Car Dealer Search Engine Marketing

How’s your site livin?
Before optimizing your own car dealer website or working with an seo consultant ask yourself “How is my website site living? Before starting your automotive SEO efforts it is important to do an overall analysis of your site before beginning the SEO process. There is no point in optimizing a site that has limitations and is not user friendly. Below is a preliminary evaluation you can perform on your website.

Usability
How easy can a user find what they are looking for on your car dealer website? Is it confusing or straight forward. Could say parents navigate your website? In my experience they have been the best usability testers in the world (my moms adoption of technology has even rocking an ipod these days). Are the pages and links, clear and precise? A user should be able to access the majority of your website within 3 clicks. How about conversions? How easy is it for a user to fulfill your call to action. Is it really that obvious or are their too many other distractions on your website?

Navigation / Architecture
Every website implements some form of navigation. Even if it is a few links between pages there is a way for the user to move from point A to B. However, there are good and bad navigation structures to implement into a website. Does the user have to go from point A to C, D and E before they even reaching B? It helps to create a site map prior to developing a website. Think of it as a blueprint to your site. From your site map you will be able to develop a navigation that allows for smooth travels when a visitor comes to your website. Also keep in mind that search engines index your site by following links. The architecture of your site will ultimately determine how it is indexed and the way that back link juice will trickle down your site.

Look and Feel
The old argument of form vs functionality…..My opinion is marry the two in a way that best appeals to your user. Your website is your face to the World Wide Web. First impressions can make or break a visit. It is the difference of from a potential customer staying and exploring the rest of your website or visiting the competitor. Draw users in but don’t scare them off with too much bling. With certain types of sites it is sometimes necessary to have an artsy feel by implementing a creative layout. However the mistakes most of these sites make is that while things look cool, it is impossible to navigate or often lacks solid content. On the other end of the spectrum are the plain, dull and boring sites. These poorly laid out, unprofessional looking websites don’t sell the legitimacy of your site. Again this is your face to the Internet world. A simple site can without a doubt work. Just look at this site. But make it look professional and put a little bit of effort into giving your site at least a clean and professional look. Stand out and illustrate your brand through your site but don’t look like an attention freak.

Check out all your competitors’ sites and get some ideas. Do this until you see similarities between each of your competitors. This can be a great starting point for designing or redesigning your site. Then notice the differences and implement those that you like best. Now you’ve got the best of everything. With a proper look and feel you will keep visitor on your site and not back out to the Google query where competitors sites wait. Implement a solid SEO strategy into this and the search engine robots will think you’re sexy too!

Domain Registration
If you are at all serious about your car dealer website register your domain for at least five years. Search engines pay attention to how long a domain is registered. A long registration shows that you are committing to a domain and chances are you will work to develop a website that makes a good contribution to their index.

SEO friendly shopping cart / inventory
Many eCommerce & car dealer websites sites use shopping carts that are non-SEO friendly. There are search engine optimization solutions to optimizing a site with a poor shopping cart however Do your homework before you choose your shopping cart. And in the long run if your shopping cart is not giving you the flexibility that allows you to optimize it you might want to look into another. In my opinion shopping carts that generate static html pages are your best bet. A good way to see how well your shopping cart is indexed is to type “site:www.nameofyoursite.com” into Google. Do results for your shopping cart pages appear? If not I would recommend implementing a different cart. There are some great OS Commerce plugins and best of all its free!

Flexibility
How much control do your have over your website? Can you implement on page automotive SEO elements such as h tags, unique meta tags, titles, strong tags and keyword rich links? Are your URLs search engine friendly with the ability to separate keywords with hyphens? You should have a considerable amount of control over your entire website. If you are using a CMS for your site make sure it doesn’t create a ton of garbage code. The cleaner your code the better your organic trankings. See if your site is W3C compliant.

Following some of these tips will get you prepared to optimize a site that will surpass all of your competitors. Do your homework and pay attention to details. Then in six months when you are dominating your industry have a glass of wine and watch the traffic roll in!

Written by: Matt Gutt, Automotive SEO Professional, matthew.gutt@gmail.com