10 SEO Tips To Ensure Online Shoppers Find You In 2010

December 9th, 2009

   Reprinted from 12/09 AutoSuccess Magazine, p 28

By Tim James
Director of Sales
HomeNet Automotive, Inc.

Everyone wants to come up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), but the truth is, in this industry there are millions of pages sharing similar content and most of your keywords.  The search engine optimization (SEO) tricks of the yesteryear no longer work well, and many will get you penalized, some so badly you’d be better off with a new domain name and website.

For instance, it used to be popular to add blocks of keywords at the bottom of pages in the same color as the page’s background, making those words invisible to visitors but indexed by search engines.  Such practices littered search results with worthless and unrelated pages, and the public abandoned those search engines (remember Alta Vista?).  In order to make money, search engines depend on ad revenue, which depends on quality search results, so search engines are always honing their ranking algorithms and methodology.

Here are some SEO recommendations that you can employ now to pull more traffic to your site, rank higher in SERPs, and increase conversions (visitors taking some action indicating interest in your site, like clicking on a link to go further into your site, watching a video, or contacting you):

    Know the goal for each page of your site, and create its page title, URL, keywords, alt tags, etc. accordingly.  Is your aim for vehicle display pages to direct traffic to your showroom?  Then your site should include a landing page for every car in your inventory, and the configuration of those pages should be individually search engine optimized to appeal to the person who is searching for that vehicle.  Alternatively, there may be sections of your site where your goal is to build community, your brand, and customer loyalty.  Not everyone who visits your site is a solid prospect at that moment, but that is no reason to ignore them.  Woo future buyers by presenting them with compelling content, an engaging community, and keywords specific to what they may be searching for.

   Content is king, queen, and pied piper.  No matter what other SEO tricks you use, the fact remains that high quality, relevant content is still your number one tool to not only interest your visitors but ensure that search engines deem you—and your web pages—credible.  According to Edmunds.com, 85% of all prospective buyers search online first before buying a car.  Think of it as having one chance for you to establish credibility and trust, as well as to get them to happily follow you into the showroom. 

   Place the most important content “above the fold,” which means readily visible in the standard browser window without scrolling down.  Search engines consider this your most essential information, and it earns higher ranking stature than content residing “below the scroll line.”  Not to mention, what greets people once your page loads had better be your most relevant information!  Rather than have long pages that incorporate disparate information, you’re better off with shorter, highly focused pages.

   How-to articles and blog posts are good content for SEO as well as informative and entertaining for your prospective customers.  Imagine how both will love your glossary page entitled, “Automobile Service Terminology for the Automotive-Challenged“ or a blog post called, “66 Winterizing Tips for Every Rochester Car Owner,” or a weekly Q&A from your service manager.  From within your blog posts, link to deeper pages on your site, as cross-linking adds SEO reliability to your deeper pages, especially if those links are followed.   While you’re at it, be sure to include service coupons, pictures, and videos on those blog pages.

   A picture is worth 1,000 words—and many clicks, particularly when you use page-relevant alt tags on all your photos. In addition, the more photos you have, the more consumers will perceive your operation as transparent and, therefore, trustworthy.  On vehicle landing pages, I recommend no less than 24 pictures of any one car, and even then, I would go for 30 or more, particularly for pre-owned vehicles.  What shoppers can see with their own eyes, they feel more secure—and passionate—about.  Along those lines, be forthright and include photographs of anything out of the ordinary on the vehicle to avoid accusations of non-disclosure (if there is any body damage, even a scratch, post a close-up of it). 

   Video is the new darling with sales managers because it creates tremendous emotion with shoppers.   It’s the new darling of SEO experts, too, because video causes clicks as well as visitors to linger on your page.  Videos (and photos) also ensure you get into blended search results (blended search results include related news, images, videos, books, maps, dictionary listings, etc., in addition to the standard blue text listings).  Optimize videos using branded and non-branded alt tag phrases.

    Analytics: Make it a goal to understand the numbers behind the traffic coming to your site from search engines.  If your numbers are declining, why?  There are many places to do keyword research (check out Google Insights) to test the value of your keywords. To avoid mixing oranges in with your apples, it’s best to measure brand engagement (the percentage of visitors who searched for you or your product by name) separately from traffic that used some of your top 10 keywords in their search.  Regularly evaluate low-ranking pages, and don’t hesitate to change your keywords, title, URL, content positioning, add video, etc. on poor performers.

    Bounce rate is a single page visit that results in the visitor leaving your site altogether.  To a search engine, a high bounce rate means the content on that page is unrelated to its title, keywords, alt tags, etc., and it penalizes that page.  Generally speaking, a bounce rate of >30% is good, 50% is concerning, but any pages near 70% should be immediately reworked. 

   Site maps help search engines easily index your site and find all those pesky internal pages.  For instance, the Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site is new or isn't well linked, it may be hard for search engines—and prospects—to discover it.

    Page load time may be coming soon to Google’s search ranking methodology.  That said, slow page load times won't negatively impact your rankings, but fast load times may have a positive effect.  Search engines want to ensure a quality experience for browsers, and next to content, fast load times are a big part of that.  People today are used to broadband speed, and if they aren’t getting it, they’ll bounce (see #8).

Finding the millions of online browsers who will be buying a car in the next twelve months is an ongoing challenge.  By implementing these ten suggestions in 2010, however, you can increase your chances that they’ll find you.  

About HomeNet:  HomeNet’s Inventory Online (IOL) Internet Marketing Suite is a vehicle marketing solution that helps thousands of automotive dealers to sell more cars online.  IOL’s web-based applications streamline the process of converting raw DMS data into consumer-friendly and emotional online ads.  IOL offers rich functionality for video, search engine optimized (SEO) vehicle display pages, price analysis, unlimited photos, text messaging, email ads, automated distribution to 3rd-party services  like eBay, Craiglist, and Oodle, mobile lot management (IOL2Go), and more.   IOL quickly turns every vehicle on the lot into a compelling, online point-of-presence… and a gateway into the showroom. 

Visit HomeNet at www.homenetinc.com.  For more information, contact HomeNet at salesteam@homenetinc.com or 866-738-3313.

© 2009 HomeNet Automotive, Inc.

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