shawn@shawnryder.com
Dealership Traffic
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Posted by Shawn Ryder

Ways to Drive More Site Traffic

Automotive Marketing, Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing 0

Drive More Site Traffic

As we know, SEO is short for search engine optimization.

This is the very complex yet very visible way of accessing automotive web sites within the organic or non-paid realm of Google search results.

Simply put in its literal sense, is that the more visits or “hits” the more visible the dealer site would be when a search is applied.

Here we are going to review some ideas to help your dealership with traffic to your site.

Create a Facebook Page

Studies have shown that people are spending more time on Facebook than any other website on the internet. By being in front of such potential customers, you have the best chance of being seen. Create a Dealership Facebook Page for your website and install a “Like Box” into your website so that your visitors will know you are on Facebook and join as a follower on your Facebook Page.

Write a Roundup Post

A roundup post is an entry that speaks about a group of people in your dealership niche. This strategy is used to build relationships with influencers. Let them know that you are reaching out to them and promoting their content. More often than not, this leads to them returning you the favor by blogging or tweeting about you. If they are indeed influential in your niche, their return of favor will be sending massive traffic your way.

Produce Videos on YouTube

One of the largest search engines other than Google is none other than YouTube. Therefore, it is crucial to include YouTube in your arsenal of dealership traffic strategies. Create your own YouTube channel. Produce and upload automotive original videos with interesting content for your YouTube channel.

Using the “annotation” feature while editing YouTube videos, you can add a call to action for viewers to go to your dealership website URL.

Another strategy is to interlink your videos with annotations so as to pick up more views and more traffic. Optimize your YouTube channel by including a link back to your dealer website in the profile information on the left panel.

Write Guest Posts

Many bloggers or webmasters have audiences to their websites amounting more than just your own. Approach these people and ask them if they would like for you to write a post for their blog. This could focus on a particular model, vehicle, service or something related to the dealership.

Not only will you possibly get traffic flocking to your site, but it will also get you quality backlinks that will boost the ranking of your site on Google in the long run. In addition, you would have made a friend or friends and build relationships in the process.

Build an Email List

Building an email list enables you to drive traffic at the click of a button to a specific list. With a substantial number of automotive subscribers in your email list, you can also build a community around your site or even your vehicle niche and eventually will make sales after you have established a relationship with the individuals on your list.

However, it takes time, effort and the right strategies to attract people to subscribe to your list. Also, it is essential to use an email marketing service to build your email list.

Create Epic Content

This may seem somewhat obvious, but people love to read content that delivers immense value to them. Therefore, to attract the bulk of traffic to your website, your content must be well thought out and researched, outdoing dealership competitors’ efforts in a particular area.

Give Away Free Stuff

One very effective way of making your dealer content viral is to give away free stuff. You are able to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website, generate leads for your business, and even make sales later by giving away high-quality free stuff on the front end of your sales process. People love contests to win free water bottles, key chains, manufacturer focus trinkets, and maintenance services at the dealership.

Use Keywords in your Title Tags

If you want to get more traffic to your dealer website, it is crucial to know where all that traffic is coming from. The majority of online traffic finds content on search engines using keywords hence the first step to getting found on search engines is to include keywords into your website.

We call this process On-Page Search Engine Optimization. One element to include keywords in is in your title tag, the title of your website. There are many other elements to search engine optimization.

Retweet Contest

If your dealership is active on Twitter, you might have seen some of the marketing tactics in Twitter campaigns. One idea is that you could hold a contest to make the entry based on tweeting a certain link. Using backlink tweets, you can track those who have tweeted your link.

Setup Events On Facebook

Facebook events is an awesome application on Facebook that helps you to organize dealership events.

It is a great way to get more traffic because by leaving all the default settings the way they are – that is, allow guests to invite others, upload photos, write on the wall, etc., every one of these activities creates news items that go out into the feeds of those individuals and their friends. This means that your content or event will go viral very quickly on Facebook.

Add Your Site to Directories

Most online directories offer the free option to add your dealership URL to their listings. You will be able to pick up some high-quality backlinks by adding your site to directories. This is to get your site ranking well on Google.

Conduct Proper Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you to find relevant keywords that are high in demand but low in level competition.

Use the Google Keyword tool to gather this information and then use it for search engine optimization or cost per click campaigns to get your dealer website ranked to be found by prospective automotive customers.

Google AdWords

Pay Per Click advertising is also very effective in getting more traffic to your site. It is highly recommended if you have a sales funnel that more than pays for the cost of the traffic. Avoid PPC advertising if you do not have a product that you are already making sales with.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads allow you to target your specific market according to their demographics, geographical residence, and the users’ preferences. As a result of Facebook’s large user base, you have a large group to market to even if you narrow it down to your own dealership.

Set your Dealership with Google My Business

97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Therefore, your website will get
more traffic if you were to list it with Google My Business.

Give Out Swag with Your URL

If you are looking for an offline method to promote your dealership, consider giving out swag. Everyone loves swag. Make the swag you dish out as cool as possible so that people actually wear it.

