Is Interest in Automotive SEO Resurging (or was it never gone in the first place)?
Over the last few months, we've seen an increased interest in search engine optimization for car dealers. While it was never a "dead" market, the rise of OEM-level website providers offering premium SEO services brought inquiries down from the middle of 2013 until around the end of 2014. Now, dealers are back and asking for help.
This is anecdotal, of course. If you check Google trends, it will show a different story but only because there is such a limited number of dealers in the country. 40k dealers simply don't register on Google's trends when they're dealing with billions of people doing general searches.
From our perspective, we definitely see more dealers asking about SEO, reading articles about SEO, and checking on their own SEO. Unlike most of my blog posts, I'm not going to offer an answer. I want you, the dealers and vendors in the community, to provide it.
Did you try "premium" SEO from a bulk vendor, only to discover that it didn't move the needle? Was your SEO acceptable before but you've seen it drop due to recent algorithm updates? Are you hearing about the need for SEO from your ad agencies, 20 groups, or conferences?
Why is there such a high interest? Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining. We hold SEO at the highest level of priorities for our clients. Still, the interest level hasn't been this high since 2011. I'm just curious about why it's happening now.
Thanks in advance for your comments.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by James Klaus on
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JD, great post. Myself and many of my peers did purchase "premium SEO" from a website vendor at one time or another, only to later figure out that it was an SEO package that was lacking or behind the times (it seems to be just an expensive line item on a monthly invoice). I have come to the harsh reality that just b/c I have Prem. SEO from a website vendor, I also need an outside SEO source. This outside SEO source almost works as a system of checks and balances to keep my website vendor on their toes. This outside source for SEO has proven to be more valuable than I could have ever imagined. It has become this vendors job to help with all aspects of the websites and to help educate me on SEO and what needs to be done. This vendor/partner is always calling, email, and texting me ideas for content on the sites, landing pages, link building, promotions etc. This SEO vendor is a marketing partner and is a crucial part of our digital strategy. As dealers we have burned by false promises etc. but when you find the right partner or vendor it all makes sense. JD I think many dealers are experiencing this same thing and that is why you are getting more SEO leads now. Thoughts?
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Permalink Reply by steven chessin on
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James - This is called "Who is watching the watchers" and goes back thousands of years.I did the same thing - hiring a dedicated SEO expert. He told me dealers fail to provide enough unique content.
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Exactly Steve!
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James- If I had nothing to do for a week but create unique relevant page content -- stuffed with keywords - I could do that. But it isn't in the job description. So how does that get paid for ?
I am being serious. I have a concept -- that is a content 'sure-thing' that I have seen a few hi-end dealers play around with it -- but --- they make a '101' mistake so instead of a million and ten views they get ten !! Well ... maybe next week I will just try it just to see what happens. I'll get back to you on this.
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