Search engine optimization is something that every used car dealership should be concerned with, and for a simple reason: SEO determines how easy it is for interested customers to find your brand online. Without strong SEO, local shoppers won’t be very likely to locate your dealership website through a Google search, which means you could potentially lose a lot of business to your competition.

The challenge with SEO, of course, is that it’s always changing; technology evolves, and with it, so does the behavior of search engine users. One thing your dealership should do is simply keep up to date with the latest SEO trends. Here are four that we believe to be significant as we head into 2018.

AMP

Accelerated mobile pages, or AMP content, are pieces of online content that are coded to load quickly, especially on mobile devices. Because they offer fast access to the desired information, AMP sites are prioritized by Google.

When AMP was first launched, it was primarily offered to news venues—but it’s expanding, and we believe it will become more widely used in 2018. Dealerships will want to seize on this technology when they are able to.

Voice Search

The way in which people seek out online content is ever in flux. For example, by 2020, it is anticipated that a majority of Google searches will be done via voice—i.e. through services like Alexa and Siri.

This has implications for your dealership’s Web content development. It’s crucial to use long-tail keywords that reflect the conversational way search engine users input their queries. It’s also smart to present information in bulleted lists or in question and answer formats, wherever you’re able.

Localized Content

Search engine optimization is increasingly trending toward the local. For dealerships, this is especially noteworthy. After all, if you own a dealership in Orange County, it doesn’t especially matter whether your website is discovered by buyers in Vermont. What matters is connecting with the people who wish to buy automobiles right in your backyard.

In 2018, we predict that developing highly localized content will become more important than ever before, not least for independent auto dealerships.

AI and Machine Learning

Google employs machine learning to help it understand the content of your website, and to determine how valuable it is to human readers. This technology is getting much better as time goes by—and thus, harder to trick.

Simply put: It’s never been more important that your website offer a positive user experience, and plenty of good, valuable, high-quality content.

Planning Your 2018 SEO Efforts

Are you ready to tackle these SEO trends head-on? If you’re unsure of where the marketing landscape is headed, we urge you to call us. Get My Auto can provide you with support and assistance as you navigate these complexities.

Learn more about the state of SEO, and what it means for your dealership. Reach out to the automotive marketing pros at Get My Auto today.

In recent years, automotive assembly lines have grown increasingly complex; the process of assembling a vehicle has become so technically intricate that many auto plants now require workers to have advanced technical degrees.

And that’s not the only aspect of the automotive industry that has grown more methodological and compound.

Dealer marketing, too, has hit a new peak—one where it is increasingly challenging for dealers to accommodate the varied consumer needs found in the digital marketplace. Certainly, it’s no longer possible for auto dealers to compete online without strong displays of technical skill—including SEO, website design, content marketing, and more.

The need for a robust online presence is so pronounced that a recent Ward’s Auto article encourages dealerships to view their sites like miniature versions of Amazon.com—and if that sounds like overkill, we’d contend that it’s actually right on point.

Understanding the Online Sales Environment

What’s important to understand about today’s consumers is that they are more likely than ever before to spend many hours researching vehicles online before they ever get up and go to a showroom. And when they do arrive in your showroom, they’ve typically made up their minds about what they intend to purchase.

What this means is that your dealership website has to provide an easy and intuitive way for potential buyers to browse your inventory, educate themselves about your products, and ultimately make a decision they feel comfortable about—just like they might on Amazon.com.

And just as Amazon is laid out to escort shoppers to the checkout page, your dealership website should provide just the right push for consumers to call you and set up and appointment for a test drive.

Beyond the Website

The dealer’s online marketing duties don’t stop at the website, either, though that’s always going to be a dealer’s primary online hub.

Just like Amazon does, dealers must connect with consumers throughout their search journey. Amazon does this through paid ads and retargeting, and dealers might consider those tools, as well. Additionally, and in our view more significantly, dealers should use Craigslist to bring traffic to their showroom. And finally, targeted Facebook ads can be a powerful way to enhance the website’s efficacy.

Seamless Experience

What’s key is that your dealership be there to engage with consumers at different touch points along their journey—and that you brand yourself consistently each time.

This requires much more than a casual relationship to digital marketing. In fact, it requires a rigorous and holistic strategy that connects the dots between website, off-site marketing, and more.

The automotive marketing experts at Get My Auto can help you achieve this Amazon-like marketing flow—and we can do so while respecting your budget. We encourage independent auto dealers to contact our team today. Reach out to learn how you can become the Amazon of your market.

Facebook recently announced version 2.2. of its Messenger app—complete with some business-friendly features that auto dealerships will want to take note of. Among the changes, Facebook Messenger now offers a customer chat plugin, which lets businesses integrate Messenger into their own websites.

Improving Customer Communications

The aim of these new features is to enable business to maintain clear, fluid, and flexible communications with their customers—turning the business website into a true customer service hub.

A recent article from ZDNet lists some of the features this upgraded Messenger introduces. “As customers move across platforms, the plugin ensures their conversation history with a brand is maintained,” the article says. “The plugin also supports Messenger capabilities like payments, natural language processing (NLP) and rich media.”

