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There are many reasons why your search engine rankings can drop, and unfortunately, many times car dealers are at the mercy of Google and the other search engines.  Google is earnest in their mission to provide the most relevant content to  their customers, so they provide tips and suggestions for how content providers can rank highly for their relevant terms.  Below are some things that could cause your car dealership website to be penalized or ranked lower by Google.  One incredibly valuable resource to keep tabs on your site’s Google performance and any Google-related website problems is Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Paid Links: While you can sometimes get away with buying back links to your site, it’s generally frowned upon.  Buying in bulk and paying for a link from a website with a high Page Rank will make you more likely to get caught and penalized by Google.

Back Links: While back links are a big part of SEO, they can also lead to penalties.  For example, having multiple links on your site in the wrong language, hiding links, and adding a large amount of back links to your site in a short period of time will all alert Google that perhaps these aren’t legitimate links.

Content: Google’s Panda update to their algorithm put additional focus on having quality, relevant content on your website.  This should be the goal of every site looking to achieve a high ranking.  Things like having low quality content, content pulled from other sites (duplicate content) and content that can’t be easily read by humans can lead to Google ranking penalties.  I have seen some of our customers’ competitors apparently get either temporarily black-listed or harshly penalized for having text hidden in an expandable text box.

Website Issues: If you block search engines robots from reading your site, you won’t get ranked.  Also, if many pages on your site have duplicate page titles and descriptions (for instance if each vehicle in your inventory doesn’t have its own unique page with unique title tag, URL, description, and content) Google won’t be able to rank each one individually.  Best practices are to have a dynamic XML Sitemap that reflects the content on your site.  Use Google’s Webmaster Tools to check that Google is downloading your Sitemap without issue.

Google seems to be everywhere lately, especially with their introduction of +1 and Google Plus.  Many people have so many different aspects of their life integrated into the search engine (email, social network, search engine, calendar, document management, etc) that sometimes it is hard to remember how we ever got along without it.

Most estimates put Google’s search market share between 65% and 70%, but I have seen estimates as high as 80-90%, which is closer to where it is in other countries.  Knowing the market share of different search engines can be helpful when planning your marketing strategies.  For example, with the recent changes Google has made to their review pages, knowing the percentage of market share Google has could help your dealership decide how to adjust your review strategy.  Based on the data I’ve seen, there is Google, and then everyone else is perhaps 20-25% of the market.  Therefore, any search engine marketing strategy has to revolve around Google to make it worth your while.

Judging by your sites’ search engine traffic data (Google vs. Yahoo vs. Bing vs. others), what would your estimate be of Google’s search market share?  How have you used the amount of market share Google has to determine your dealership’s marketing plans?

The process of maximizing the amount of traffic and leads that your website generates from Google can be daunting.  Here are some basic things that our SEO team at DealerOn recommends focusing on if you are either changing website providers, contracting with a SEO or PPC vendor, or simply taking the pulse of the performance of your site and marketing efforts.

Determine Which Keywords You Should be Targeting – Working with your vendors, develop a list of which keywords your dealership is targeting and which ones you should be targeting.  Make sure to analyze your web analytics so that you don’t miss any important keywords that are already generating traffic and leads.  Also, use available free resources (see my post on Free Online Tools for dealers) that can provide further keyword discovery (including Google’s Keyword Tool, Spyfu, Compete.com).

Determine Your Baseline – After you have your keyword lists, you should develop a historical baseline for your list.  For each important keyword, track traffic volumes and website lead volumes.  Ideally, you should also run a dealership SEO report card every quarter or so.  If you’re going to hire a company to drive traffic to your website, either via SEO or PPC, you should know your starting point so you can measure the value that your vendor is providing in incremental traffic and leads.

Use Website Analytics – Search engine rankings are worthless if they don’t translate into traffic, so make sure you know which keywords are actually driving traffic to your site.  Compare this list with your targeted keywords to see how effective/worthwhile your efforts are and have been.  For example, if you’re ranked #1 for a keyword but that keyword isn’t driving any traffic to your site, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

Check PPC Landing Pages and Micro-Sites – Even though you may not think of these sites as part of your SEO strategy, they should be.  While maintaining a focus on conversion, make sure any content and the structure of the page is done with SEO in mind, even if the primary reason you’ve created the content is not organic search.

Meet with Vendors – You may have several parties (website provider, PPC provider, SEO vendor, digital agency, etc) involved with your search engine strategies.  You should have periodic reviews with all of them (even have group meetings together) about how you can continue to improve and evolve your search marketing efforts.  Doing your research beforehand allows you to work with, and push, your vendors to get the most value possible for your dealership.

What other tips do you have for someone that wants to take a fresh look at the SEO efforts on their car dealership website?  Where did you start on your site?