On Tuesday, I wrote about how website design, content, navigation, and technical problems can affect your auto dealership website conversion rate. Your online marketing efforts can also affect the rate at which traffic on your car dealer website converts into leads. Here’s how:
Keyword Selection (SEO & PPC): People who use search engines expect to find websites that are related to the keywords they used. If your car dealership websites show in the search engine results for un-related terms, this will almost always result in a lower conversion rate. This is true for keywords in both search engine optimization and in your pay-per-click ad words. Make sure your dealership is only bidding on keywords that are related to your industry and website to help lower your bounce rate.
The more frequently your site shows up for longer tail search terms (like “Richmond Nissan Altima 2009,” as opposed to “Richmond Nissan dealer”), the higher your conversion rate should be. Having content that brings in more long tail search traffic can both raise your traffic volumes AND increase the rate at which it converts to a lead, since the incremental traffic will convert at a higher rate than your general website traffic.
Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Your auto dealer website provider should be able to help you set these two SEO-related items. If the description of your website that shows in the search engine results doesn’t truly reflect your website, the people that click through will quickly click off. Also, you may be losing valuable traffic that would click on your website if the description were accurate.
Ad Copy: If your dealership is using pay-per-click marketing (PPC), the content of your ads is very important. When you partner with a car dealer PPC management vendor, your ad content should be optimized to maximize your conversion rate. If not, make sure the copy is relevant to the keywords being bid on, your dealership, and the auto industry.
Every piece of your website, including online marketing, can contribute to your site’s conversion rate. Talk to your online marketing partner to make sure your SEO and PPC efforts are reducing, not adding to, your dealership website’s conversion rate.
