Increasing online visibility for your dealership

High website rankings through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no new concept, but the trends and best practices associated with SEO are constantly evolving. As all digital marketing strategies do, new technologies and updates enter into the picture and change the game as far as what does and does not work in proper SEO implementation.

Currently, there are some major SEO tactics that require our attention. Unlike trends, these are likely to stick around, and act as a contributing factor to the success of your website’s search engine rankings for the long term.

High Quality Content

• This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but high quality content on your website only continues to gain importance. While Google and other search engines encourage us to write plenty of keyword-rich content for the best results in SEO, if the content is not readable and well-written (for example, it suffers from keyword stuffing), you will be punished in your website’s search engine rankings.
• As content marketing in blogs and other forms becomes more popular, expectations for content quality are getting higher. Readers want to be drawn in by interesting and useful information that is easy to read, not too long but not too short, and they also want to walk away from a piece feeling like they’ve learned something. It requires a lot of work to achieve all of this – it takes time and effort to produce high-quality content, but the results will be worth it.

User Experience

• At Dealer Spike we always talk about the importance of a responsive user experience – meaning, optimization of your dealership’s website for mobile devices. (Check out our recent piece on Google’s new mobile index () Google and other search engines will lower your site’s rankings if it’s not optimized for mobile, regardless of how great your content might be. Make sure to check this important item off your to-do list – not just for better search engine rankings, but to make sure your website visitors actually stay on your site!

Practice Local SEO

• As local SEO abilities improve, it’s become more vital to adapt for your local dealership business. It’s not just Google that you need to consider for search engine rankings – it’s online business directories like Yelp! too. Customers in your area looking for units and products that you offer will likely start with an online search engine or business directory. An important step in securing local SEO for your dealership is making sure that your business address appears correctly on search engine listings, and that it is listed consistently across all search engines. Is the physical location of your dealership viewable on Google maps? That’s crucial in enabling customers to visit your store.

Pay Attention to SERP Content

• Your SERP (search engine results page) is online visitors’ first clue about what your dealership has to offer, so it has always been important to handle this content with care. But new changes to Google’s SERP settings make it even more important. The best way to ensure that Google correctly understands your website’s purpose and pulls an accurate, high-quality snippet of information to display in your SERP is to keep your website’s code enhanced and up to date for SEO. This way, your website is able to effectively communicate its purpose to search engines and the people who use them.

Positive SEO results are essential to the success of your dealership’s website – gaining high positions in search engine rankings ensures that potential customers who fit your target audience can actually find you. Digital marketing is ever-changing, making it difficult but necessary to keep up. These four major tactics are slated to be fairly stable for the foreseeable future in SEO – start here and you’ll be in good shape to keep up with the rest of the trends and updates that will come your way.

Lauren McLean is the public relations manager at Dealer Spike, a leading web services provider for powersports dealerships. The award-winning digital advertising company is focused on helping dealers increase sales through powerful, distinctive website design and a full suite of online marketing tools to drive results. Dealer Spike’s expertise comes from real-world dealership experience and a team of professionals who also ride. When you work with Dealer Spike, you’re working with digital marketing experts who have a passion for your industry.

Website: www.DealerSpike.com

Phone: 800.288.5917

Email: Press@DealerSpike.com