Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I recently found a great article that discusses very specific things businesses should be doing to help their Google Places Listing improve its ranking.  Bizible, a start-up that makes local marketing software for businesses, conducted a pretty scientific attempt to determine how best to improve the rank of your Google Places Listing.

It is also interesting because his is the first time I’ve seen a distinction between Google Places Listings for integrated search results and Google Places Listings for non-integrated search results (searches occurring directly in Google Places).

Top Factors to Improve Ranking for Pages in Integrated Results

1. Have the category of your places page match a broader category than the search.  For example, if your dealership places page is Automotive, that is a broader category than a specific make which someone may search for.

2. Have the search category appear in the name of your business.  This is great for dealerships that have the city name and make in your dealer name.

3. Make sure your search category appears in the “at a glance” section.

Top Factors to Improve Ranking for Pages Not In Integrated Results

1. Have 5 or more Google reviews.

2. Have the location in the “at a glance” section

3. Have the category term in the Google review content.  Make sure your dealership business category is in the reviews left by your customers.

4. Put the category term in the business description.

5. Make sure your category term appears in the “at a glance” section.

Most times, Google will make changes to their algorithm that either largely go unnoticed (meaning they only affect niche sites) or unannounced (your site will see SERP changes but won’t necessarily know why).  On Tuesday, Google announced 40 changes to search quality they have made over the past month or so.

While many of these changes are pretty high level, some websites are taking a hit on their search engine results.

Some of the algorithm changes that could be affecting these sites down on the SERP are:

Improvements to Freshness – Google added “new signals which help us surface fresh content in our results even more quickly.”  I first wrote about this in November, but this update indicates it is a continued focus for the search engine.

Improved Local Results – A new system allows them to better “detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.”

Panda Update – “This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.”

If you’re seeing a change in how your auto dealer website is ranking in Google’s search results, ask your car dealership website provider about the changes Google has recently made.  It’s very possible that this latest round of changes could be affecting your site.

Title tags should be a part of the SEO strategy of every car dealership website.  Why?  Its contents not only provide the text for the blue-links shown on search engine result pages (meaning users use them to help decide whether or not to click onto your dealership’s site), but also tell search engines what each unique web page contains.

Many auto dealers leave this important SEO aspect up to their dealership website providers.  For those that choose to take a more proactive approach, here are some things you should consider:

Create an Accurate Description of the Page: The title tag for the page should reflect the text content that actually exists on the page, both for human and search engine purposes.  Besides, why would you want anyone landing on your vehicle details page if they weren’t interested in the vehicle merchandised in that content?  For a dealership, most pages should contain information about your dealership, your inventory, and the locations that you serve.

Use Brief, but Descriptive Titles: Google only shows the first 70 characters of your title tag, including spaces, in its results.  Search engines tend to give less value to the content in title tags the further away from the start of the tag the content.  70 characters isn’t a maximum length for the title tag, but know that, for SEO purposes, you may not see the same results, and there are decreasing returns for more keywords.

Avoid Filler Words: Why waste your limited title tag space with words like “the”, “and”, “but” or “or”?  Make sure your title tag still flows and makes sense, but remember that these filler words don’t add any SEO value, so use them sparingly.

Keep Them Unique: Each page on your site has unique content (or at least it should), so each page should have its own unique title tag.

It Needs To Make Sense: Title tags are a mix of SEO and describing the content on the page.  That means that keyword stuffing should absolutely not be done.  Both website visitors and search engine users will see this content, so make sure it accurately describes the content.

Title tags can be a great tool in your SEO campaign, when used properly.  Check with your website provider to make sure your dealership site is getting the full advantage of properly optimized title tags.

Google+ has been promoted lately by many in the SEO industry as a “must-do” for local businesses to help their search engine optimization efforts.  While an important tool for SEO moving forward, there are other areas your dealership can utilize to keep your search engine optimization on the cutting edge.

Here are a couple of additional things your car dealership should be keeping an eye on to keep your SEO efforts top-notch as the search landscape continues to change:

Monitor Your Best Referral Sites: Check your Google Analytics for the third party sites that are sending quality traffic to your site.  This means it is traffic that converts into leads, and eventually sales.  It could be local sites, social media portals, or even your third party lead providers.  Keep track of this information and nurture those sites (and your relationship with them).

Generate Quality Content: Good content is good content, regardless of which platform you put it on.  That means it’s important to make the content your dealership produces “shareable” to other platforms.  One way this can be done is to make sure you have social media sharing buttons on your blog.  Also, create content with your SEO keywords in mind in case they do get shared and spread through the Internet.

Mobile Technology: Mobile is big and getting bigger!  Its roughly 20% of a typical dealer’s traffic right now, and growing every month!  Find out what your consumers want by taking every opportunity to survey them — ask for suggestions in your newsletters, converse with them via social media, and track the existing mobile traffic to your site through analytics.  Right now is the time to ensure your mobile site is properly search optimized so your dealership doesn’t get left behind in the future.

Google+ is just one of many SEO extras your dealership should be focusing on moving forward.  Once your car dealer website is properly optimized, make sure your dealership or SEO provider is engaging search engines through as many mediums as possible.

Many dealerships focus their search engine optimization reporting on how well they are ranking for certain terms.  As long as they show up on Page 1 of Google’s search results, they are happy.  While search engine page ranking is an important part of every dealership’s online marketing efforts, what happens if your auto dealer website is showing up on page 1 for every keyword, but you aren’t seeing any traffic?

If you are seeing this happening at your dealership, here are some potential causes:

Optimizing for the Wrong Keywords: Your dealership can rank first for “blue widgets”, but that probably won’t help you with leads and sales for the cars on your lot.  Make sure you, your website provider, and your SEO provider are all on the same page when it comes to ranking for effective, relevant keywords.

Double Check Your SERP Listing: Your organic listing should have an informative title tag and meta-tag to help entice searchers to click onto your website.

The only way your dealership will know how much traffic, leads, and sales you are getting from your high ranking keywords is by tracking all of these metrics.  Make sure your website provider and/or SEO providers are measuring all of these stats and that you are double checking them with Google Analytics.