For your used car dealership to remain competitive, it has to rank well in local Google searches—or else, it will be all but invisible to the buyers in your community. This makes it vital for your used car dealership to have a strong website as well as a robust SEO strategy. And, it makes it necessary to avoid critical SEO errors—simple mistakes that can lead to lowered rankings and lost traffic.
But what are some of these critical SEO errors? Here are a few of the most common ones. Make sure your dealership’s SEO strategy steers clear of these pitfalls.
SEO Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Failing to offer clear, consistent navigation. Your users need an easy way to maneuver within your website, making their way from one page to the next—especially as they look at different inventory pages or blog posts. This requires logical internal links, connecting related pieces of content in a way that makes navigation fluid. Don’t neglect internal linking, but also don’t be reckless or haphazard in your approach.
Duplicating content. Google rewards original content, and actively penalizes sites that duplicate content. This is a trap that many dealerships fall into, printing standard boilerplate about your products or warranties across several different pages of your site. It’s important to make sure all copy is worded uniquely—even if it’s effectively saying the same thing.
Failing to provide valuable content. At the end of the day, Google wants to provide search engine users with content that meets their needs and addresses their questions. If your dealership website provides that content, in the form of timely blog posts and evergreen “resource” pages, you’re probably going to get some search engine traffic. Failure to invest in good, buyer-oriented content, however, can lead to lapsed rankings and diminished traffic.
Taking the wrong keyword approach. There are plenty of ways to go wrong with keywords—overdoing them, underusing them, or not being sufficiently localized. Our advice? Use local keywords such as [City] used cars or [City] used car dealership in strategic places throughout your content, including titles, meta descriptions, and within the content itself. But don’t stuff in too many keywords; natural, readable content is a must.
Not thinking outside your website. While on-page optimization is vital, you should also be investing in external assets—including social media sharing, online reviews, and links from local directories or Chambers of Commerce sites. SEO isn’t just about what’s on your site; it’s about how your site is perceived in the wider community.
Avoiding SEO Errors at Your Used Car Dealership
The best way to steer away from these errors is to put a comprehensive SEO plan in place—and that’s something we can help you with. Get My Auto is an integrative marketing agency that focuses on used car dealerships, and we’d love to help your dealership website generate great Google rankings. Contact us today to learn more!