There are many different marketing strategies that car dealerships can use but one of the most effective is potentially Google Ads. Google Ads is a PPC system that allows you to create targeted adverts for your dealership that can be seen by thousands of people. If you are looking to give your dealership a boost and stimulate sales we have created a simple guide on Google Ads below.
The potential of Google Ads is immense but it does take a little time and effort to make your adverts successful. You can’t simply go in blind and start creating adverts for your vehicles for sale without any planning and forethought.
We give you a crash course in Google Ads below and what to consider to utilize the platform for your car dealership.
We have seen many businesses create their Google Ads and expect fantastic results without any follow up. This isn’t how it works! You need to monitor the adverts to see which ones are successful and if you are actually getting any business from them.
Google Ads has some excellent tracking data so you can see how your ads are performing but by default most of these are disabled. You, therefore, need to enable conversion tracking which is an advanced category of analytics that shows actual actions customers have taken after clicking on one of your adverts.
Did you know that approximately 74% of people use search engines to find car dealerships and buy cars? This shows the potential power Google Ads have but you need to use the right keywords to tap into your potential customers.
Keywords are what people search for to find your business and adverts so they need to be targeted. For example, you may want to concentrate on local keywords to bring in customers from the region your dealership is in. You can use companion tools like Google Keywords Planner to find suitable keywords for your adverts.
Google Ads are displayed on many platforms and this means there is a variety of advert types. You need to be aware of these and think about which are the most suitable for your car dealership.
Examples include Gmail (adverts that show in someone’s Gmail account), Shopping (Adverts that show specific products your company provides), YouTube (Shown as videos play or in-between videos), Display (Text and image adverts shown on the huge Google Display Network).
Your adverts won’t be successful if you just create one variation and expect it to work. What happens if the advert you create uses a poor keyword or simply isn’t appealing? Your entire advert campaign is essentially null!
Instead, you should always try and create several variations of your adverts with slightly different wording, images, and keywords. You can then compare them to see which ones work the best!
Competitor bidding is the process of using competitor-based keywords in your adverts with the aim of presenting your own car dealership as a viable alternative to theirs.
This is a well-known practice and it can yield excellent results and also help improve your brand awareness. We advise concentrating on branded keywords first for your own business, but competitor bidding gives you an alternative strategy once your adverts are established.
Google Ads is a proven marketing method and it could be instrumental in the development of your car dealership. Obviously, other things should be in place too like car dealer SEO for your website or online store but PPC ads can help take your dealership to the next level. When creating your adverts always remember to consider the different ad types, localized keywords, and special features like competitor bidding to maximize their effectiveness.
Joshua George is the founder of ClickSlice, an SEO Agency based in London, UK.
He has eight years of experience as an SEO Consultant and was recently hired by the UK government for SEO training. Joshua also owns the best-selling SEO course on Udemy, and has taught SEO to over 100,000 students.
His work has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, AgencyAnalytics, Wix and lots more other reputable publications.
A website is like a book with the binding being the server that holds everything together, the front cover as the landing page, and the different chapters as the individual pages or product categories. Within this analogy a sitemap is the chapter index and it shows a complete hierarchy of your website so users can “skip” to a particular section.
But why is this important and how do you create one? This is a vital skill to understand and we discuss the benefits of sitemaps and how to produce them below – enjoy!
Both XML and HTML sitemaps are incredibly important for the success of your website and give the following benefits:
There are two different types of sitemap – XML and HTML and it’s a great idea to maintain both for your website.
The actual creation process depends on the web development software or platform you are using but we will give a general overview below. If you are struggling with anything or aren’t 100% sure you have the right tools consider contacting an eCommerce SEO agency that can generate sitemaps on your behalf.
Before you create an XML or HTML sitemap we advise drafting a mock sitemap for your personal use or as a template to discuss with your team.
You could handwrite this on paper or use software like Microsoft Word and use simple lines and text boxes to represent the different pages and links.
The first step is to write down all the pages on your website – just make a simple list with the page title and URL. You could also jot down a basic description of the page’s purpose. With every page listed you can then try to order them into a logical hierarchy. The top page might be the homepage or landing page for example and underneath this, main pages like “About Us”, and “Contact”.
Creating a hierarchy like this makes the process of developing your sitemap much easier but it also shows you how different pages link together and the relationships they have. This can be useful for SEO and link-building in the future.
XML sitemaps are the most important as they allow search engines like Google to index your website quickly and efficiently. With your website indexed and a sound SEO strategy in place, your site has a much greater chance of ranking higher on SERPs when customers are trying to find your products and/or services.
The data contained in XML sitemaps goes beyond a simple list of page links and they also include info that explains to search engine crawlers how to index and navigate your website.
You may have an English and Spanish version of your website for example and without the correct instructions, a crawler might misunderstand this as duplicate content and negatively rank your pages.
XML sitemaps are quite complex to produce but most web development and eCommerce platforms have some type of automated tool. WooCommerce and Shopify for example both produce XML sitemaps automatically that you can then submit to Google.
You must check if you can edit the XML sitemap content however as some platforms like Shopify only provide locked versions that you can’t alter.
HTML sitemaps are more for user experience and for use in SEO campaigns but they are still vital. If for whatever reason a customer is struggling to find a page they could use the HTML sitemap to easily locate it.
These sitemaps are just basic HTML files that contains a list of all the pages on your website with hyperlinks. You can produce an HTML sitemap in the same way that you would add a new page to your website and they should still follow the same formatting and use the same site template or theme.
Make sure that every page is included and that the links are structured in a logical and easy-to-understand way. There is nothing worse than trying to use an HTML sitemap only to spend 15 minutes finding the link you want due to poor formatting!
Once you have created the basic structure and pages of your website a sitemap is the next step and we advise producing both XML and HTML versions. But don’t just produce your sitemap and forget about it – it must be kept up-to-date anytime you make a change to your website hierarchy or add new content.
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