How to Get Better Rankings for SEO for Auto Repair Shops

What is SEO?

On a basic level, the term “search engine optimization” explains itself. It refers to ways businesses try to increase their pages’ rankings on search engines like Google.

SEO may sound similar to search engine marketing (SEM), but there’s an important distinction between the two strategies. SEM focuses on paid search – the promoted listings often seen near the top of Google search results. Meanwhile, SEO techniques are all about boosting your organic search ranking.

Why invest in SEO for auto repair shops?

Even if you haven’t thought much about online marketing before now, you can’t afford to ignore SEO for much longer. Here are some benefits that can come with building an auto repair SEO strategy:

• Increased web traffic. More than half of all web traffic arises from organic searches. As you already know, a mere fraction of search users go past the first page of Google results. So, focusing on SEO most effectively gets your auto shop in front of as many people as possible.
• Boosted brand awareness. Not everyone searching for auto shops in your area will click on your page – even if it’s the number-one result. Still, once you make the first page for a given keyword, people will connect your business with the products and services they seek. Eventually, those associations could encourage them to visit your shop.
• Quality feedback. Unlike traditional advertising platforms like print and TV advertising, digital marketing is fully trackable and quantifiable. These benefits apply to SEO, too. You just need some technical know-how to understand how your efforts in this space pay off.
• Improved customer experiences. Google always takes user experience into account. That means you’ll need to work hard to meet your customers’ needs, providing valuable information. You’ll also need to build a page that’s solid from a technical standpoint to boost your search ranking.

That work should pay off with higher levels of customer satisfaction – even before people visit your shop in person.

Easy ways to improve the ranking for auto shop SEO

When you’re just getting started in the world of auto repair shop SEO, a few simple steps can have a significant impact. Before you do anything else, keep these fundamentals in mind:

Consistently publish content

With that said, the role consistency plays in SEO goes beyond your publishing schedule. You’ll also want to ensure the content you publish uses high-ranking, relevant keywords with a consistent format for web content. Start with an attention-grabbing title and break up the body of your articles with multiple headings and subheadings.

Using the right keywords on your auto shop’s home and landing pages drives an effective SEO strategy. But once you get people to visit your page, the next step is giving them a reason to come back. For that, you’ll need to regularly publish fresh web content in the form of blog articles.

Improve your on-page SEO for auto repair shops

First, you’ll want to create optimized content for your auto shop website and establish a schedule for future posts. Second, it’s time to focus on your on-page SEO.

Essentially, that refers to factors like your URL and meta description – the summary that appears below the title on results pages. Google heavily relies on these factors to determine what individual web pages are about.

There are no specific rules for crafting URLs and meta titles. However, the more concise they are, the better (as long as they still feature your target keywords). It’s wise to keep your meta descriptions to fewer than 160 characters so they won’t get cut off in search results.

Additionally, your blog articles’ URL and meta descriptions should be similarly formatted from one entry to the next.

Start link building

A full-fledged SEO strategy needs to go beyond your own website. Along with keywords, metadata and user experience, backlinks are a major part of increasing your auto shop’s search ranking.

Essentially, that refers to factors like your URL and meta description – the summary that appears below the title on results pages. Google heavily relies on these factors to determine what individual web pages are about.

In case you aren’t familiar with the term, a “backlink” is a link to your site from another source. When you have a varied portfolio of backlinks, it indicates to Google that your site is authoritative – and your rank should increase.

Backlinks aren’t the only type of link your site should consider. Best practices suggest connecting pages within your site via internal links. That’s because Google uses internal links to measure the relevance of content.

Make your website mobile-friendly

Today, more than half of all traffic on the internet comes from mobile devices. So, it should come as no surprise that mobile optimization is another vital part of auto repair shop SEO.

While building or updating your auto shop’s site, make sure to avoid these common mobile web design mistakes:

• Copy and pasting your site’s desktop layout. A page that looks beautiful on a computer screen could be almost impossible to read or navigate on a smartphone. Make sure you’re giving users on both platforms the attention they deserve.
• Blocking things like image files and JavaScript. Doing so goes against Google guidelines, so it’s best to make sure these remain visible to crawlers.
• Having 404 errors that only appear on mobile. This could lose a significant traffic, especially for someone who needs an immediate repair and are away from home.
• Using video formats that aren’t mobile-friendly. It’s wise to make sure you’re using video formats like HTML5 built with mobile in mind.

Consider expert help

Improving your SEO can feel like a long, arduous journey. It may take months to see benefits from your efforts. Because of this, many small businesses make the mistake of lowering the priority of organic marketing.

Imagine it like the snowball effect. It may start small and slow but will pick up speed and get larger. With that said, it can be crucial to have knowledgeable, experienced professionals get the (snow)ball rolling. That’s where experts like AutoVitals come in.

With AutoVitals, you’ll have your pick of top-tier solutions that will improve your SEO and your workflow – including shop efficiency. They track and manage your website performance, so your data better measures success, achieves revenue goals and helps with reputation management.

Offering more than an auto shop marketing solution, AutoVitals becomes an extension of your team. It is just one of the 37 integrations offered via Shop-Ware’s auto repair software, more than any other shop management system.