Google Search for business

[Rory RSC 596]

Prompted by a recent thread regarding online visibility how many consumers are searching google to find a car or car dealer? 

My personal experience and that of the buyers who purchase from nearly all come from Autotrader where they are searching for a car, some then view our website and social media and some further savvy customers check for online feedback and reviews on the business.

How many customers just get onto google and type in car dealer cheshire and then decide to make the purchase from the first local garage they see?  Is there any data for that or statistics?

Do any dealers on here have a big google presence and find that drives a lot of business? 

Interested to hear the thoughts. 

 

[umesh 336]

I think a lot of buyers do that either dealers in Cheshire , dealers in stoke etc PLUS they will also type I.E. Audi A4 .... Which will either bring up your website or AT, motors, etc etc depending on how good the search term is or how relevant the content is ! Google analytic's shows all these searches / paths! guess we're all trying to second guess what the buyers are actually tying .. had a strange one the other day caller says

" are you a Kia specialist car "

"No but I do sell Kia, is there any thing specific I can help with ? "

" I'm an X- Kia dealer selling my parts stock - and I googled Kia specialist and you came up !"

How bizarre !  

 

[Rory RSC 596]

That's it Umesh sometimes trying to recreate the buyer journey for how they get to us however for me it can sometimes leave more questions than answers. Always trying to look at ways to be more effective. 

[AutoRank 0]

Hey Guys,

I do agree that a lot of buyers use autotrader to find used cars, it's a fact, however a lot of buyers will look for a local garage in terms of proximity that they can visit to look at a range of cars beforehand. This gives them the opportunity to visit and get to know the owner/dealer.

I would partly disagree that you have to "guess what buyers are typing", obviously buyers looking for say, used cars in Cheshire are going to type in "used cars Cheshire' or "car dealers Cheshire" this is shown by the amount of monthly searches that a term gets.

I have provided you both with audits that show keyword research and volume of searches, these are not potential search terms, these are "exact" search terms, this means that people ARE searching for that exact phrase. Sometimes thousands of people.

Just my ¢2

[James Bush 95]

I was general manager at a 100+ car used site and my biggest advertising spend was Google adwords. I used to advertise 50 cars on autotrader, all of them on ebay, Netcars and motors and part of my sales teams job was to ask how they'd found us and 90% would say autotrader even if the car they were looking at wasn't even listed on AT.

A few times a week I'd sit down with customers and ask them to take me through their process to find a car and it amazed me how many of them said I just put "Ford Focus for sale" into Google and you must have came up.

I think it works with a larger stock as there's more potential of a customer spending time on your site although I do run a few adword campaigns when I have something a little more out of the ordinary comes in.

We had a company called PinkSheep run our bigger adwords account and they charge very little for what they can do

[AutoRank 0]

Hey James,

Some very good information there.

AdWords is a very good source of traffic if you have the budget and target the right keywords, however, once you stop paying for AdWords, your ads will stop.

This is the issue, AdWords is great for the short term, whereas SEO is more of a long term effort, once your website is ranked, it's ranked, even if you stop building links/doing SEO for a while. Of course your rankings are likely to drop over time but with the right company you can regain them.

Getting your website ranked on the first page of Google shouldn't mean you should stop advertising on autotrader, motors, gumtree and ebay, it should be a combined strategy that gets you the most attention, visibility and to grow your brand.

Edited November 21, 2015 by AutoRank

[Rory RSC 596]

Hey Guys,

I do agree that a lot of buyers use autotrader to find used cars, it's a fact, however a lot of buyers will look for a local garage in terms of proximity that they can visit to look at a range of cars beforehand. This gives them the opportunity to visit and get to know the owner/dealer.

I would partly disagree that you have to "guess what buyers are typing", obviously buyers looking for say, used cars in Cheshire are going to type in "used cars Cheshire' or "car dealers Cheshire" this is shown by the amount of monthly searches that a term gets.

I have provided you both with audits that show keyword research and volume of searches, these are not potential search terms, these are "exact" search terms, this means that people ARE searching for that exact phrase. Sometimes thousands of people.

Just my ¢2

I agree with you and your research prompted my post. I am keen to see the effectiveness of this and see what can be done to enhance any aspect of the business. 

I personally think I would not go to google and type in 'BMW X6 cheshire' to find a car - but if a lot of people are I don't want to be the dealer missing a trick.

[AutoRank 0]

I think it all depends on the person and what they are looking for. 

A lot of People will use autotrader but a lot of people also want to get an insight into who they are buying a car from first. I certainly would like to learn more about a dealership and what kind of after sales/support they can give, it gives more of a personal touch when you actually know who you are buying from.

Autotrader themselves quote: "71% of buyers visit a dealerships website as part of their decision making process"

I have sent a reply to your email

Edited November 21, 2015 by AutoRank

[Rory RSC 596]

If they then google the dealership would they not just search my dealership name then where I am on the front page of google?

 

 

[AutoRank 0]

They certainly could if they did go through autotrader.

however autotrader is expensive to advertise your cars on and I believe you pay per car or pay a higher premium if you're a dealership?

if you had a website that you could advertise unlimited cars on at no extra cost and get it shown on the first page wouldn't that be much better?

[umesh 336]

This may be useful to read " How do customers search on line ! "

http://www.whisbi.com/blog/customers-digital-cars-online-research-habits/