Post Content on a Regular Basis

To generate a regular readership on your website, produce content regularly. Try to get your next few posts on standby so that you can always get your automotive content out on the same day even if your week gets crazy and you don’t have a chance to create new content.

Link to your site in your Email Signature

You can get traffic to your site with every email your dealership sends. Therefore, set up a custom signature with a link to your website for everybody in the dealership. In addition, have it as an anchor text with the title of your site, because in that way, there is a good chance that it will get clicked.

Customize your 404 error page

Suggest other content on your site to visitors with a custom designed 404 page. This is
so that even if they accidentally land on that page, they don’t bounce from your site. In most cases sending them to the homepage works best for dealer web sites.

Interlink your Pages

Create links that link internally within your dealership site because the more links you have within your content to other content on your dealer site the better your site will rank in Google. This will also mean more traffic for you. Hence, interlink the pages on your site as often as is relevant – meaning vehicles, models, services, and more!

Create a post “100 _____“ on anything

We all love lists. Examples of lists include 100 ways to improve fuel milage or ranking lists like the top most popular songs etc. Create lists on anything or to make it more effective, create lists of a topic that is currently trending and obviously fun.

Speed up your Website

When we talk about the internet, we are always talking about speed. When a dealership website takes more than a few seconds to load some potential customers will leave simply because they are impatient. Therefore speed up your website – it is key.

Optimize your images

Optimize your images by compressing their size, label their alt tags and title so that they
can be found by image search engines, such as Google Images, quickly and easily.

Build Backlinks

Link building is one of the surest ways to get your site ranked on Google so that you can direct massive amounts of traffic to your dealership site. However, when building backlinks, always keep in mind that it is the quality of links over the number of links.

One link from an authority site can do more for your site than 1,000 low-quality links.

Title Tag Optimization

Ensure that your title tags include keywords you are trying to rank on the Google search engine. By doing that, you increase the chances of ranking in Google and getting more traffic from searches containing those keywords.

Choose a Smart Domain

A domain name that contains the automotive keywords you are optimizing for actually gives you an advantage over everyone else trying to rank for those words.

Submit your Site to Search Engines

Again, may seem obvious but manually submit your new site to Google, Yahoo, and Bing to inform that to crawl it on a regular basis. For a WordPress blog, install and set up the Google XML Sitemaps plugin to enable crawling spiders to check out your site regularly.

Review Google Analytics and Optimize Your Site

Review Google Analytics to track variables that will give you insight into how to optimize your site. For WordPress bloggers, use the plugin Google Analyticator to easily install the Google Analytics tracking code.

One tip is that by looking at the exit paths of visitors, you can see which dealership pages should be tweaked to prevent people from bouncing from your site.

Often visitors end up on the site and look at particular vehicles – keep them engaged with other content to build a brand for the dealership. Next time they are think about what dealer to find their next vehicle, be top of mind!

Spy on Your Competitors

Find your biggest competitors by searching for your keywords in Google. Take the top results from there and spy on their backlinks. Copy your competitor’s URL and paste it in the yahoo search bar in this manner: link: pageurl -site:domain.com

This will show you the links that are pointing to this page so that you can attempt to improve upon them.

Put Your Website Everywhere

Get your dealership website URL known by doing a little “Guerilla Marketing”.

Some ideas: Give out business cards with an incentive for people to visit your dealer site on them and leave them everywhere. You can also get a decal of your URL for your dealership cars. Do whatever it takes to get people to your site!

Ask Your Customers for Feedback

Don’t be afraid to ask for opinions from people about what they think of your dealership site. Because the better you can create your site to be, the more visits you will get over time from repeat visitors. These visitors turn into sales and long term service customers!

Automotive SEO
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Posted by Shawn Ryder

6 Ways to Get Traffic to your Dealership

Automotive Marketing, Business, Dealership Tips, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Local SEO 0

How do I get more traffic to my dealership?

The age-old question has always been “how do we get more appointments?” to just get them to the dealership. There has always been a thought process of just get them into the dealer, test drives a vehicle, and then have a good shot at selling them – with a turnover to the Sales Manager to close the deal. Times have certainly changed with the digital age – not counting on the recent Coronavirus but in the last few years of digital dealerships.

So with that here are six ways that I think we can look at for getting traffic – digital and in-person to your dealership!

#1 Social Media

Some dealers are still not comfortable with using social media to its full potential. Building trust for a dealership is certainly key in bringing folks to the dealership. One of the best and most relevant ways is to share your “story” on social media. This means building excitement and consistency in messages on social media. The platforms include Facebook, Instagram (including Instagram Stories), Twitter, and even the newest one TikTok.

For example – delivery pictures and having the customer tag themselves when appropriate – get them to share the picture. It is a strong message to have a customer show where they bought a car, what they bought, and by a simple picture of why they purchased from that dealership!

Another idea is to highlight your team members – people buy cars from people…. so doing something to differentiate from other dealerships on why their team should have a chance to earn the customers’ business.

