You may (or may not) have noticed that Google recently updated their search algorithm again. It seems like every time they do this it gets harder and harder for a business to rank on the first page. The guys at the big G, have stressed for a long time now that content is king, and it’s now more apparent than ever!
Content marketing has changed dramatically over the last few years. Which, for those who are looking to build a reputable outlet for their dealership, is a good thing. But for those who are doing whatever possible to shortcut results, they will be finding themselves back at square one. Some SEO professionals are beginning to believe that SEO may truly be a dead art. To those who are adaptable to change, it is certainly not dead; it’s just been updated and graduated.
For this reason, it is of the upmost importance that your dealership begins to invest in a solid content marketing strategy for 2014 and beyond. Content marketing isn’t hard by any means, but if you’re not the creative type it can be a bit challenging to build a solid strategy. You can hire someone internally to assist you with your content creation if you have a particularly creative person on your team, or you might consider hiring an outside company who specializes in automotive blogging.
If you got in-house, first off, you’ll need to build your blog. If your website provider can add an extra page to your site, or a subdomain, that is where to start. If for some reason they cannot, you’ll need to build your blog on a blogging platform. Some fantastic platforms are Blogger and of course the #1 blogging platform, WordPress. You may also want to look into adding a new blogging platform created by the owners of Twitter known as Medium. All three are easy to set up and link to and from. Make sure you have links to your dealership’s main website in the profile section, and you’ll want to figure out a place in each blog post link back to your dealership’s main site.
Once you are set up on at least one (though we suggest at least two platforms), you’ll need to begin the “content curating” process. This is simply a time to brainstorm ideas. If you’re a Toyota or Volkswagen dealer, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with ten to twenty initial ideas for posts. Begin by writing about what sets your dealership’s brand apart from its competition. For instance, a Volkswagen dealer might write about why their Jetta Turbo Hybrid is better than a Toyota Prius. A Suabru dealer could write about what makes their all wheel drive system better than a Volvo system. If, on the other hand, your dealership sells one type of vehicle with a limited range (Fiat, for instance) it will be tougher to begin the content curating process, but it certainly isn’t impossible.
Again, if your brand has a wide selection of vehicles, you’ll have no problems coming up with good, quality content to push out to people. You could write an article about each vehicle and what sets it apart from its competition. Another great topic to riff on is your dealership in general. Write articles about what sets your dealership apart, interview your sales and service team, interview customers, and include customer reviews and testimonials to build social proof. Does your dealership’s service department ever see any cool, rare or vintage automobiles? If so, you now have another topic to write about, especially if there is more than one. Find out when those customers bring in their vehicles and ask to interview them and take a few pictures of their vehicle.
Now that you’re all set up and have some great ideas to begin with (unless you’ve decided to hire someone to do it for you), we need to discuss the next few steps; quality, posting frequency and sharing. Quality content is the number one factor to shoot for. But what constitutes quality content? First off, the length of each article is important. You’ll want your posts to be between 800 – 1500 words. Not too short that it’s brief and vague, but not too long that it bores people and makes them click away. You want to make each post valuable; in other words, the reader should have learned something they may not have known before reading your post. Focus on making it as informative as possible and make linking back to your website or elsewhere within the article, second.
You’ll want to post often enough to stay top of mind, but not too often that it bores and annoys people. We would suggest one to two posts a week, and if you’re signed up on two different platforms, you’ll definitely want to switch up which platform you post to. You could do one on platform A one week, and the next week on platform B or one on each every week. Test each variation to find out which strategy gets you the most number of comments and shares. Speaking of sharing, lets discuss that.
Like social media, your blog posts should get people taking and sharing. Most blogging platforms include social buttons at the very bottom of your posts that will allow your readers to share your content with others. Typically, they’ll have the option to share on the biggest social platforms; Facebook, Twitter and Google+, but depending on the platform you build your blog on, you can find plugins that allow you to share your blog posts on more than just the “big social 3.” Sharing is where you’ll see the return on the fruits of your labor as this is where you build the right type of backlinks for your dealer’s website.
Stay tuned for next weeks article where I share the 4th strategy your dealerships needs to be doing in 2014