SEO, or search engine optimization, is a marketing tactic designed to organically attract visitors to your website. In other words, it’s a way to get people to your website without needing to spend money on advertising.
Instead of clicking on ads, visitors find you by searching on search engines like Google or Bing. Or, in the case of local SEO, also on popular sites and apps like Apple Maps or Google Maps.
What is the Difference Between Local SEO and Traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO is all about optimizing your website and building content around keywords that you’d like to rank for on search engines and generating traffic this way.
Local SEO requires optimizing your entire online presence to rank higher on locally relevant searches related to car dealerships in your area.
For most dealerships, it will be incredibly difficult to rank for broader terms like “Honda” or “Honda Dealership” using traditional SEO because they are very competitive.
For example, the screenshot below is from a tool called SEMRush. This tool evaluates keyword difficulty and volume when it comes to SEO.
“Honda” gets more than 1.5 million searches in the US alone but has a difficulty of 93%. And, the keyword “Honda Dealership” gets more than 200,000 searches in the United States alone, but the difficulty is set at 86%. According to SEMRush, both of these keywords are the hardest to compete for.
Dealerships that want to try implementing traditional SEO will need to be realistic when targeting keywords. You’re not going to be able to rank for these competitive terms. The biggest franchise dealers and manufacturers generally dominate these keywords.
While the average independent or franchise dealership has no chance of ranking for more generic, competitive keywords with traditional SEO, they may have a shot with local SEO.
Why Most Dealerships Should Focus on Local SEO
Local SEO often shows above traditional SEO results. This is especially true for keywords that indicate a searcher is looking for a brick-and-mortar location. For example, see below for the search “Honda Dealership.”
However, a dealership may be able to rank for a more general term like “Honda Dealership” in the “local 3-pack” on Google and other search engines.
Many local shoppers in your area will also use discovery terms like “car dealership near me” along with Google Maps results, to find highly-rated local businesses. By optimizing your website and listings across the web for local SEO, you’ll increase your chances of showing up for these terms.
And, ranking for these terms using local SEO tactics is a much more realistic option for most dealers.
So, if you’re just dipping your toes into the world of SEO, give local SEO your time and energy first. You’ll see better results faster and more easily than you would with traditional SEO.
Consider Putting Local SEO on Auto-Pilot with AutoSweet
AutoSweet can help you get better local SEO results by automatically:
- Optimizing your dealership’s local listings across the web’s most important websites for local SEO
- Getting your dealership consistent positive reviews from your happiest customers
- Intercepting negative customer reviews before they go public so your dealership can correct any issues privately offline
Fill out the form below for a FREE online report card regarding your local SEO and reputation management performance:
