The beginning of a new year is the best time to make some new goals for your automotive search engine optimization.
Make commitments now to really improve the quality of your blog and website in the coming year.
Even a few small changes can significantly improve the amount of web traffic, and therefore customers, that you will have in the coming months.
Here are ten New Year’s resolutions you can make to really improve your automotive SEO:
1. Make sure your website is as mobile friendly as possible.
A good way to do this is to have a responsive website.
Websites built with the latest technology are almost always responsive, but you should make sure that you know exactly how your website is being seen and used by mobile browsers and that it is as user friendly as possible.
With more than half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices these days, if you want to reach out to people looking to buy cars in your area, you need a website that makes you easy to find and easy to contact.
2. Look for and remove any bugs.
Bugs crop up from time to time.
Doing a SEO audit isn’t always fun, but the start of a new year is the best time to do one.
You’ll be able to catch any bugs before the next Google update, so that they don’t drag your dealership’s website down with them.
At the very least, go through your directory listings and make sure your location and contact information are correct.
3. Make and commit to a content schedule.
You need a content schedule.
The best way to make sure that you are regularly producing great content is to build a schedule and then stick to it.
A content schedule also gives you the opportunity to develop lots of different topics at one time that you can then spread throughout your week, month, and year.
Having a schedule makes it more likely that you will actually post content regularly, which is extremely important for SEO.
4. Streamline your website for speed.
Consumers expect your website to load quickly and perfectly, the first time they click through to it.
A cache can help a website load faster the next time they visit, but if they don’t even give you a first chance, you certainly aren’t going to get a second change.
You can streamline your website for speed by making sure your pictures are the right size, by hosting them properly, and by installing a widget that only loads “above the fold,” instead of the entire website at a time.
5. Stay on top of SEO developments.
Changes to algorithms affect small, local businesses just as much as they affect big businesses.
If you want to minimize the effect that an algorithm update has on your dealership’s website, you’re going to want to stay abreast of those changes.
In general, if you have solid SEO that neither chases trends nor uses black hat techniques, you are going to be alright.
If you have been chasing trends or using techniques that are less than ethical, you are going to be hit hard by any changes. Pay attention to when changes are coming and what they mean for your business.
6. Beef up your local efforts.
When it comes to automotive SEO, you might feel like all of your efforts are localized.
If any of your pages are not optimized for local search results, however, you might want to evaluate why they are not optimized for local search and whether or not they would be better off if you gave them the opportunity to be optimized for local search.
Since the vast majority (if not all) of your customers are going to be from your local area, focusing your optimization efforts on reaching out to local people is almost always the best plan.
Use this time to make sure that you are, in fact, reaching out to the right people.
7. Start making sure your tracking efforts are as good as they can be.
Having Google Webmaster and Google Analytics is usually not enough, especially if you don’t actually look at your analytics and derive meaning from the those stats.
Use the new year to recommit yourself to really paying attention to and using the tracking information you get to improve your SEO and your website in general.
8. Learn how to use one SEO tool.
Even if you outsource your content writing, web development, and SEO management, it is still worth your time to learn one really useful tool.
If you have been chasing new tool after new tool, it might be time to step back and pick one tool that really works and learn it, instead of trying to learn lots of different tools and doing it poorly.
9. Make SEO a daily task.
SEO may not seem like it needs daily maintenance, especially if you only post a new blog every week or every two weeks, but the truth is that, at the very least, checking your daily stats is an integral part of improving your SEO.
Don’t let it slide. Add it to your daily to-do list and don’t call the work day over until you’ve checked your automotive SEO and attended to any problems.
10. Spend the most money on the most important things.
For automotive SEO, it can be tempting to spend a lot of money making a lot of little changes that will not, in the end, help your ranking very much.
For every change you make, do a cost and benefits analysis.
How many benefits is that change going to bring?
How much is it going to cost you and how much time will it take?
Is the time and price worth the benefits?
