When you wish to get your company seen online – and there aren’t many businesses for which that isn’t the case these days – you will inevitably soon start thinking about search engine optimisation, otherwise often referred to as just ‘SEO’.
However, it’s also true that some automotive businesses – such as used-car dealers and MOT garages – haven’t always historically been associated with investment in SEO.
So, let’s remind you why, if you run such a business, well-judged and executed SEO is important, not least for improving your current prospects for growth.
How can SEO work for your car-related business?
In many ways, SEO within the automotive industry is only just starting to grow as a field. More and more companies in this sector, however, seem to be realising just how powerful SEO can be for improving their visibility for relevant terms online, such as “MOT services near me” or “no deposit car finance”.
After all, more traditional forms of marketing – such as promoting a business through magazines or on the TV or radio – are arguably becoming less and less relevant and potent. It’s much less likely these days that people will pick up a used-car classifieds magazine when in need of a car, for instance, when they can simply perform a few Google searches.
So, the money that your automotive business spends on traditional marketing these days might not go as far as it once did. It can still produce results and be worthwhile, but it may not always reach the numbers of people you want.
SEO, by contrast, can help your firm in the car industry to reach many more people, and in a targeted way that gets the website placed in front of the people who need your products, services and expertise the most.
Keywords are important
To make itself easier for humans to discover through online searches, your website needs to have the right keywords that will help search engines (such as Google) find your automotive business.
Google has a sophisticated algorithm that helps it place the right results in front of people who are searching for specific things such as “tyre repair in London”. The search engine wants to give the most relevant and useful results to its human users, so it checks websites to see if they are using effective SEO and that they are legitimate sites.
Keywords are an important part of SEO, as they describe what a website or article is about. You won’t want to put too many keywords into your site – just enough to get noticed, and that are relevant to your automotive business’s target audience.
Beat the competition
Effective SEO will help your firm get to the top of search results in accordance with what people search for. If you can get your site to rank higher in search results than your competitors, you are likelier to get clicks to your website, and to steal potential clicks from your rivals.
With more clicks comes the potential to get more business and grow your brand. You need to see what your most direct competitors are doing, so that you can do better than them. If, for example, they are ranking number 10 for the search term “used Ford Puma in Camberwell”, then you will want to try and rank above them, if this is a target keyword for your own business.
Online is where customers often start
Although many people looking for cars or automotive-related services may first get on the phone to the local automotive businesses that they already know – or even visit these businesses in person – a lot of people will start their search for such products or services online.
More people than ever before are looking to the Internet for answers to their pain points, before they go out and make a purchase. If you can make your automotive website one of those they find, this can help you to drive more sales from the right people.
Conclusion
Effective SEO can help launch your site in the automotive sector to the top of the search results for relevant search terms. This will get your business in front of more people, making it easier for you to achieve increased sales and higher profits.
Would you like to discuss with the London Mr SEO team how our own search engine marketing know-how and experience could help your company in the automotive sector to achieve these outcomes? If so, we would be pleased to hear from you via phone or email.