A very good question and a question we hear often is, Why do I need a blog? The short answer is that there are many great benefits to your dealership having a blog. This is something that most dealerships seem to view as a chore than an integral part of their content strategy.
The reality is, having a blog is a way to educate and connect with your customers. Having an online presence and being ‘searchable’ is all about cultivating and developing content so that search engines can find you and rank you on how relevant your content is.
Clearing Up The Smog
Basically, If you don’t post anything up, you won’t show up. Here’s some more detail on how blogging can benefit your dealership.
- Your blog can help create a brand awareness for your dealership. Blogging hasn’t become the ‘industry standard’ within the automotive dealership industry yet. Establishing your blog gives you a chance to personalize what your dealership is truly about and stand out as an industry leader.
- Search Engines love blogs. When you write a blog or more a week Search Engines can sense you’re adding new content on a consistent basis and it helps view your website as more relevant than your competition who rarely updates their site.
- It can be a great tool to engage customers on your social media platforms. It is not always easy to find information to put on your Facebook or Twitter account. If you write weekly blog post this is good content that you can share with your Facebook followers.
- Keep in mind to make sure your blog is full of relevant information. Write about what your customers are interested in and what they’re asking about. If you create content that is relevant to your industry then people are more likely to read and share your post.
- Maybe you are not the best at writing and would prefer to do a video. Vlogging has become very big in the past few years with all the great technology that is out and how easy it is to shoot a video.Simply start by shooting 60 second informational videos and transcribe the videos on your blog. Wistia is one great video platform tool that can give your blog some added SEO benefits.
… So Here’s The Gist
Of course there are many additional benefits and reasons why your dealership should already be blogging but the main reason comes down to ‘search-ability’. In the hyper-competitive world of online marketing most companies are competing for the same thing, being ranked on search.
While there are paid search strategies they can be costly and not seen as cost effective for most dealerships. The only way around this is to establish an online content strategy focused around archiving relevant content.
As we’ve covered above, the way search engines work is by scouring the internet and deciphering what content is relevant and important. While there are many variables that can affect SEO archiving relevant content and implementing a well tuned content strategy will increase your website traffic and sales leads.
Make sure to check out part 2 of ‘The Smog Around the Blog’.
