Link building is one of the fundamental components of Automotive SEO and one that auto dealers are not taking paying close attention too. It is an absolute must for today's dealership's to have a comprehensive link building strategy to compete in the online space where 70% of consumers go to research before buying. ISM's and dealer principal's who do not invest in content based link building will be at a disadvantage with direct competitors and problems only get worse as age plays a factor in link building. Savvy dealers can utilize link building to help them reach untapped markets in their PMA and protect their brand name worth millions.
You might be the best keyword researcher on the planet but even the right keywords mean little without links pointing to your website. Keyword focused anchor text from external links remains immensely important. Of equal and obvious importance is the number and quality of its own external link graph and its diversity; consisting of links from many unique root domains.
When all is said and done, keyword use in external link anchor text is one of the top Automotive SEO factors overall. In fact, you might even find sites ranking for competitive keywords without a single reference of the keyword on page simply because of the power of relavent external link text.
Link Building via Inventory Syndication
The Automotive Advertising Network has game changing technology when it comes to link building. All AAN members have their inventory syndicated across hundreds of national, regional, and local search optimized websites that receive thousands of ready to buy visitors for important automotive related keywords. The auto dealer's feed is sent to the AAN who then assigns an individual URL to each new and used car on a dealership's lot. Every one of these vehicle detail pages has optimized content, meta data, vehicle specs and strategic links that empower a dealership's web assets.
Google likes to see a website attract external links across all pages within a site, not only the home page. The AAN has the technology to link deep into an official main site's vehicle detail page, helping spread value site-wide.
Prime Asset Class for Dealers
Besides the physical land and infrastructure there is no other asset class more important to dealer today than its official main website. This is typically the web asset that generates most of a dealership's store traffic and unfortunately very few dealer's know how to leverage this asset correctly. Generally speaking a dealer's main site should generate hundreds of external links per month, a healthy main site should have at least a couple thousand links or more depending on PMA. A strong link building campaign should link to deep pages within a dealer's site and have strategic anchor text links ie "city+make+dealer".
Based on frequent monitoring of the SEO industry and Google page one results, it is safe to assume that many of the tried and true onsite optimization practices, such as accurate and descriptive anchor text still play fundamental role in website positioning. Dealer's must have a process in place that ensures the Internet Sales department head has a clear link building approach.
