10 Questions to Ask Your Automotive SEO Firm
Automotive SEO for many dealers remains a mystery because it is the one profession where double talk can exist and still win, because the client is uneducated in how the process works. Our goal is to not service every dealer in the country, due to the conflicts of interest it creates, but to service the ones we represent at the highest level.
Many in the industry discount search engine optimization efforts and it perpetuates ignorance in the marketplace. This causes dealers to miss a great low cost way to drive traffic to their websites and inventory.
Before you hire an automotive seo firm, even if it is not us, you need to ask these questions and you will see our answers.
10 Questions to Ask Your Automotive SEO Firm
1. What is the first thing you will do when you take over our SEO?
Research. Our firm will conduct market area and keyword research relative to your brands and direct market area. Because automotive seo is more of a localized effort not only should your seo consultant look at your presence they should also look at where you rank in relation to your competitors. This effort will help us determine which keywords will deliver the most traffic to your website based on your location. We will then assign those keywords to groups to create silos that match the proper categories on your sites and work on optimizing those internal pages for conversion on those “money” keywords. We will also set your car dealer website in Google’s Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Bing’s Webmaster Center. We will also request that Google analyics be added to your website.
2. How will you help us build local relevance?
We will make sure your listing in the major search engine directories is properly optimized for the money keywords discovered in the research stage. This part of the automotive seo job may have already preformed to some extent by your car dealer websites company, but chances are they are not optimized for more than just your dealership name and direct market area and brand.
We will also look for local one way links from other sites in your direct market area based on your affiliation with other organizations such as local chambers of commerce, television stations, radio stations and newspapers you advertise with, local forums and vendors you do business with in your local market area.
3. Will you set up an XML sitemap and robots.txt file?
If the vendor will up load files for us to your website we will set up both an xml sitemap and robots.txt, many claim that these do not help seo but your xml sitemap will be set up to let the search engines know when you schedule regular content updates to your website.
4. Will you make changes to our site?
Yes. Based on the keyword research in the first step we will make the proper changes to your title tags and meta descriptions and look for ways to improve the content on your static pages. Many times car dealer website companies use templated content in these areas with change in dealership name only. We will recraft that content based on latent semantic indexing and semantically related words thus giving your landing page a better representation for humans and improving the relevance of those pages. We will also work to canocalize navigation and internal linking structure to avoid confusion in your sites visitors and search engine spiders.
5. How often will you recommend content updates?
We will monitor competitive websites updates and market conditions. While most car dealer website templates do not facilitate easy inclusion of new content we will work with your dealerships website vendor to facilitate this process to create well optimized internal landing pages to help meet market conditions. Certain areas of your website will need regular updates to help meet the goals established in the research stage to help improve long term results.
6. What kind of results should we see in the first month?
Automotive seo results are not easy to predict, however depending on many factors we may be able to see improvements almost immediately. This will depend on how fast recommended changes can be deployed, age of the domain name and length of domain registration.
7. How can we monitor progress?
While many car dealer website companies provide some form of analytics we will accentuate that reporting with Google Analytics in step one. This will integrate with our reporting software that will allow us to establish goals and provide weekly updates of progress.
Click to See Larger Image of Results for a Honda dealer not in Indianapolis - First 2 weeks
8. Will you represent others in our market area?
Yes and no. We will not work with a same brand dealer in your direct market area in relation to automotive seo, however we do offer other services such as craigslist inventory distribution that if a dealer in your market area contacts us for we will sell them that service. The only reason we will accept this business is because it is widely available. However the nature of our business we do not make outbound sales calls so we will not solicit your competition for any of our services.
9. What else will you recommend and will you prioritize activities?
Because of the dynamic nature of search engine optimization we also listen to our clients. Automotive SEO is not a set it and forget it process. We will continually look for ways to expand your reach via the search engines and take the most direct approach in helping you increase traffic. So depending on the goals we will prioritize efforts to match. We will continually work to optimize content and perform keyword research. Sometimes we will make other recommendations such as a dealership blog, paid directory inclusion, low cost banner placements and dealer microsites. We will prioritize these recommendations based on your commitment and budget.
10. Do you require a contract?
We do not require a contract. Our business is built on service to our clients and a contract has the ability to place us in an adversarial relationship if you are unhappy with results. We are also confident in our ability to help you meet your online marketing goals so we feel that a contract is not required. Many firms that request contracts are selling them to factoring companies to get an immediate injection of cash just as you sell your retail installment contracts to lenders. All that we ask for upfront is a 90 day commitment because the first steps is us understanding your business and individual goals. Improving search engine rankings is a nurturing process and not always immediate.
What else do we need to know about automotive seo?
A long term search engine optimization strategy pays long term dividends. When you chose your website seo consultant you need to make sure it is a firm that you want to use for the long haul. As the founder of dealerbytes.com I hope you chose us as your online automotive marketing consulting firm. I got my start in the car business in 1990 selling cars for a single point Toyota dealer and have worked in every position in the front end of a dealership from sales to general manager so we understand the challenges you face day in and day out on the front lines.
Maximizing your presence in the search engines is an ever changing process. Your seo firm should be the one helping you stay abreast of these changes and initiatives so you can concentrate on selling cars and service.
To often automotive seo is looked upon as search engine manipulation and many firms will rely on less than ethical tactics, if you are ok with this you are probably not a client we want and are glad you stopped by to read this article. We view our efforts as being your automotive marketing partner that helps bring more traffic to you dealership’s website, increase conversion and generate more leads. We know if we service you properly referrals from our efforts for you is our biggest payoff. We will not take unnecessary risk that places your online presence in jeopardy or our business model. We use our own sites to test theories before placing them into action on our clients websites.
If you have any questions or would like to request a no obligation seo review of your dealership’s website please use the contact form below or give us a call at 800-406-1794.
Leave other recommendations and questions you would like to see publicly displayed in the comments below.
Platforms Dealers Use That Could Benefit from our Services
(scroll to see them all)
All Auto Network www.allautonetwork.com
Autofusion www.autofusion.com
AutoLotManager www.autolotmanager.com
ClickMotive www.clickmotive.com
Cobalt www.cobalt.com
Dealer eProcess www.dealereprocess.com
Dealer Fire www.dealerfire.com
Dealer Impact www.dealerimpact.com
Dealer Peak www.dealerpeak.com
Dealer.Com www.dealer.com
DealerConnection www.dealerconnection.com
DealerON www.dealeron.com
Dealerskins www.dealerskins.com
DealerTrend www.dealertrend.com
eBizAutos www.eBizAutos.com
ecarlist.com www.ecarlist.com
Higher Turnover www.higherturnover.com
Izmo Cars www.izmocars.com
Liquid Motors www.liquidmotors.com
Meridian Marketing www.thesmarterwebsite.com
MJMI www.mjmi.com
Nexteppe www.nexteppe.com
Portratz Partners www.ppadv.com
Pure Dealer www.puredealer.com
Reynolds and Reynolds www.reyrey.com
Search Optics www.searchoptics.com
Smart Web Concepts www.smartwebconcepts.com
Tk Carsites www.tkcarsites.com
VinSolutions www.vinsolutions.com
Web Sites For Dealers http://websitesfordealers.com
Wilson Software Corporation www.interactivedms.com
World Dealer www.worlddealer.net
XI Group www.xigroup.com
This is one of the best SEO lists I have seen, with the right answers as a bonus!