My family is in the car business and we have done and do work for several dealers. We also see how they are getting ripped off by what I call “dealer hunters” – companies that promise dealers everything and have NO clue what they are doing. I am going to list some should and should nots and if you are interested on how to have all these things please contact us. We will tell you the right systems to use and how to integrate SEO the right way.

Your Car Dealer Website

1. Should not be in flash, even if the brand suggests it with their template.
2. Should be extremely user-friendly.
3. Your contact information should be easy for people to find.
4. Your new and used car inventory should be clean, easy to read, not have multiple scroll bars and load fast, not slow!
5. Should not have scrolling marquees.
6. Should not have so much noise and/or visual intrusion that people would prefer to leave
7. Should not have misspelled words and grammatical errors.
8. Should have a conversion plan for every page of the site.
9. Should have safety measures in place for online financing forms.
10. You should have access to make changes to every page, add landing pages for various advertising purposes and change different promotions on your own.

Your Car Dealer SEO

1. You should have a researched and well planned SEO and Internet marketing campaign in place
2. You should have optimized pages for every new and used car you have for sale.
3. Your SEO should NOT include many one page sites pointing to your main site. The big Goog could nail you for that.
4. Your site should not have a footer full of spammy keywords and links – this is NOT SEO!
5. Your SEO should include multiple locations, BUT be careful of the rules set by the brand. There are ways around this, but you need to be careful.
6. Part of your SEO is the coding of your website – it needs to be done right and this includes the load time of each page.
7. You need proper and effective backlinks and a plan on how to continue to get them.
8. You should integrate your online and offline advertising to bring in and retain your targeted audience.
9. You should influence search behavior with online and offline advertising.
10. You need a true SEO on your side to help you review analytics and determine what is working, what is not working, what needs to be expanded on, what to avoid and how to take the data and integrate it into future online and offline advertising.

Just because someone says they are an expert doesn’t mean they really are. Be careful who you hire.

SEO Aware