DEFINING LOCAL SEO
Local SEO (search engine optimization) is the collection of practices aimed at optimizing your website and other web entities to rank well in a certain area. Local SEO aims to increase your dealership’s visibility when it comes to searchers in your market who are looking for a car or service you offer. By working on local SEO, you can help to ensure your audience can find you and get in touch easily. This gives you a greater chance of getting their business.
It’s common knowledge that a simple search for something like “car dealership near me” will bring up a slew of results based on the searcher’s location. Because of the simplicity and convenience this type of search offers, queries like this are quite common. This makes local SEO essential to your dealership–you want to be the one to show up for those common searches.
How does one do this? It all starts with getting an understanding of how search engine algorithms view your importance and relevance in a particular area for a particular product. Of course, you should always make sure that your address is accurate across all of your web entities: your website, social media, and, of course, your Google Business Profile (GBP). From there, you need to identify your service areas, define what is local to you, and implement a strategy for ranking in those places. This will include syncing up your web listings, creating content that boosts your authority in the local area, and finding backlinking opportunities. We do these things and more at Wikimotive. We’re here to set you up for increased search visibility, allowing you to take ownership of your local market.
Backlink Evaluation
It’s important to keep an eye on the backlinks that lead to your site. These should be monitored to ensure the backlinks you receive are of high quality and that the links come from websites/content relevant to your business. This is essential because those links are how you will build relevance and return, while spammy links can bring you down.
Acquiring Local Links
The best way to acquire quality backlinks is to be an authoritative voice in your community, one in which people can rely on for your expertise. By having meaningful relationships with other local businesses and being a useful resource in the community, you may be able to earn some local links. You can also reach out to local businesses who have mentioned you in their content, asking them to add a link to your website. But you should never purchase backlinks as these will be viewed by search engines as spam, can be penalized, and, again, can take away from your local rankings.