The Importance of Local SEO to Auto Dealerships

For many companies Search Engine Optimization – SEO – simply means ranking well for certain keywords within Google. But for many companies including, and especially, auto dealerships focusing their SEO efforts locally can make all the difference in making sure their digital marketing efforts reach consumers in their area.

The Importance of Local SEO
Making sure that a dealership’s SEO efforts are locally focused is an important step in helping their consumers find them online. For example, a consumer in Fort Collins, CO looking for a dealership online isn’t going to search for just any dealership; they will want to search for a dealership in their area. The search engines realize this as well. That is why the consumer in Fort Collins will not see search results for dealerships in Brooklyn, that result would not be relevant to the consumer or to the dealership. That’s why it is so important for dealerships to make efforts in local SEO. To follow the example above, if you are a dealership in Fort Collins that isn’t ranking in search results for dealerships in your area then you could be losing potential customers.

Simple First Steps
There are a few ways for dealerships to get their local SEO efforts started. One of the simplest, and most important steps, is to make sure that your dealership is represented in local directories. Large directories like YP.com, Superpages and Yelp are great avenues for dealerships to increase their local footprints. These directories allow you to input your information like local address, phone number and other information useful to consumers looking for more information about your dealer location. The listings in local directories that a dealership creates can also show up in search results for dealerships in their area. By completing these listings, a dealership can increase the number of their pages that show up in local search results, thus ensuring that it is easier for consumers to find their dealership online, while limiting the number of pages a competitor can have within the same search results.

Another step in getting a dealership’s local SEO efforts started, suggested by localmarketingsource.com, is to pursue getting registered on local or community business associations online. According to localmarketingsource.com, these types of sites can rank very well in searches for local businesses. Therefore, having local or community business associations linking to your dealer site can improve your rankings within searches for dealerships in your area.

Making Sure Your Website is Locally Optimized
It is also very important that dealerships have their websites locally optimized. In order to do this it is very important that dealerships have keywords that have local footprints in their website and within the content across the pages of their websites. These keywords are what consumers will likely use within search engines while looking for dealerships in their areas. Another, simpler but no less important, effort that dealerships should use while locally optimizing their websites is to make sure that a local address, telephone number and zip code are somewhere within their website. This is a fairly simple step as most dealer websites have a contact page that should include all of this information.

While enacting local SEO effort it is important to note that it may take a while to see results from your actions. But that does not downplay the importance of local SEO. Now more than ever local SEO is seen as an important way to promote dealerships online. If your dealership is not seen where consumers are looking, then you could lose out on valuable leads.

Pedersen Toyota sells new & pre-owned Toyota vehicles, service & parts. We also house a large variety of pre-owned inventory from other manufacturers. If you are searching for Toyota dealerships using keywords Windsor Toyota or Toyota Windsor, call, click or stop by the showroom for a test drive today!