Does anyone else remember the heady days of car dealer SEO past? Back just 5 years ago, we achieved first page positions for our dealers for some of the most competitive words in the industry – “Used Audi”, for example, or “Car Supermarket”. It was easy, too, with the powers of hindsight – we used links to the website to target specific keywords, and lo and behold those keywords began to rank highly for corresponding searches.
However, as I’m sure you are aware, things have changed. Google has released ever more complicated SEO algorithms, and the upshot is that what was once quite predictable is now much more mysterious. Even worse, those algorithms are now constantly changing and tweaking!
So, what does automotive search engine optimisation look like today?
It starts with content.
Unsurprisingly, Google’s main drive has been towards trying to deliver its users websites that have the best and most relevant experience for them. A lot of that is influenced by the quality, relevance and levels of content on the website.
For dealers, that means that the copy on your website needs to be as unique as possible, so that when Google reads your website it doesn’t think that you’re just copying your car manufacturer, or another dealer. Duplicate content makes your site look less relevant than the site it landed on originally.
Content isn’t just text.
Copy is by far the easiest thing to tailor for SEO – you can easily use Headings to title and segment your text, and the text itself, as long as it’s unique, is simple for Google to interpret.
However, content is more than words alone, and for a really successful SEO strategy you need to be featuring images and videos that are appropriately tagged, titled and labelled so that Google can tell exactly what they are about. In a similar way, your content should help google to connect customer journeys through your site by the use of internal links – going from one page to another connected page via a link where relevant.
Meta data still matters
Whilst a lot has changed in the SEO landscape, meta data is similar. We recommend not to use meta keywords any more (Google ignores them, so they’re little more than a list of the keywords you are targeting for your competitors to look at!). The title and description are still important though, not least to encourage people to click through from search results pages.
What about linking to the website?
Links are still a way for Google to tell if your website has authority. However, it’s no longer just about quantity. Links have to be from relent, high authority domains, alongside the internal linking we’ve already mentioned.
Don’t fall for dodgy agencies advertising bulk links – it’s a really quick way to incur a Google Penalty!
Technology matters more than ever
Hopefully everyone is aware that having a mobile-friendly website will enable you to show for searches on mobile devices – you’ll even get a lovely “mobile friendly” sticker in the search results. Unsurprisingly, responsive websites get the best rating here and are Google best practice.
Other technology comes into it to though – such as page speed and legibility to robots. This combines with the existing page layout to result in a “verdict” for how well the site is built. If we’d imagined this just a few years ago it would seem like magic!
How do you approach your SEO activity? Is there anything particular you try to bear in mind?
