Having a blog can greatly increase your dealership’s visibility as well as increase the connection level between you and your customers. It’s a great way to get your customers, prospective or returning, to see you as an expert in all things car related. Blogs are an incredible benefit to a business’s online marketing strategy. A blog that is regularly active can develop a devoted following, engage prospective clients in a more personal and interesting way, and it can generate visitors through search engines.
Aside from the benefits, it’s understandable that blogs can be intimidating for those who have no experience in writing or maintaining them. So why should you increase your workload by adding an active blog? We’ll give you a few reasons why.
Reason One: Blogs allow businesses to build their brand reputation and their brand authority.
Regardless of what topics you post about, your blog will reflect the services you offer, vehicles on sale, and your dealership’s brand.
Reason Two: Blogs enable customers to find you more easily
Though your website might get updated regularly, it’s more likely that your blog would be updated even more frequently. The more frequently you post, the higher your visibility gets. Plus, blogs don’t have limitations regarding the keyword lengths like websites do.
Reason Three: They are the best way to improve your SEO ranking
The density of the keywords can greatly aid in your SEO ranking, so blogs increase the keyword density. Blogs that contain 100% original content, can boost your blog to greater lengths.
Reason Four: It is one of the most cost-effective ways to market
As a dealership, it’s more likely than not that you already own a website. If that is so, you won’t have to spend extra dollars to create a blog. Regardless of how long you spend on updating the blog regularly, it will be a lot more manageable in comparison to offline marketing.
Reason Five: It is a great way to differentiate you from your competitors
A blog can bring a human touch to an otherwise general website. You can promote any local events that are taking place for promoting employees.
So, after knowing the reasons and the benefits that you can get from having an automotive dealership, how can you use a blog to further your customer reach. We’ll be going through some of the best ideas to get you ahead of your competitors.
Blog Ideas
Brainstorming blog post ideas can be a difficult task. You want to write about topics that will be interesting for your viewers yet still be topics that are related to vehicles and your dealerships. Below, we’ve outlined some of the top tips to get you started.
1. Post About Car Care Tips
How-To content is one of the best-viewed blog contents. It can be really useful for your readers while also building your brand credibility. Regardless of what the outcome of them seeing your blog post, it is bound to increase your visibility in the online market. Let’s say, a customer that is within your range is questioning why their check engine light is staying on. When they do an organic search and come across your blog post about reasons why your check engine light is on, they’ll find it useful and relevant. This might even encourage them to share the blog with their friends and family.
By having an active blog, local viewers might stumble upon your blog post and view you as their source of easy and accessible information. This might even prompt them to visit your website, schedule a test drive, purchase a vehicle, or choose you to service their cars.
2. Weekly Showcase a Vehicle
These types of posts can be catered to your individual dealership. It can be used to highlight a new vehicle that is being introduced. It can even be an older model with affordable pricing. Whether you’re looking to highlight a vehicle that has been in your lot for too long or a newly released vehicle, this type of blog post can be a great way to make customers feel that, that car is ‘special’.
3. Review Car Shows
If you have employees within your dealerships that enjoy local car shows, they can review these shows and share it onto the dealership’s blog. Though this probably won’t bring you any new sales, it will show that you’re interested in more than just making money and promoting your dealership. It will also show that your dealership cares about the local community, they are involved in the community and actually care about the automotive industry as a whole.
Your blog posts might attract local gearheads who want to buy a vehicle from a dealership that truly cares about cars.
4. Highlight Your Team Members
It’s likely that you’ll already have your team members contact information, photos, and names on your website. You can build it up even further by interviewing an ‘employee of the month’ every month or just interviewing an employee from across your organization through the different departments. It’s important to note that you should have consent from the individuals before you post their answers online.
The questions can be anything relating to their jobs at the dealership to more relaxed questions, like dream vehicle or favorite movie. They can even submit some photos of their passions and leisure activities, showing their personal lives. These blog posts can get great traction on social media sites because the employees are likely to share it onto their own personal pages. Thus, driving more traffic to your website and blog.
5. Seasonal Tips
If you’re based in an area that actually has seasons, you’ll know about the different requirements that are needed for each season. This can include driving tips and car maintenance, particularly in the winter months. Your readers are likely to search up tips before a certain season, such as driving tips in the winter, so it’s important for you to have this posted before then.
6. Local Events
It’s important for SEO purposes for you to mention your location within your blog posts. Though your posts might be relevant for readers across the world, it’ll be more beneficial for your local readers who can actually come into your dealerships. For local holidays, you can mention about the best places in town for that holiday. For example, for 4th of July, you can give a list of the best places to watch fireworks.
Blog posts can give you a human touch to your website. Regardless of what you post about, as long as its relevant to your dealership and industry – it’s sure to be a success with your readers.
