SEO groups attempt to get ahead of competitors through gray and dark gray hat SEO techniques outside of core fundamental work and quality platform provisions.
 
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#28
Pretty fantastic for Managed Local Citation Services. https://whitespark.ca/services

Makes a pretty big difference in your rankings versus your competition (25% of all local ranking factors), especially since most dealer sites have similar inventories and content and at times the same platforms (those dealers that try and tackle areas where the OEM isn't specifically located).

Love this too..
content-distribution-matrix-smart-insights.jpg
 
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