On-Page SEO Tips For Car Dealerships

On-page SEO refers to things you can do on a page of your website to improve your organic rankings. This area of SEO is what most SEO agencies will spend the majority of their time on (at least in the beginning).

Doing a good job with on-page SEO usually requires a mix of knowledge (SEO and web development) and technical ability to execute. However, there are some on-page SEO tasks that can be done relatively well without needing in-depth knowledge.

So, in this post, I’m going to share a few tips for improving your SEO that can be implemented without needing to hire an SEO agency.

Reduce Duplicate Navigation Menu Items

It’s not uncommon for new car dealership websites to have the same page linked multiple times in the navigation. While this could increase the visibility of the page, it doesn’t add any SEO benefit and comes with an opportunity cost of preventing other pages from being added to the navigation that might benefit.

Reducing duplicate navigation menu items is one of the SEO best practices for car dealerships.

Here are common navigation items that tend to be duplicated:

• Specials and offers
• Programs or events
• Value your trade
• “Why buy” page

Another place that tends to be full of duplicate menu items is the footer navigation.

A lot of new car dealership websites I’ve worked with have had footer navigation menus that basically copy menu items from the header. For example, I typically see some of the following duplicate menu items:

• About Us
• Blog
• Careers
• New & Used VSRP
• Service
• Finance
• Specials

Because these menu items usually exist in the header navigation, there’s no real marketing purpose for having them in the footer. A lot of people have the mindset of “the more it’s shown, the more it’ll be seen”.

But, as I mentioned above, there’s an opportunity cost that comes with that decision. Odds are, there are different pages on a new car dealership’s website that could get SEO benefits from being in the footer menu (versus not being in the nav at all).

So, I recommend evaluating the menu items in your navigation and making sure each one serves a purpose. And, if possible, remove as many duplicate menu items as you can. This is a task that an internet manager at the dealership or the website provider can handle (provided you tell them what to remove/add).

Optimize Your Images

The majority of new car dealership websites I look at have un-optimized images on their website. The images are usually either too big for how they’re displayed on the website or the file size of the image is excessive.

If you don’t have someone internally that has experience with graphics-related tools and overall computer savviness – you may need to hire a graphic designer. However, if you have someone internally that is computer savvy, they can use a couple of tools to help them optimize their images:

• Canva – for changing the dimensions of an image
• Compressor – for reducing the file size of an image

By optimizing your images, you’re helping your website speed. The faster your website speed, the more likely you are to have increased organic traffic and more leads.

Avoid Video Backgrounds

I’m not a big fan of using video backgrounds on car dealer websites. I mean, I wrote an entire post on why video backgrounds are hurting SEO on your car dealership website.

So, I won’t go into detail and repeat myself in this post.

However, the thing you need to know is that most car dealership websites are slow. Adding a video background to your website often makes the website speed even worse. Instead of adding a video background, consider using an optimized image instead.

But, if you’re set on using a video background – here’s what you can do to soften the “blow” to your website:

Don’t load the video background initially. Load an image first and wait for the rest of the page to load. Once the other elements of the page have loaded, you can then load and play the video background.

If you do currently use a video background on your website and need to remove/change it – your website provider should be able to help you. However, it’s unlikely that they’ll create a custom loader for your video background to improve your website’s speed and function (but you should still try).

Remove scripts and files from old vendors

I’ve been a digital marketer for more than a decade and when I started doing automotive SEO, I was shocked by how many scripts and files were left on a car dealer’s website from vendors they haven’t worked with in years.

Best case, that data isn’t actually collected and being stored somewhere, and the scripts are just slowing down the website. Worst case, that data is being collected, stored, and used to help a competitor (and the script is still slowing down the website).

Every time you hire a vendor that adds any kind of tracking script or files to your website – it’s your responsibility to remove it once you no longer work with that vendor. If you don’t, you’re hurting your website’s speed and leaving your website’s security and data vulnerable.

A few common scripts I see on new car dealership websites from old vendors include:

• Google Analytics scripts
• Google Tag Manager scripts (a big red flag since you don’t know what’s in them)
• Old javascript files

The way to start fixing this (or verifying if you have a problem) is to contact your website provider and ask them to provide a list of third-party scripts on your website. You will then need to sort through that list and identify which scripts belong to which vendors. Once you know what’s important and what’s from old vendors – you can ask the website provider to remove any outdated scripts.

Final Thoughts

Although there are a lot of technical aspects of doing on-page SEO, the tips listed in this post will help you improve your car dealership’s website without actually hiring an SEO agency or person.

And although it’s unlikely you’ll see massive SEO growth from these tips by themselves, these changes help you amplify any additional content you add and work you do on the website in the future.

Recommended Reading: Off-Page SEO Strategy For Car Dealerships