This Month from Wikimotive…
This month, we’re challenging one of the biggest assumptions in automotive marketing: that the next breakthrough is always hiding behind the latest buzzword.
We’re exploring why consistent execution still beats chasing shortcuts. Along the way, we’re looking at the opportunities hidden inside everyday dealership challenges, the importance of getting your business information right everywhere it appears online, and one of the simplest technical SEO improvements you can make to your website today.
AI Search Isn’t What Dealers Think It Is
No matter where they begin, many conversations in automotive marketing find their way back to the same topic: AI search. GEO, ChatGPT, AI Overviews, new acronyms, new products, new predictions about how online search is supposedly changing forever…
Dealers want to know whether they’re falling behind. They want to know if they’re missing something important. Most importantly, they want to know how much of what they’re hearing is real and how much is simply the industry’s latest obsession.
My answer tends to surprise people:
“Less than you think.”
In terms of operations and processes, AI is already creating efficiencies and changing how organizations work. But when it comes to dealership marketing and customer acquisition, the reality is far less dramatic than many headlines would have you believe.
AI Is Not Replacing Traditional Search
Consumers are increasingly using AI tools to research. They’re asking questions, comparing options, and gathering information before making decisions. However, when they’re actively shopping for a vehicle, scheduling service, searching inventory, or looking for a local business, traditional search remains overwhelmingly dominant.
That’s an important distinction because it changes where dealers should focus their attention.
AI Is Making Reputation More Important
Consumers no longer need to read dozens of reviews to understand how customers feel about your dealership. AI can identify patterns and summarize sentiment almost instantly.
If customers consistently praise your staff, your process, or your transparency, AI can surface those themes. If customers repeatedly complain about the same issues, AI can surface those, too.
The dealerships most likely to benefit from AI-driven discovery won’t be the ones chasing the latest AI tactic; they’ll be the ones creating customer experiences people genuinely want to talk about.
The Fundamentals Still Win
Whether you’re trying to appear in Google Search, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, or whatever comes next, the underlying requirements look remarkably familiar: clear information, useful content, strong reputation signals, and a trustworthy customer experience.
Technology is evolving. The fundamentals aren’t.
What Dealers Should Actually Focus On
- Authentic expertise still matters.
- Human-generated content still matters.
- Customer experience still matters.
- The businesses that consistently serve their customers well will continue to win.
- If you’re looking for the latest shortcut, you’re probably asking the wrong question.
- If you’re focused on building trust, expertise, and a better customer experience, you’re already headed in the right direction. The businesses that best serve their customers will continue to win.
Want to hear the full conversations behind these observations? My new video series, Dealer Diagnostic, debuts in July. Subscribe to Wikimotive’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss a beat as new episodes are released.
It’s NAP Time
No, I’m not talking about adding a bit more sleep to your day (though sleep is important, too). I’m talking about making sure you show up consistently across the internet so that your clients can find you wherever they look.
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number, and it’s one of the most basic yet most important things to keep consistent across every place your business exists online. Although everything may be correct on the website, you might have discrepancies in your Google, Bing, or Apple listings—or even on Facebook, Yelp, and Angie’s List—that can show up in a search.
With AI searches on the rise, this becomes even more important. You cannot choose where an AI engine scrapes your information from. While some might show results pulling information directly from your website, others may grab information from your Google Business Profile listing, your Facebook page, or Yelp.
Eliminate the risk of an AI-generated response giving a user a phone number that is no longer in service or an old address by making sure you stay on top of your information everywhere you can.
The key to good NAP hygiene is simple:
Name: Check that your name is correct (and correctly spelled) across all platforms you have access to. Maintaining brand consistency across the internet goes a long way toward ensuring customers know who you are—and Google, too.
Address: Ensure the street number and street name are correct. Small errors can lead a GPS to send a customer to the wrong place. If a customer can’t find your physical dealership, then you can’t sell to them.
Phone Number: Make sure any phone number you can find for your business actually rings through to your line. This includes checking any tracking numbers you may be using.