And that’s just for starters. The new Messenger also boasts a media template, allowing businesses to share images and videos more directly and interactively. Businesses sharing images, GIFs, or video content can insert Call to Action buttons, as well.

Additionally, a feedback feature has been added to Messenger, letting businesses see exactly how customers rate this interactive experience—a good way to bring accountability to the customer service team.

Key Considerations for Dealerships

These are all features with broad applicability to businesses everywhere—but is there anything that makes this new Facebook Messenger particularly useful for auto dealerships?

We think the answer to that question is a definite yes—and for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s a natural complement to dealership CRM platforms. The ability to cross-reference CRM entries with Facebook chats could prove invaluable. What’s more, there is potential for highly targeted advertising—specifically, retargeting ads to customers who have already engaged with the dealership on Messenger.

In short, it’s another way for your auto dealership to personalize its services and pair them to individual customers—and in an era where user experience makes all the difference for consumers, these added personalization options shouldn’t be ignored.

Get Started with Facebook Marketing

Facebook Messenger is just one of the digital marketing tools auto dealerships should be using to provide a cleaner, more individualized customer journey for their buyers. Of course, it’s important to take advantage of these tools within the context of a holistic marketing campaign—and that’s something Get My Auto can offer.

Get My Auto provides data-driven, goal-oriented marketing services to independent auto dealerships throughout California—and we’d love to help you take advantage of the latest marketing technologies. Reach out to Get My Auto today for a consultation.

For independent auto dealerships, being found by local consumers is essential—and that means an emphasis on localized SEO is non-negotiable. Generally speaking, this is something that requires time and dedication, yet there are a few simple ways you can improve your dealership’s local search presence right now.

Tip #1. Get a Listing on Google My Business

When it comes to building a local search presence, this is truly the ground floor. You can sign up for a Google My Business account for free, and input your company’s local address and phone number. This free tool from Google helps your company to show up in more retail-oriented searches, including Map searches.

Ensure that your profile is complete, and that you keep it up to date; for example, if your dealership’s hours of operation change, update your Google My Business page. Also ensure you display your NAP information (name, address, and phone number) consistently across your website, all social media profiles, and your Google My Business page.

Tip #2. Implement Scheme Markup

This one is a little more technical, and may require you to watch an online tutorial—or else just reach out to your website development team.

Schema markup is a bit of HTML code you can add to your site behind-the-scenes, allowing you to display important information—including ratings and reviews, price points, location, phone number, and more—within your Google search listings. This can be a huge boost to your localized SEO!

Tip #3. Add Geographically Specific Keywords

You don’t want to overdo it. Your website content should still read naturally. But, if you can organically weave geographic keywords into your content, that will certainly help. Be as specific as you can—citing your city or even a specific neighborhood works better than just listing your state.

There are plenty of places where you can add keywords, but some of the most effective ones include title tags, headers, meta descriptions, and your URLs. The effect of all this? It tells Google what the relevant geographies are for you and your customers, and helps Google classify your page accordingly.

Tip #4. Get Listed in Directories

Getting citations—that is, links from other reputable websites—is one of the best things you can do for your local SEO efforts. One place to start: Get listed in local directories.

You may have a lot of options here, just depending on your location. Your city or town’s Chambers of Commerce page, for example, may have a small business listing. Look for directories of other local automotive professionals, too, and apply for a citation there.

Time to Call in the Pros?

Already done all four of these things? Ready to take your SEO efforts to the next level? It’s time to call Get My Auto. Our automotive marketing professionals are here to help your dealership succeed, all by connecting you to local customers. Learn more by reaching out to Get My Auto today!

With more than 600 million active users, Instagram is not a platform that dealership marketers can ignore. In fact, Instagram is not only popular and influential, but it is uniquely suited to meet the branding needs of dealerships, its image- and video-focus lending itself to visually pleasing cars and trucks.

Before your dealership can find success on Instagram, though, you first need to know your way around it—a tall order for those who have never even used Instagram before. But not to worry. Here’s a starting guide for the Instagram novices out there!

First, Adopt the Right Mindset

Before you do anything else, get your mind right—and adjust to Instagram’s uniquely visual-driven approach.

Instagram is all about images and videos; yes, you can write captions, but that’s not what draws people to this platform. Plus, it is important to note that Instagram’s user base skews young and includes a lot of creative and artistically-minded folks. The bottom line? If you’re going to find success on Instagram, you’ve got to start thinking in terms of creative, attention-grabbing images.

Start Exploring

Next, we’d recommend simply signing up for a personal Instagram account and exploring some of the options. Play around. Consider it a test drive! There’s no better way to familiarize yourself with the platform’s features—or its potential.

As you do so, you might also try following some of the dealerships in your area. See how they use the platform—what works for them, what doesn’t, and what you might draw inspiration from. Take special note of these things:

1. Which of their posts seem to get the most likes? What are the commonalities between these posts?
2. Are there certain types of posts that don’t seem to get as many likes? Again, what are the trends?
3. How often are these dealerships posting?
4. Are there consistent themes in their images?
5. What hashtags do they use?
6. What information do they provide in their captions, if any?

