It is no secret that many dealerships are currently struggling with obtaining inventory for both new and used vehicles. During this uncertain time when your inventory is wavering, it’s important to understand how to proceed with your digital marketing. While maintaining a holistic digital marketing plan is important, it is necessary to continue moving forward with your website’s SEO strategy. Here are the top ways that your dealership can pivot your organic strategy while dealing with low inventory:
1. Focus New Content Around Trade-In, Lease Returns, and Custom Orders
One way to pivot your focus from the typical new vehicle content is by creating new content on trade-ins, lease returns and custom orders. When reviewing your website, make sure that your Trade-In page is fully optimized for organic search. This means creating an easy way for users to find this page from your home page and adding content with “trade-in value” keyword to this page. Having a page where your Lease Return process is clearly defined will help answer any questions shoppers have about the lease return process. This is a great place to include any lease loyalty program information to entice users to trade in their used vehicle for a newer model and help the dealership obtain used car inventory.
Another topic you can use when creating new website content should relate to Custom Orders. If you offer this option, you can create a Custom Orders page with a lead form so that you can capture leads who are looking for a specific model you’ll be receiving. This page gives shoppers the option to be able to order a new car if they do not see the car they are looking for in your inventory.
2. Optimize Your Website For Service Related Searches
Another area to focus on is your Service and Parts Departments. First, creating a Service Department Google My Business listing is a great way to get local users searching for auto repair and maintenance services who are not yet familiar with your brand. Second, when a user lands on these pages of your website, you want to ensure that there is a clear path to click over to your Service Scheduler and book appointments. Making it easy to book an appointment from your website can help capture users who aren’t necessarily ready to call your service center.
Your website should have pages for common services such as oil changes, tire rotations, and brake repairs that allow you to focus on keywords related to each specific service that you offer. These pages can help your website rank in organic search for local customers looking for the appropriate service, and ideally result in additional service appointments booked at your location.
Another topic to think about is building new content around common service related questions that your customers are searching. For example, creating content answering commonly asked questions such as, “When do I need new tires on my car?” can also benefit your website by bringing in more organic traffic and directing these customers to your service department or service scheduler.
3. Don’t Forget To Continue Focusing On Future Models
Last but not least, continue creating content to focus on the future models your brand is releasing. Once there is enough information, you can begin building model information pages for the newest year. Creating “coming soon” content for a highly anticipated model can help provide a way for you to potentially capture leads of customers who are ready to pre-order the new model. Not only can you build up interest, but when you are early to provide trim comparisons or other model information there is less organic competition in Google Search. You can be the first of the dealerships in your location to provide a dedicated page on the newest models.
Since SEO is a long-term strategy, building out this content for incoming models will serve not only as relevant when the models are released but this content will also serve as evergreen content in the future. As your content is incorporated and indexed on Google and brings traffic to your site, it will continue to build your website authority.
While you may think that you should cut back on your digital marketing if you have less product, it is just as vital to keep your marketing strong during this uncertain time.
You are still able to reach shoppers through different approaches if you continue to adapt your SEO strategy during the inventory shortage. If you are interested in learning more about our SEO offerings or our digital marketing services, contact the PCG Digital team today to find out what we can do to assist your dealership!
Kerry Clayton
Drive Your Meta Advertising Strategy Using Conversational Commerce
