Matt Smith, Senior Director of SEO at Edmunds
"95% of vehicle buyers use digital as a source of information. In fact, twice as many start their research online versus at a dealer."
- Google
Fictional NASCAR superstar Ricky Bobby understood Google organic search perfectly when he said, “If you ain't first, you're last.” The truth is, position one on Google receives the lion's share of most clicks. If you don't have a top ranking within Google organic search your competitors might be taking your sale.
For this quick SEO tip, we're focusing on easy ways to optimize your dealership website to better rank within Google organic search. This means we will be making basic changes to a few elements to improve Google's understanding of your content, and in turn, you'll better optimize your website and improve rankings. The optimization ideas we present can be executed by someone with a very basic understanding of HTML or they can be sent to your website provider. Although the ideas are easy to implement they can have a significant impact on your bottom line.
Title tags are one of the most important elements of a website. Similar to your Google My Business profile, this is your first opportunity to capture a user's attention. It is actually one of the best levers you can control to improve rankings.
Google provides an estimated search word volume for any keyword within their Adwords tool, which you can get access to by signing up with Adwords. Within Adwords click tools, settings, then keyword planner, to get search volume and forecasts. It is within this section that you can add your keywords and see how often people are searching for it on a monthly basis.
The meta description is also an opportunity to capture attention on Google. Your description can be 50-160 characters, so we suggest you try to use 150-160 to maximize the space your meta description occupies in Google. With meta title and description optimizations you will be on the path to have a fully optimized website that wins with Google. These optimizations will help you better perform within Google and drive more organic traffic to your website. We're here to help you succeed: please reach out to your rep or dealersupport@edmunds.com if you would like to learn more.