We all know keywords are important. To meaningfully appear in Google’s search results, you need to focus your site’s content on the topics and search queries that are valuable to your business and potential customers. But finding the right keywords goes well beyond looking at the search volume and ranking difficulty statistics associated with the topics for which you want to rank; your keyword research should go well beyond the numbers. To optimize your website for performance, you need a keyword strategy that helps you reach your target audience in a significant way. Let’s get into what that looks like.
The Pieces That Make Up a Keyword Strategy
Strategies are plans of action that help you work toward meeting an overarching goal; they are quite intricate and take a lot of thought and thorough research. And when it comes to building a keyword strategy specifically for a car dealership, there are numerous moving parts. You need to analyze your geographic location and the types of buyers in the area. By best understanding local consumers, you will be able to better determine what potential customers are searching for, how your fleet of vehicles fits into their needs, and what content you should have on your website to best serve them.
The Geographic Location
To get started on a keyword strategy, you first need to understand your geo location. Is your dealership housed an hour outside the city where most jobs are located? Fuel-efficient commuter vehicles may be an important focus. Are you in the heart of the country where many residents work in agriculture? You may want to narrow in on trucks and their various abilities. Maybe your dealership is in the heart of New England, where all four seasons make an appearance, in which case you should create content around the vehicles that can handle the different weather.
It’s essential to understand your geography when considering how to begin a keyword strategy. You wouldn’t want to push your heavy-duty trucks to those who live in the middle of New York City. Likewise, you wouldn’t write months of content focused on EVs in an agricultural town. Thinking about these pieces alone should give you a great starting point when you’re about to begin keyword research.
The Potential Buyers
Once you have a good understanding of your location, you need to get to know the people in the area. Maybe you live an hour outside of the city where people have long commutes, but are the residents wealthy? If so, you may want to focus on luxury fuel-efficient vehicles; if not, you should focus on your budget-friendly fuel-efficient offerings. Is the population made up of more males or females? If it is primarily male, you’ll likely catch an eye talking about performance EVs. If it’s made up more of females, or mothers especially, you might want to start your focus with electric SUVs.
Once you have compiled all of your general information and understand your area and potential buyers, you can start finding keywords and content topics that fit the profile or profiles you have created. Understanding your target audience and the market you’re in and crafting your keywords and content to it is the strategy.
Executing a Keyword & Content Strategy
Say you’ve compiled information about your location and its residents, and you’re ready to tie your offerings to their needs. It’s now time to perform keyword research and plan content that fits into the profile you have created. For learning purposes, let’s use an example:
A Ford dealership in southwestern Kansas where the majority of residents are males working in the agriculture industry, and the average household income is low, with most residents just getting by.
Now, it’s important to differentiate between picking keywords that specifically target the audience and crafting content that is made to target the audience. Simple keywords like “Ford dealership” are always going to be important to help your dealership rank for general searches. In those cases, you should craft the content to meet the needs of the profile you’ve created. Your landing page for “Ford dealership” could talk about the new and used Ford trucks on your lot, how helpful they can be when working in agriculture, their affordability factor, and how your dealership will work with all customers to find a financing package that works for them. This way, you’ve captured the general search and kept them interested with content that fits their needs.
On the other hand, you should also be targeting keywords that specifically fit into your strategy. You could write a piece surrounding the keyword “affordable work trucks,” “best trucks for agriculture,” or “Ford trucks for sale.” All of these are things that people within the profile you’ve created are likely going to be searching for and fit with the vehicles you have on your lot. By optimizing your website for each, you are putting yourself in a better position to rank, receive clicks, and then grow your customer base.
Something you should keep in mind is that no dealership will have only one strategy that works. It’s often a good idea to have more than one consumer profile on hand that you’re working on, ensuring you’re meeting the needs of your entire market. Sure, the Ford dealership in southwestern Kansas should put a focus on trucks for the men working in agriculture. But this area is also family-oriented, making reliable SUVs with seats for children an important focus, too. When you’re working on a strategy, you shouldn’t put blinders on to all other parts of the market; there are tons of opportunities, and they should all continually be considered.
Keywords Matter More When There’s a Strategy Behind Them
Keyword strategies are a complex yet essential part of search engine optimization (SEO). Not only do strategies help you work toward a larger goal and target a specific audience, but they can also save time and money when it comes to the keyword research aspect of your content planning. If you have a strategy in place, finding the right keywords and content topics becomes easier.
There are some additional considerations to make when executing a keyword strategy, though. With so many different profiles in your area (male vs female, wealthy vs not, etc.), it can be challenging to know what to execute and when. Sometimes, it works to have multiple strategies running simultaneously. There are times in which it makes sense to switch off monthly. In some cases, it’s best to create a group of content for one focus and move on to the next while you monitor its success. How do you know which is right for you, then?
Unfortunately, like many other pieces of SEO, it really depends. It depends on your marketing budget, how much content you can get out the door each month, and your resources. By working with an SEO partner like us at Wikimotive, though, you can get crafted strategies and content to go along with them, allowing you to sit back and rest assured that you’re going on the right track.
So, if you’re interested in learning more about Wikimotive’s offerings or simply have questions about keyword strategies, contact us today! We’re happy to help you put strategy behind your keywords and make your website that much more worthwhile to your customers and in the eyes of Google.