Be Found. Be Chosen. Be Visited.
Your dealership’s website was likely launched with some updated on-page and technical SEO elements, but we’re here to tell you that isn’t enough. The cookie-cutter, templated approach won’t help you to reach your business objectives and goals, which is precisely why we do not use templates to build SEO strategies for our clients. Each SEO plan is meticulously developed hand-in-hand with our clients to ensure we encompass their unique goals, challenges, and relevant market and seasonal trends.
Knowing that today’s buyers start online, having an SEO strategy as part of your holistic online marketing initiatives is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. If your inventory, service center, or dealership name isn’t appearing on the first page of Google, you’re missing out on ready-to-buy customers.
Search Engines continue to be the primary media source buyers remembered seeing or experience before purchasing their vehicle.
Shoppers WILL search, and if you want to convert them to buyers, you need to get in front of them first.
We don’t just “do SEO.” We optimize your entire digital footprint to help you rank higher, faster, and more effectively:
Full SEO Audit
You can’t start down the path to improved results until you know where you stand, and where you need to improve most.
What it is: Our team will use several SEO tools to identify issues on your site, and evaluate your position versus your competitors in all the most vital search statistics and results.
Why it matters in automotive:
A customized approach to your success begins with a deep understanding of not only your strengths and weaknesses, but your competitors as well.
Local SEO Optimization
You don’t need shoppers from a thousand miles away, you need local shoppers that are in your market and ready to buy. Be found in map packs and local results when shoppers search “Ford dealer near me” or “oil change in [city].
What it is: Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your online presence so that your dealership shows up in location-based searches, especially on Google Maps and in the “map pack” of search results.
Why it matters in automotive:
Car buying is inherently local. Shoppers are looking for dealers near them. Whether it’s for a test drive, service appointment, or to browse inventory in person. If you’re not showing up when someone searches “Ford dealership near me” or “used cars [city name],” you’re losing business to the competitor that is.
What it delivers:
- Increased foot traffic from local searchers
- Higher visibility in Google’s map results
On-Page SEO for Inventory
When shoppers start searching, make sure you take them directly to what they are looking for with no detours. We optimize your vehicle detail pages (VDPs) so your cars show up for the exact keywords shoppers are using.
What it is: On-page SEO ensures that the pages on your website, especially Vehicle Detail Pages (VDPs) are properly optimized to match what real shoppers are searching for online.
Why it matters in automotive:
Every vehicle on your lot is a potential search result. If your VDPs aren’t showing up when someone types “2022 Toyota Camry SE in [your city],” you’re missing direct opportunities to match high-intent searches with your current inventory.
What it delivers:
- More qualified traffic landing on specific vehicle pages
- Better keyword rankings for long-tail, intent-driven search terms
- Increased time on site and lead form submissions
Site Health & Technical SEO
Nothing turns a shopper off faster than a slow-moving site. Your site will be fast, mobile-friendly, and structured properly for indexing by Google and Bing.
What it is: Technical SEO covers the behind-the-scenes aspects of your website. Things like load speed, mobile optimization, site structure, and indexing that affect how well search engines can crawl and understand your site.
Why it matters in automotive:
If your site is slow or hard to use on a phone (which is how most car buyers browse), Google will penalize your rankings. Worse, real users will bounce before they even view your inventory or service offerings. In automotive, this often means lost sales opportunities from both search engines and actual shoppers.
What it delivers:
- Faster load times on desktop and mobile
- Fewer drop-offs from frustrated users
- Better visibility and ranking in Google search results
Keyword Strategy & Content
Avoid high traffic with no engagement, quality content should drive results. We create and optimize content that attracts quality leads like “best SUVs under $30K” or “used trucks with towing capacity in [region].”
What it is: This is about knowing what your customers are searching for and building helpful, informative content that answers those queries. That includes everything from model comparisons and financing guides to service FAQs and local buying tips.
Why it matters in automotive:
Searchers want answers and not ads. If you provide useful content like “Best SUVs for snow driving in [region]” or “What to know before buying a used truck,” you’re not just showing up in searches, you’re earning trust before the shopper even contacts a dealer.
What it delivers:
- More organic traffic from high-intent search terms
- Stronger brand trust through education and authority
- Better conversion rates from shoppers who feel informed
Off-Page SEO
Make Google and Bing respect your authority. Boost your domain authority with links from relevant local and industry sites to improve rankings.
What it is: Google uses links from other reputable websites to measure how trustworthy and authoritative your site is. Link building is the process of getting relevant and credible websites to link back to your site. Things like local news outlets, automotive blogs, community directories, or partnerships.
Why it matters in automotive:
Search engines see quality links as votes of confidence. If your competitors are earning local backlinks (e.g., sponsoring community events or showing up in local media), and you’re not, you’ll fall behind in search visibility.
