It would be an understatement to simply say that your dealership’s online presence is important.
But how do you find time for website management?
How shoppers go about discovering your dealership and making their way to your store has changed significantly over time. Today, your website is one of the most powerful tools to influence a potential customer’s journey, which means it’s imperative to ensure your website is in tip-top shape and an optimal tool to assist shoppers on their path to purchase.
However, you may find yourself asking where you’re supposed to find the time to manage your website presence. Odds are, you wear many hats at your dealership, and some may be bigger than others or they may be hats you wear out of necessity, because no one else can. These metaphorical hats mean that carving out time in your busy day to refresh your website content is no simple feat – especially during the busy summer season, when keeping your site current requires even more time and effort.
But whether you run a service center with back-to-back appointments or your dealership is full of shoppers needing individual attention, it’s important to allocate an equal amount of time to your online customers (that is, your website visitors). Knowing what your website needs to operate at its peak will ensure that your time is well-spent and you’re investing in your dealership’s success.
Preliminary Website Steps
Break down your website needs into the following strategies:
Identify your website goals. Knowing what you want to get out of your website will help you determine where to put your focus.
Assign the right people to accomplish these goals. Consider this: It takes a team to run your dealership, and your website is basically an online store. If you don’t have a website manager, assign members of your team to handle different website tasks so that the pressure isn’t all on one set of shoulders. For example, one team member can manage your inventory listings while another keeps your list of services up to date. Your sales team can be responsible for tracking website leads.
Keep your marketing content fresh. When business picks up, it’s easy for website content to become neglected. Here are some strategies to create informative, keyword-rich pages that improve search rankings:
- Choose keywords related to seasonal online searches and include these in your blog and inventory listings
- Include relevant links to other thought leadership sites to improve your site’s authority and make it more appealing to search engines
- Add alt tags (or alternative text descriptions) to your inventory images and videos to increase your site’s searchability
Outsourcing Your Digital Marketing
Digital marketing plays one of the biggest roles in driving website traffic, but many dealers don’t have time to manage a marketing campaign or keep website copy on par with search engine requirements. Chances are you don’t have a full-time digital marketing team, and these hats are often left on the rack. Remember that you have options to outsource your marketing strategy to industry experts, who know how to utilize modern digital strategies to further your website results.
Our website and marketing experts are always here to help you solve your website questions.
If you’re on a journey to improve your online presence, feel free to connect with ARI today.
