SEO On A Budget

Whether you majored in economics at Harvard, or started as a lot attendant and ended up as the general manager, you know that your dealership needs strong marketing and an even stronger online presence. How you get there? That’s not as easy. You’ll have countless agencies, platforms, and providers, all jockeying for your time and attention. And while they’ll all promise results through different strategies, you’re bound to hear three letters repeated ad nauseum: SEO. Short for Search Engine Optimization, SEO is a major factor in boosting your digital marketing. We’re talking make, or break. With poor SEO, even the biggest and best dealerships will get buried in Google, while smaller dealerships with smaller budgets will rank higher, create more brand awareness, and rake in the sales. We’re here to tell you about how you can harness SEO’s power to do the latter, regardless of the size of your budget.

No Credit Money? Low Credit Money? No Problem

Look, we get it. Between your overhead, salaries, print and radio ads, paid digital advertising, and inflatable dancing tube-men, the dealership’s budget can take a serious monthly hit. If you’re not aware of the power of SEO, or how it works in concert with your other marketing avenues (specifically paid advertising), it’s hard to find a real burning desire to fit it into your budget. While we could write about how much better content is than all those other marketing strategies (I mean, we do write for a living), we’ve done it already. Lots. In fact, you’ll find a huge library of content on the importance of SEO here. But, rather than try to sell you on slicing off a huge chunk of that budget pie for SEO, we’ll give you a few options ranging from free (yes, you read that right!) to inexpensive, to slightly more expensive—but totally worth it. So, much like your in-house finance department will work with anyone, regardless of if they have low credit or no credit, we’re here to find a solution for your dealership!

That’ll Be Free.99

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It’s the reason your great aunt Gladys clipped all those coupons, the reason you’ve been carrying around that Mr. Sub punch-card for the last 8 years, and the same reason you forced yourself to eat that 60oz steak in under an hour: because everyone likes free stuff. Now, there’s a couple of ways you can get some sweet SEO work done for free, and we’re here to let you in on ‘em.

Local Search Report Card & Proposal

One of the free SEO products offered at Strathcom is our Local Search Report Card and Proposal. After answering a few simple questions, we’ll take a look at your presence in search, give it a letter grade to indicate your overall score, and then provide a proposal explaining what you could do to improve your online presence—whether in-house, or with our help. 

Content Marketing Proposal

Our other free SEO product, the Content Marketing Proposal, outlines the perfect content marketing strategy to help your site see major improvements into search visibility. We’ll audit your site, and chat with you about your goals, before providing a suggestion as to how you can conquer the SERP!

Okay, This One’ll Cost Ya

While the following aren’t free, per se, they are quite inexpensive; and, if you choose to purchase any of our SEO products, the price of the Audit and Analysis will be applied toward your first month’s payment!

Local Search Analysis

With this SEO product—starting at the low, low price of only $399—we’ll utilize one of our paid keyword tools after you’ve filled out a quick and simple questionnaire. From there, we’ll do a full analysis of your business, to determine how SEO-optimized it really is, and then provide a list of recommendations as to how you could improve.

One-Time Content Audit

Starting at only $499 (where have we heard that before?), our One-Time Content Audit is a comprehensive look at the content found on your website. We check for relevance, accuracy, user experience, optimization, and a Colonel Sanders’ 11 herbs and spices-secret level factor, to determine how the content on your site is performing. We then look at what keywords you rank for and your site’s applicable content, before checking out what and how your competitors are doing, from their content to ranking keywords. After that, we’ll provide you with a fair and accurate recommendation on the best strategy (or strategies) to improve your search visibility. 

Are You Eligible For Co-Op?

While every OEM offers different programs, (almost) all of them offer some form of co-op for marketing. That means, depending on your OEM, you could have anything from a small chunk to damn-near-the-whole-thing covered, when it comes to our Local SEO Fundamentals or Content Marketing Packages. That’s right, you might be leaving money on the table when it comes to your website, online advertising, or SEO efforts. If you’re unsure of what your OEM’s co-op program is (or if they even have one), just contact your OEM-representative and ask!

Do You Like To, Do It Yourself?

We’re sure there’s a few self-starters and self-made men (and women) out there, that are happy to take on a variety of tasks related to their dealership’s SEO. From writing their own landing pages and blogs, to populating their GMB profile with Posts, or Questions and Answers, there’s a variety of tasks you can do in-house. This is where our Proposals, or the Search Analysis and Content Audit from above come in handy. We’ll tell you what your strengths and weaknesses are, and from there you can decide whether you want us to do the work, or if you can handle it yourself (or, at least pass the task off to someone else). Who knows, we might even offer some future webinars on SEO-related tasks—but you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled (or sign up here). 

Mistakes

Of course, doing anything you’re unfamiliar with comes with its own set of risks, just ask my cousin One-Armed Johnny about chainsaws (or, on second thought, maybe don’t). SEO is a fast moving industry, and what was a best practice a year or even a month ago might’ve already changed. We stay on top of these changes, because it’s our business (and it’s why you pay us the big bucks), but we realize that you have plenty of other things to worry about at the dealership-level. If you’re considering doing some of your own SEO work in-house, then make sure to check back here for our blog on common in-house SEO mistakes.

Everyone & Their Mother (Has a Blog)

Yes, we know. Your weird cousin runs a successful blog on B-list celebrities dating former pro athletes, and your mother’s gluten free recipe blog gets more traffic than Shibuya Crossing. Does your dealership really need to try and find real estate in such a crowded market? The answer is yes, but . . . there’s a but (there’s always a but). Creating a blog without a goal in mind is a good way to waste your time and effort. Luckily for you, we’ve got our own blog on why you should have a blog (how meta), how often you should publish on your blog, and the best way to share those blog posts. If nothing else, it’ll give you something to talk to your cousin about at Christmas dinner.

Hey Big Spender!

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Of course, budget is no concern for some dealerships. Whether you’ve got a highly successful dealership with money to burn, an OEM with a great co-op program, or you just believe in the power of SEO (we’re hoping it’s the latter), there’s plenty of ways you can spend money—hell, you can spend some with us! Here at Strathcom, we’ve got a number of SEO-centric solutions we can tailor to your dealership, that’ll help improve your digital presence. Solutions like . . .

Our Local SEO Fundamentals Package

Undoubtedly the best bang for your buck, our Local SEO Fundamentals package covers the (you guessed it) fundamentals of the discipline: GMB optimization, review responses, and citation management. It also includes a comprehensive report and monthly call with the Content Strategist watching your account. Starting at only $599 a month, Local SEO Fundamentals will have a positive impact on your online presence, without breaking the bank.

Content Marketing Packages from Strathcom

The most time-consuming SEO work, yet arguably the most impactful, our Content Marketing Packages are the best way for you to consistently populate your website with quality, keyword-rich content. With four packages, ranging from Content Marketing Lite to Core, Elite, or Executive, you’ll have a dedicated Content Strategist putting together extensively-researched (and highly-effective) editorial calendars with custom landing pages and blog posts tailored to your dealership’s needs. But wait, that’s not all! We’ll also perform link audits, on-site redirects, navigation cleanups, site structure audits, and provide monthly calls and status reports on the health of your site (though you’ll have a direct line to us, and can email us whenever). Add in social posts to build link equity, and you’ve got an extensive SEO strategy that only requires a couple of quick strategy calls (although we have found engaged dealers lead to better results).