#2 Targeted Email Campaigns

While a lot of dealers conduct mass email blasts to leads that were received or customers that had purchased. But taking it to another level will help drive specific traffic to your web site and in turn dealership. Using email platforms allows you to do custom lists that are generated from the names, interactions, and current status.

A dealership collects leads from various sources, new and used leads, then broken down to specific models.

Using strong email campaigns allows for targeting based on all of these factors. For example, if you have a manufacturer promotion on a particular model then you can target leads that had shown interest in that specific model. Then track the interaction they have with the email – taking it to the next level how they interact with the web site. So put a landing page on a web site with the promotion, a lead form and also track how the viewer goes through the web site – page by page and who they are specifically.

#3 Local Search Engine Optimization

Local SEOLocal SEO (Local Search Engine Optimization), sometimes referred to as local search engine marketing, is an incredibly effective way to market your local dealership online. It helps businesses promote their vehicles and services to local customers at the exact time they’re looking for them online in the local market.

This is achieved through a variety of methods, some of which differ greatly from what’s practiced in standard SEO, and some of which are far easier to manage using Local SEO tools and can require specific local Search Engine Optimization services.

Whereas anyone in the world with good enough SEO and authority can rank for a search query like “how to fix a blocked drain”. When the query has much more purchase intent behind it, it becomes “car dealers near me” or “best dealership in [specific location]”.

When building content for the dealership web site focuses on the models sold by the location, along with the local market. That way it helps Google connect that dealership with the models sold in the local market.

#4 Targeted Text Marketing

Text marketing campaigns may seem outdated to some, but they are an invaluable marketing tool for others. Last year, on average 456,000 Twitter tweets were sent every minute of the day. A pretty impressive number, isn’t it?

But it’s a measly looking figure next to the 15.2 million text messages that were sent every minute. And that doesn’t include app to app messaging!

Automotive Text Marketing

Texting is the most effective direct marketing channel. It has the best engagement rates – and is a lot less annoying than a phone call. The open rate of text messages is as high as 99%, according to some reports. This is much higher than email marketing, which has an average open rate of 32%. Thanks to a lack of spam filter and the fact that people check their phones more obsessively than their email inbox, companies can yield a great return using text marketing campaigns.

One of the best ways to do this is to make sure you segment your audience so you can send them targeted messages. This way your texts are more likely to be welcomed by your customer and lead to a conversion.

#5 Local Citations

Local citations positively impact local search engine rankings for a dealership. The number of citations a dealer accrues, the accuracy of the data they feature, and the quality of the platforms they exist on all influence rankings. Search engines like Google amass data about each business. If what they encounter is accurate, the search engine trusts the validity of the data, which is believed to strengthen the dealerships’ chance of ranking well. However, if the data search engines encounter is inconsistent, this trust is eroded, lessening ranking opportunities.

Local citations either positively or negatively impact consumers. Accurate citations help people discover a local business, which can result in web, phone, and foot traffic, culminating in sales, and more service department customers. Inaccurate citations, however, can misdirect customers, leading to a loss of reputation and revenue.

#5 Google My Business

Google My Business is a free tool that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. That includes adding your dealership name, location, and hours; monitoring and replying to customer reviews; adding photos; learning where and how people are searching for you, and more.

Google My Business doesn’t just make it easier for customers to find you physically, but digitally too. It can vastly improve your search visibility in Google.

Not to mention, when prospective customers are looking for local businesses, they are generally ready to make a purchase (or at the very least are highly interested in making a purchase).

Folks don’t Google, “dealerships in Toronto” to read a blog about vehicles… they do so because they’re looking for a vehicle and want to hand over their hard-earned money to whoever has the vehicles they are looking for in Toronto.

Add as much information and media as you can, including a dealership profile photo, the market you serve, your dealership hours, attributes (e.g. “wheelchair accessible,” “free wifi”), the day and year you opened, and a public phone number and obviously website URL.

According to Google, businesses with photos see 35% more clicks to their website and 42% higher requests for driving directions in Google Maps to get to the dealership.

#6 Dealership Reviews

Dealership reviews not only have the power to influence consumer decisions but can strengthen a company’s credibility. Dealer reviews have the power to gain customer trust, and they encourage people to interact with the sales and service departments. Customer interaction ultimately leads to improved profits for the dealership.

One of the best ways to encourage future customers to leave positive reviews? Respond to current ones. Not only does leaving an appreciate response show the original reviewer you’re thankful for their support. But it also makes that positive review stand out on your listing and influences people to leave their own reviews.

You should also respond to negative dealership reviews to show you take them seriously and placate the unhappy customer. But make sure you’re extremely courteous — attacking them back will only make you look unprofessional and their review more credible in the eyes of the reader.

Conclusion

I hope that this list helps you with some thought starters on how to drive more digital and foot traffic to your dealership. Tackling all of these can be difficult for sure so take it one step at a time. Obviously, if you need help with any of these subjects or ideas – contact me anytime!