If your dealership’s website doesn’t appear at the top of search engine pages, you need to boost your SEO to ensure that your website is found by local buyers.

Selling cars is a local venture. It’s not cost-effective to sell cars globally as a regional or local dealership. This means you’ve got to be found by local shoppers in order to sell more cars and appeal to a large audience that could benefit from the vehicles you have in stock.

Here are a few SEO tips that can help local buyers find your dealership’s website more easily.

Optimize Your Google Business Profile

You might have thought that your Google Business Profile was a “set it and forget it” item, but that’s not the case. You should regularly update this profile to ensure it’s accurate and timely. This means giving your profile a makeover with:

• Up-to-date photos
• Detailed service information
• Accurate business hours
• Working phone number
• Correct business categories
• Local-based keywords wherever appropriate

Also, check your Name, Address, and Phone number for consistency across listings and websites to ensure your customers can find your dealership.

Create Local Backlinks

Most car dealerships are involved in the community. This means you have several opportunities to improve your reach and profile with backlinks. If you sponsor local sports teams, ask to be featured on the league website. You can also be named for any fundraisers and local philanthropy efforts you’re involved in, which gives you opportunities to show your community involvement and obtain backlinks. It’s also a good idea to ask to be linked with local suppliers and regional vendors that supply parts to your dealership.

Build a Strong Review Profile

One of the first things that customers check before choosing a dealership is the review profile. Encourage every happy customer to leave a review on your Google Business Profile, which aids your review status and gives you a higher star rating. Don’t use fake reviews; they will quickly be flagged as spammy by Google. If you receive some negative reviews, show thoughtfulness and empathy in your response while also solving the problem proposed by the customer. Your reviews are extremely important to your online visibility; building a strong review profile is one of the most important SEO tips to help your dealership’s website.

Use Long-Tail Keywords

You might not get the keywords into your content as often as you would with shorter keywords, but long-tail keywords help drive traffic to more specific online areas. These keywords allow you to get all the elements into a phrase, such as “2021 Toyota Camry XSE for sale in Phoenix.” This will narrow the search, especially considering the popularity of the vehicle and the number of dealerships around the country that might have such a vehicle for sale.

Review Your Website Structure

Some websites seem user-friendly to the owner, but when visitors arrive, they have no idea what to do. Another great SEO tip is to review the structure of the site and how easy it is to navigate. This might mean asking someone who doesn’t work for your dealership to perform a usability review and tell you what they think. A well-structured site should be clean, categorized, and easy to browse and use. Changing the structure can turn more visitors into leads than before.

Use Schema Markup

Schema markup is an underrated way to improve how your website appears in search results. This helps Google pull more detailed information from your pages and display it as rich results. There are several ways to add schema markup to improve your vehicle highlights, offer highlights, review pages, and local business information. You can use tools to show you which pages are missing schema and generate some ready-to-use code snippets that help improve the visibility and performance of your website.

Improve Your Vehicle Listings

Too many dealerships treat vehicle listings as generic items that look the same for every dealership. You need the same information as your competitors, but as an SEO tip, you could change the way things look and add more information to give visitors much more when they see your listings. These listings should be optimized around model-specific keywords that are being used by potential customers. It’s also important to ensure every product page includes:

• A clean URL
• A descriptive H1 with make, model, trim, and year
• High-quality images
• A detailed features section, not just a specs table
• A visible and usable CTA

Use these SEO tips to improve the visibility of your dealership’s website and attract more local customers.