It’s simple checks and maintenance like this that will help create authority. In the world of SEO, you are showing Google you are an active business and giving it the tools it needs to associate your dealership with wherever it appears on the internet.
In the world of the customer, the easier it is to find you, the better chance you’ll have of getting them on the phone or in the door.
If You Learn Something From It, It’s an Opportunity
Oftentimes, these days, dealerships view problems as problems instead of potential opportunities. When you prejudge a situation, you eliminate your ability to derive useful or helpful information from it. In short, you stunt your ability to learn.
Let’s talk about a few of those areas.
Bad Mystery Shops Are Opportunities for Growth
Let me guess—you got a mystery shop, and your BDC agent didn’t answer the question in the lead? Or did they answer just outside the target response time? Did they not ask for the appointment?
Instead of getting angry at the result, take this as an opportunity to train. Your BDC or sales team is underperforming; spending ten minutes offering ideas on what they could do better is better than a cattle call meeting, yelling at your sales staff.
Cars Being Sold Is an Opportunity to Learn More
One of the most common things I’ve heard throughout my entire career in automotive is, “Why didn’t someone buy?” The answer is often, “The car they were interested in was sold.”
When customers come in and find out the vehicle they came to see has already been sold, salespeople have a tendency to push them out the door instead of continuing the conversation.
If it was a new car, there’s a good chance you can get the customer another one. If it was a used car, that car is gone; the customer can’t drive down the street to your competitor and get it.
Teach your salespeople not to focus on what people want, but to find out what they need. Capturing your customers’ needs can also help inform overall inventory decisions beyond just what sells the most.
Poor Vendor Relationships Are an Opportunity for Reflection
I have run the gamut with vendors. Some companies I would have canceled last, and only if I had to, while some are people to whom I wouldn’t offer a glass of water in the desert. It’s inevitable that you will find contention in your relationships, but what are you doing on the dealer side to help them help you?
If you are unhappy with the output, try changing the input you’re giving. This is easier said than done—and certainly, when prescribed by a vendor themselves, it may seem a bit self-serving. In my experience, the clients who get the most out of my services are those who provide the best input. You don’t have to be bought in completely to aid someone trying to make your dealership better.
I challenge dealers who are reading this to grab the nearest piece of paper and write down the last time you treated something as a problem, and brainstorm how you could have treated it as an opportunity instead.
Is this doable in every situation? Of course not, but when you challenge your own perceptions, you can affect real change not only in your business but also in your employees, thereby creating change on a much larger and long-term scale.
SEO FIRST STEPS
Step 5: Optimizing Your Meta Titles
Once you’re through any initial site cleanup and have a good keyword and content plan in place, the next step is to take a more granular, technical look at your dealership’s website. In many cases, it is best to start with meta titles.
What Are Meta Titles? Why Start Here?
A meta title is the clickable headline that appears in Google search results and in browser tabs. It’s often the first thing potential customers see before clicking on your website, making it an important factor in attracting search traffic—but that’s not the only reason meta titles are important.
Meta titles are actually direct ranking factors. They help search engines understand what the page is and open opportunities for placing search terms and target geos within them. Rewriting meta titles is also not an overly time-consuming process in comparison to some other technical SEO deliverables, and it allows for sitewide optimization fairly quickly.
What Makes for a Good Meta Title?
The best meta titles are concise, typically around 60-64 characters, written in natural language, and focused on the page’s primary topic. Space is valuable. So realistically, title space should primarily be used for keywords and geo-targeting rather than dealership branding. Avoid repetitive wording, unnatural phrases, and unnecessary details such as dates or duplicate geos.
When it comes down to it, the goal is simple: Create titles that align with how real shoppers search and make the most of the limited space available in search results.
The Goal Is Simple: What Next?
Meta titles may feel like a small piece of the SEO puzzle, but they can have a big impact on how pages perform in search results; optimizing them is crucial. Once you have optimized meta titles, it’s time to move on to another technical SEO task that can help you touch many pages at once: an H1 audit.
We’ll talk about that next month, so be sure to check back in!