Set the Right Goals

It’s always wise to set clear, measurable goals before you launch any new social media campaign—and Instagram marketing is no exception. Generally speaking, there are three basic goals that an auto dealership might set:

– Get more followers, increasing your Instagram audience and reach;
– Build local awareness for your dealership;
– Create excitement over your inventory—hopefully propelling buyers to call you or come down to your showroom.

Always be sure your goal is attainable, measurable, and relevant to your dealership’s big picture.

Get Help with Your Instagram Marketing

Once you set your goals, it’s time to put a strategy in place and start meeting them—and that’s where Get My Auto comes in. We’re seasoned automotive marketing pros, and we work with independent auto dealerships throughout California to improve their visibility and move their sales needle. We’d love to help you put an Instagram marketing strategy into place. Reach out to us directly to get the process started!

At Get My Auto, one of our key service offerings is dealership-centered software products. We are tech innovators, and as such we know full well what dealerships are looking for in their software packages. Good marketing, CRM, or Craigslist automation programs can save you hassle while improving your bottom line; bad technology is merely frustrating, and can even turn out to be a waste of money.

The question is, how can you make sure you’re getting the very best software to meet your dealership’s needs? Here are just a few things to look for as you consider your next auto dealer software purchase.

Key Characteristics of Dealership Technology

– Ease of use. There’s nothing more maddening than investing in software and finding that it’s difficult to navigate, or that it poses challenges as you seek to train your team. Always spend some time actually demoing a piece of software before you buy it, and make sure it’s intuitive and accessible.
– Flexibility. Ideally, you’ll be able to access your software from any number of locations and any number of devices—all while ensuring that your information is safe and secure.
– Real-time data. Batch updates are no longer acceptable; it’s 2017, and high time dealerships all had access to their data in real time.
– Integration. You need different programs to do different things, and it’s important that they all work together in tandem; for example, having marketing solutions that integrate with your CRM platform is key.
– A knowledgeable team. You may have questions about how best to use your new software; how to troubleshoot it; or how to get the best solutions for your dealership’s specific needs. Knowing that you can contact an informed and helpful customer service team is crucial.
– Proactive support. Along similar lines, look for a support team that offers ongoing maintenance and key updates for the product you’re using.
– Long-term fit. You don’t want to have to spring for a new piece of software in a year’s time, so make sure the one you buy can scale well, and grow with your dealership.
– Affordability. Obviously, you want something that provides maximum value—so pay attention to the price point, but also factor in what you’re getting for your money.

Seeking Software Solutions for Your Auto Dealership?

If you’re in the market for software solutions that check all of these boxes, we invite you to reach out to our team. Get My Auto works exclusively with independent auto dealerships, and we provide programs that will help you move the sales needle—period.

Learn more today. Reach out to the Get My Auto team directly.

More and more consumers are doing their used car research online before they go to an actual dealership showroom. What this means, most basically, is that your dealership needs to be discoverable in the search engine algorithms. There are many components to this, and one of the key ones is on-page SEO.

What does this term involve, exactly? Basically, it’s all the tweaks and enhancements you can make to your actual website to make it more competitive in online search rankings. (Things like backlinks and social media shares, meanwhile, would be off-page SEO functions—and that’s a post for another day!)

So what can independent auto dealerships do today to make their websites more likely to rank well in Google searches—positioning themselves to be found by interested, local buyers? Here is a checklist that can get you started, straight from the digital marketing experts at Get My Auto.

An SEO Checklist for Independent Car Dealerships

Title tag. Your title tag is the actual title of the page, as it appears in the Google search algorithms; it’s important to have one of your SEO keywords included in the title tag, as organically as possible.

Meta description. The meta description tells Google what your site is about, and it also provides a summary to search engine users. Make sure yours is 160 characters or less, includes a keyword, and ends in a call to action.

URL. The URL itself needs to be SEO-friendly; always shoot for something short and descriptive, not a random string of letters or numbers. Something like www.mydealership.com/cars/honda is a good example.

Headings. Section subheadings—also called H1, H2, and H3 tags—should be bold, or in a larger font than your other text; these are used to break your content into sections, and they are also good places to include keywords.

Body content. Your written content should include a few judiciously placed, organic keywords—including one within your first paragraph or so, if at all possible.

Responsive design. It’s imperative that your site be friendly and accommodating to mobile users; that’s what responsive design is really about.

Rich content. Videos and graphics go a long way toward keeping people on your site—and that helps with your rankings.

Links. If possible, include internal links to relevant pages within your site. Also include external links to good, relevant resources whenever you can.

Contact information. Make sure each page of your dealership website includes your dealership’s name, phone number, and address. This is vital for local search listings.

Call to action. End your online content by inviting the reader to take the next step—calling you on the phone, or simply visiting your dealership.

Develop a Dealer Website That Can Be Found

With this checklist, you’re well on your way to an easily discoverable dealership website—but if you need help implementing any of these strategies, we invite you to call us. Reach out to the dealership marketing experts at Get My Auto today!