When most of us first learned about automotive search engine optimization, it sounded like a magical way to get your website to rank.
And while its goal is to help your website climb the ranks of relevant search results, it is not magic.
It takes a lot of time and hard work in order to get it to function properly.
If you are just starting to dip your toes in the automotive SEO pool, you might be overwhelmed with how much there is to learn and to do.
Here are some of the most important things you need to know:
What is seo?
You already know that SEO stands for search engine optimization.
But what exactly does that mean?
It means making changes to your website and streamlining it so that it aligns with the ranking factors that search engines like Google find to be the most important.
Its function is to allow your website to climb the ranks of relevant search results, so that you see more visitors on your site and so that you eventually see more people on your showroom floor.
The basic rules are as follows: build a high quality website, with lots of high quality content (which includes written content, images, and video), using the proper techniques, and your website will climb the ranks.
If you break the rules and use tactics that Google does not approve of, you are likely going to see very little, if any change in your ranking.
Breaking specific rules will mean that Google removes you from their search results altogether.
What constitutes a high quality website?
The main point of a search engines is to provide searchers with relevant answers to their questions.
These search engines know that they have to find the best possible websites for their needs, or the searchers will go to a different search engine.
This means that in order to be listed highly on Google and other relevant search engines, you need to have a very high quality website with content that speaks to the needs of people who are likely going to be searching for content or for a website like yours.
In order to be considered high quality, your website must have original content, have a great user experience, be easy to navigate, and provide expert information that your readers likely could not find anywhere else.
In order for your automotive SEO campaign to work, this is what is required.
What are some of the most important ranking factors?
There are literally hundreds of ranking factors.
This means that search engines look at hundreds of aspects of your dealership’s webpage before deciding where to rank it.
This is probably too many ranking factors for you to worry about.
Which ranking factors do you need to be most concerned about?
Relevancy and authority.
Anything that has to do with whether or not your website is relevant to the search (this will include keywords) and anything that has to do with building authority are topics that you should be concerned about.
You make your webpage relevant by including well-researched keywords in your content.
You keep your webpage relevant by continually updating that content and streamlining your keyword strategy.
You make your webpage authoritative by building a strong, organic link profile and maintaining that link profile.
Of course, there are many other factors that you can and probably should be concerned about, but these are two of the most important.
Focusing on these will help you propel your site upwards in the search results.
What makes a page spam?
One of the biggest fears most people who are new to automotive SEO have is that they will accidentally do something that will get their webpage marked as spam.
While there are ways that you can remediate this issue if it happens to you, prevention is always better than remediation.
Some of the things that could get your website flagged include keyword stuffing, content that has been stolen, sneaky links, hidden text, pages with little to no content, a website that is obviously set up just to make money, using multiple landing pages to direct to the same page on your website, low-quality design, poor protection for your users, and fake pages and fake advertisements.
What do I need to be optimizing for?
The two things that you should be optimizing for are the intent of the user and the satisfaction of that user.
These topics are closely tied to relevancy and authority.
You do not simply want to be optimizing for a specific keyword.
You should be optimizing for what the person really intends to find when they type that keyword into the search engine’s bar.
For example, when someone searches something like “New Jersey car dealership,” their intent is not just to see a list of car dealerships in New Jersey.
Their intent is to find a dealership where they can buy a vehicle that they want to buy.
Optimizing for this, instead of just the keyword, will encourage you to create content that is much more likely to first, attract people to your website and second, attract people to your dealership.
How long does it take to see results?
One of the biggest concerns most people have about automotive SEO is that it can take a long time to start seeing positive results for your website.
But, consider this: taking a long time to rank is actually good for your website, because it is good for the user.
Google wants it to take a long time to rank.
It could take months for you to see the results you want, but once you have achieved those results, it will be much less difficult to maintain them.
