Real Automotive SEO should be on the Endangered Species List

Real Automotive SEO should be on the Endangered Species List

Each month I analyze the digital marketing effectiveness for more than 50 rooftops. Most are long-time dealer-clients, some are newer clients, and a few are one-off automotive OEMs, dealers, or groups searching for quick answers to their dwindling traffic, lead, and/or sales numbers.

During the analyses for newer clients and the one-offs, I easily uncover waste and fraud still far too common in Search Engine Marketing. I see ineffective Social Media Marketing and harmful Social Media Management. And I find almost all automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) falls into one of two groups: Lifestyle Blogs or Smoke & Mirrors.

What I don’t find very often is Real Automotive SEO. That is, I don’t find much genuine work being accomplished for the dealer that increases the search visibility of their website for automotive keywords that matter.

Lifestyle Blogs

In my experience, the vendors peddling Lifestyle Blogs as legitimate SEO are either delusional or lazy. They’ll tell you how these posts covering “the best steakhouse in (your city name)” give your site local relevance and blah, blah, blah. (Sorry, I usually nod off during this part of their explanations.)

What they don’t tell you is how these blogs can actually destroy your relevance when it comes to local car buyers looking to purchase today. Many true SEO experts agree that there is a synergistic relationship between your website and your Google Business Profile (GBP). Simply put, the content/authority/ranking of one can increase the search visibility of the other (and vice versa). [Google even confirms that “Your position in web results is also a factor, so search engine optimization (SEO) best practices apply” when Google determines how to rank your GBP.]

So, if you’d like your GBP to show up more often when diners are looking for a good steak than when car buyers are looking for used cars for sale, then by all means, keep going with the lifestyle stuff. Your GBP will show up in more searches (because it ranks for steakhouses), but the traffic the Google Business Profile generates for your website and your website’s search visibility for automotive keywords that matter will both decline.

This means fewer Organic Search visits from local car buyers and those seeking automotive service. (Hint: These are the only visits your SEO efforts should be focused on driving.)

Smoke & Mirrors

In my experience, the Smoke & Mirrors variety of SEO can be divided into two categories: Nothing and Nothing Good. The Nothing category is exactly what it sounds like: the SEO vendor actually does nothing (or next to nothing) each month, though still shows you and your team colorful (albeit meaningless) graphs and charts touting the wonderful “results” their SEO efforts generated for you.

The Nothing Good category of SEO can be a little harder to uncover because these efforts do increase Organic Search traffic to the dealer’s website – just not the kind of traffic a dealer needs. The rise in traffic is the result of posts and pages built to capture higher volume keywords of national interest.

For example, there are some automotive blog posts or website pages that can see huge spikes in national interest because of industry trends (like, “What will replace the Chevrolet Camaro?”), and some that can provide a steady volume of national traffic (like, “Should you use Premium or Regular Gas?”). I’ve seen similar examples of both, and both drive increases in Organic Search traffic. The problem, of course, is that the increased traffic coming to your site isn’t local, and they’re not buying from you.

Real Automotive SEO

Real Automotive SEO – the endangered species – comes simply from the efforts made that will rank your website higher in organic searches (increasing your search visibility) for automotive keywords that matter. Keywords like:

• Used car dealer near me
• Ford F-150 for sale in Chicago
• Dallas Nissan service

In even simpler terms, searches made by people who live and work in your market who are specifically looking for what you sell. And while it’s not only about the content your automotive SEO vendor writes (there is a lot going on “under the hood” with great SEO), it’s also not rocket science.

For example, are you trying to sell more lifted trucks in the State of Florida? If so, then you want to be found on the first page of Google results for searches like “lifted trucks for sale Florida.” To get you there, your SEO vendor must write content that will both attract and engage the Florida lifted truck buyer.

How Can I Tell If It’s Working?

Measurement is the key to evaluating any marketing effort, and there are plenty of reliable measurements available to evaluate the effectiveness of your vendor’s SEO:

• Google Analytics: Is your Organic Search traffic growing both year-over-year and month-over-month? Great! However, is it also growing locally and at a higher rate? [In GA4 you can easily segment any traffic source by City or Region (states are called Regions in GA4) with just a couple of clicks.]
• SEO Log: Though not specifically a measurement tool, the SEO Log provided by your vendor (and reviewed on your monthly calls) will show you what work was completed, which keywords were targeted, and what work is scheduled for the future (usually, the next three months). (If your vendor is not providing a monthly SEO Log, ask them to start or find a new vendor.)
• Keyword Ranking: Third-party keyword research and ranking tools (like those available at Ahrefs or Semrush) provide the only real test of your website’s search visibility for the keywords that matter. With these tools, your SEO vendor should be showing you which important keywords are improving (i.e., moving higher in Google Organic Search results) and which keywords are declining. More importantly, they should be able to explain why and how they plan to continually improve these.

All other vendor SEO reports are basically shiny objects intended to focus your attention away from what moves metal.

The Results of Real Automotive SEO

As a recent dealership SEO case study from Dealers United showed, Real Automotive SEO can drive eye-opening, measurable results. For the dealership in that study, traffic from Organic Search more than doubled in seven months, while a third-party keyword ranking tool confirmed the website’s search visibility improved for over 800 automotive keywords that matter!

That’s what Real Automotive SEO looks like. That’s how it moves metal; and you simply cannot achieve these genuine, measurable results with Lifestyle Blogs or Smoke & Mirrors.

Good Selling!

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