Many dealers are stuck with templated content that offers no competitive edge. If you are one of the 10 million search results for generic phrases like, "Treats the needs of each individual customer with paramount concern," your content is not custom—it's a product, not a strategy.
The solution is not simple, but the rewards are real and enduring. You must adopt strategies that truly weaponize your SEO and move you beyond the basics.
Demand Custom Content: Not every word has to be unique, but your high-visibility pages—Homepage, Why Buy, Finance Portal—must be 100% custom and highlight your unique dealership differentiators. Generic content is penalized; genuine, quality content is rewarded.
Focus on Local for the Win: For the majority of Tier 3 dealers, local SEO is the entire game. Stop obsessing over national rankings and focus on your backyard. You must manually select and optimize for towns based on key data points like competitor presence, median household income, and distance from your store.
Go Beyond the Basics with Backlinking: Backlinks are foundational for overall site health and ranking ability. Because so many dealers ignore this, a small investment in acquiring high-quality, relevant local backlinks (e.g., from charities, local businesses) can be a massive differentiator.
Target Informational Queries: Commercial keywords are competitive. Weaponize your SEO by targeting informational (or "long-tail") queries that lend themselves to featured snippets and knowledge panels. These are high-visibility spots where you can often be the only result, capturing traffic that is in the research phase.
Leverage Technical Wins (Schema Code): Beyond content, ensure your technical SEO is top-tier. Schema code is a language that explicitly tells Google what services you offer and where you serve. Using advanced, customized schema code is an easy way to give your site a competitive edge over automated, out-of-the-box templates.
You cannot successfully weaponize your SEO if you are locked into a vendor who is unwilling to customize their product or is conflicted (working for your competitors).
Ask the Hard Question: Has your SEO provider built entire campaigns around your unique market challenges, such as a drop in organic traffic from a key suburban town?
Don’t Fall for Whac-A-Mole: Stop testing the efficacy of your SEO by spot-checking one or two keywords. Instead, zoom out and look at your total organic traffic and conversions from your targeted towns.
The solution is clear: you need people, time, and expertise—not a generic product—to succeed.
For a deeper dive into these topics and to hear directly from Rob Stoesser, Vice President of OEM, and Ben Carsley, Vice President of Content & SEO, watch the full webinar below.