Title tags should be a part of the SEO strategy of every car dealership website.  Why?  Its contents not only provide the text for the blue-links shown on search engine result pages (meaning users use them to help decide whether or not to click onto your dealership’s site), but also tell search engines what each unique web page contains.

Many auto dealers leave this important SEO aspect up to their dealership website providers.  For those that choose to take a more proactive approach, here are some things you should consider:

Create an Accurate Description of the Page: The title tag for the page should reflect the text content that actually exists on the page, both for human and search engine purposes.  Besides, why would you want anyone landing on your vehicle details page if they weren’t interested in the vehicle merchandised in that content?  For a dealership, most pages should contain information about your dealership, your inventory, and the locations that you serve.

Use Brief, but Descriptive Titles: Google only shows the first 70 characters of your title tag, including spaces, in its results.  Search engines tend to give less value to the content in title tags the further away from the start of the tag the content.  70 characters isn’t a maximum length for the title tag, but know that, for SEO purposes, you may not see the same results, and there are decreasing returns for more keywords.

Avoid Filler Words: Why waste your limited title tag space with words like “the”, “and”, “but” or “or”?  Make sure your title tag still flows and makes sense, but remember that these filler words don’t add any SEO value, so use them sparingly.

Keep Them Unique: Each page on your site has unique content (or at least it should), so each page should have its own unique title tag.

It Needs To Make Sense: Title tags are a mix of SEO and describing the content on the page.  That means that keyword stuffing should absolutely not be done.  Both website visitors and search engine users will see this content, so make sure it accurately describes the content.

Title tags can be a great tool in your SEO campaign, when used properly.  Check with your website provider to make sure your dealership site is getting the full advantage of properly optimized title tags.