What it delivers:
- Higher domain authority (DA) and improved rankings
- Increased local credibility and digital footprint
- More organic traffic and improved lead quality
Real Results from Real Dealers
"Thanks to our investment in sMedia's Local SEO, we’ve seen consistent year-over-year growth in our organic website traffic. Organic traffic has become our most valuable source of high-quality leads, driving measurable results and helping us connect more effectively with customers in our target areas."
Ron Oren
Marketing Manager
Roy Foss Automotive Group
GTA,ON
"Most SEO products try to corner you into a cycle of content and automated reporting, with little thought about strategy or results. Working with sMedia's SEO team has been a clear head and shoulders above other providers in the marketplace!"
Robert Conrad
Marketing Manager
South Bay Mazda / Puente Hills Hyundai
Los Angeles, CA
Why Dealers Choose sMedia
✔ 100% automotive-focused local SEO
We specialize in helping dealerships get found by local buyers who are ready to take action, whether they’re shopping for vehicles or booking services.
✔ Strategic Alignment with Paid Media Campaigns
Our SEO strategies are built with your broader marketing goals in mind, ensuring your organic and paid efforts work complementarily to drive stronger results.
✔ Transparent monthly reporting
We provide clear insights into what’s working, what needs attention, and how your investment is performing continuously.
We don’t just drive traffic — we drive outcomes. Our clients see measurable gains in local visibility, lead volume, and showroom traffic.
We're not a generalist agency. We live and breathe automotive.
Let’s Talk & Book Your Free SEO Audit Now!
We promise no strings attached, just real insights.
Frequently Asked Questions
Automotive SEO focuses specifically on dealership websites, inventory pages, fixed ops, and local search. It requires high knowledge of vehicle detail pages (VDPs), OEMs, various website platforms and most importantly, how customers shop for cars online. These are the things that general SEO agencies usually don’t specialize in.
Most dealerships begin to see measurable improvements in traffic and rankings within 60–90 days, with continued gains month over month. Full results often build over 3–6 months, especially for competitive markets like automotive.
Yes, a good automotive SEO partner should be able to work within your current platform’s limitations while still implementing impactful SEO strategies.
We focus on local high-intent search terms like “used trucks [city],” “Jeep dealer near me,” “Chevrolet Silverado for sale in [city]” and service terms like “brake repair [location]” to attract traffic that’s ready to convert.
Absolutely! VDPs are one of the highest-converting pages on your site. We ensure they are structured for search engines and aligned with how buyers search for specific vehicles.
We track improvements in keyword rankings, organic traffic, engagement (via metrics like EPM), and leads generated from SEO pages. Transparent reporting is key.
Yes! SEO complements paid ads by capturing long-term, organic traffic that reduces your cost-per-lead over time. Many of the best-performing dealers definitely do both.
Absolutely! Many of our clients see strong returns from optimizing fixed ops content like oil change, tire services, and seasonal maintenance pages.
TRACK RECORD
Check out the impressive results of our customers’ campaigns below to see how sMedia can help increase conversions and drive sales for your dealership.
Knight Auto Group
We view sMedia as more of a partner than just a vendor we work with. It’s really because they take the time to understand our goals, and help us achieve them at all of our stores. sMedia has helped us continuously optimize our advertising efforts by providing feedback and recommendations that are rooted in data, and they help us make smarter business decisions.
Kurtis Andersen, Internet Director
Centennial Auto Group
sMedia really helps us look beneath the surface to figure out the full story of what our customers are doing on our sites and why. This is a huge help, it allows us to make more impactful decisions, it allows us to create much more efficient media plans that minimize waste, and ultimately it creates a better experience for both our customers and our instore staff.
Allan Clow, Marketing Analyst
Bannister Auto Group
At Bannister we have a lean and efficient advertising strategy, and sMedia is a big reason we are so successful in that.
Rhys Albrecht, Marketing Manager
Wheaton Honda
sMedia helps us get traffic to our website with real insights on how customers are behaving with us online, this gives us a much better insight on how to meet the needs of the customers and also close more deals. I have yet to see anyone take an actual transparent approach like sMedia does.
Craig Hole, Marketing Manager
Kalispell Auto Group
sMedia has provided us excellent customer service. They do a great job of keeping us ahead in the digital game, getting us onboard early with things like Google VLAs and Performance Max campaigns. It’s been a game changer for us.
Jackie Aus, Marketing Director
Wheaton Honda
sMedia provides us insights on our traffic that allows us to target and better find customers that are really going to come into the store and purchase a vehicle through our dealership. As well as ensuring that the quality of the traffic that comes to our site is better and more engaged at all times.
Craig Hole, Marketing Manager
Nelson Auto Group
The relationship I have with sMedia, we collaborate together as a team, and put a plan together as far as what we are trying to accomplish. They drive traffic based on the plan that we devise, and at the end of the month we’ll sit down and review it, and make adjustments, each and every time, so that we can pinpoint the traffic that we are going after.
Jack Norton, Internet Director
