SEO FOR AUTO REPAIR SHOP MARKETING

Do you have an auto repair business and a well-designed website to match? Are you interested in increasing your traffic, search engine ranking, and reach? A solid search engine optimization plan can help you increase your car count and average repair order.

Below, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about SEO for your auto repair shop marketing. We’ll also show you how to use car repair shop SEO and optimize it.

Before we get started, let’s define SEO. SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. The keyword here is “engine.” And just like a car engine, SEO requires expert service, maintenance, and occasional repairs to keep your business moving forward.

In general, SEO is the process that improves your online visibility. The goal of SEO is to increase your car repair shop’s visibility when people search for your most profitable services on Google, Bing, and similar platforms. 

If you want your auto repair website to reach the top of a SERP, you need to optimize it for your most valuable customers. Ask yourself, what are your ideal customers searching for when they go on Google? Think about the terms your customers enter in a search query. 

Some popular car repair queries you may want to optimize your website for are:

● Auto repair shop near me 

● Best mechanic near me

● Transmission repair near me

● Brake repair near me

● Suspension repair near me 

Here’s a quick list of the things you need for the SEO of your auto repair shop website:

● Always choose the fastest website hosting service.

● Always research your keywords. Try to put yourself in your customers’ shoes first. Next,    imagine what words they’ll enter on Google if they need your services.

● Pick a lightweight theme or website code for fast website loading.

● Always optimize keywords, including URLs, title tags, slugs, and meta descriptions.

● Remove or kill all unnecessary scripts from loading to speed up your website.

● Keep a word volume of at least 500 words per page for each service you offer.

● Never overstuff your keywords. It can lower your rank instead of increasing it.

● Never leave out your business’s accurate contact information. You risk looking like a shady business otherwise.

The list above is only a shortened version and some vital steps needed in car repair shop SEO. Now, let’s move on to more specific steps you can take to improve your SEO for car repair shop marketing.

As we mentioned earlier, SEO is the engine of your website. Even if you have a beautiful and sleek supercar, you won’t get far without a powerful engine. The same applies to your auto repair shop website and marketing.

It’s not enough to use SEO, but you also need to optimize it to reach more people and increase your rankings.

Below are the essential steps to help you optimize your SEO for car repair shop marketing.

Research the Market

Before becoming a car repair shop owner, you need to educate yourself. Most auto repair business owners start as mechanics before they move up. The same applies when you start your car repair shop SEO.

You educate yourself on the market by researching it first. Doing this includes knowing what your competitors are doing.

To start, try asking yourself a few questions:

● What are their goals, and how do they present their websites based on their goals?

● Do they use specific keywords

● What is the tone used in their blog content, videos, and guides?

● Do they speak directly to their audiences?

● What are their linking strategies?

Pick the Right Keyword

The next step is to choose your keywords. These are the terms your target customers use to find you online. In other words, these are the terms you use on your website so your target audience can find you.

As a tip, sit down and think of all the keywords you can relate to your car repair shop business. Here are some quick examples to help you get started:

● Auto repair

● Brake repair

● Transmission repair

● Suspension repair

Here’s a trick to help shorten the time it takes for you to find all the keywords related to your business. Go to Google and enter one keyword that comes to your mind. Before you press enter or search, add an asterisk to the word. As a result, you’ll get a variety of other related keywords in suggestions.

Create an AdWords Account

What’s next after you find all your keywords and have chosen the main ones? The next step is to set up a free Google AdWords account. It gives you access to a free keyword planner tool.

The tool lets you research your keywords further. For example, you can enter a keyword to see how much traffic it draws.

Types of Keywords

You should also know that two types of keywords exist, which are:

1. Buying intent keywords
2. Research intent keywords

Buying intent keywords are terms people use to look for a service or product online. An example of a buying intent keyword is “car repair shop near me.”

Research intent keywords are the terms people enter to check suggestions. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll go to your auto repair shop. Instead, they’re gathering data to make an informed decision in the future. An example is “best auto repair shops in {Your City}

Optimize Keywords for Car Repair Shop SEO Marketing

After choosing the keywords that garner the most traffic, your next step is to optimize your website and GMB. Start with Google My Business or GMB.

Optimizing Google My Business

Go to your GMB page. It's the business page that pops up when a client looks for nearby car repair shops. Check the information about your auto repair business and ensure it's accurate.

The pieces of information that should be complete are:

● NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number)

● Verification

● Categories (list of services)

● Description (short 120-word description of your business)

● Hours (when you’re open and available to provide auto repair services)

● Images (related to your shop, projects, or staff)

Since you’re working on your GMB page, now’s a good time to insert your chosen keywords. If you’ve already done all these tasks, congratulations to you. You’ve got a knack for car repair shop SEO and marketing.

Optimizing Your Car Repair Shop Website

After optimizing your GMB page, your next step is to optimize your website for customers. Don't worry if you have a massive website with many web pages.

For now, you only need to focus on optimizing the core pages of your website. These include the homepage and service pages. Confirm that they all have the buying intent keywords.

On the homepage, ensure that the title tag is complete and appealing. It’s one of the essential parts of your homepage, after all. Think of it like a car’s finish. In other words, it should be attention-grabbing and appealing to your target audience.

The tricky part of the title tag is that it can only feature 50-65 characters. 

Here’s a quick formatting guide to help you fit all the necessary information in it:

● Auto Repair Shop in {Your City}

● {Name of Your Auto Repair Shop}

In only 130-150 characters, the meta description describes the summary of your service. Don’t forget to add the main keyword, like “auto repair service.” Try this format to fit everything into the meta description:

● {Name of Shop} Auto Body Repair in {Your City}. Call {Phone Number}.

You still need to insert the primary and secondary keywords for your service pages. You can use the strategy in writing the homepage on your service pages.

Use Links and Statistics

Linking is a critical step because it builds your visitor’s trust. It also shows the Google algorithm that you’re not making content based on opinions only. It shows that you read content from other reliable sources and base your content on their statistics or data.

Thus, you must create links that lead your audiences to trustworthy websites or pages. For example, did you know that the average cost of a standard oil change is between $25 and $55?

Get Trustworthy Links and Citations

It’s not enough to link to other websites. If you want to boost your car repair shop SEO, you should have inbound links, too. Inbound links or backlinks act as votes of confidence of other websites. The more votes you have, the more Google sees your website as trustworthy and relevant.

The secret to getting backlinks is to create high-quality content related to your industry. You can talk about statistics or data. You can hold a study or interview clients or employees. Your reach increases the more inbound links lead back to your website. When people visit a website that uses a link leading to you, their ideal audience can also become yours.

Citations are another key ingredient in improving your car repair shop SEO. Citations are online directory listings or digital yellow pages. You give your business name, address, and phone number to an online directory listing. Anybody who wants to use your services can check these listings and find your business.

Create Promotional and Informative Videos

Creating videos with valuable content is one of the best steps you can take to improve your car repair shop SEO and marketing. Video is one of the most consumed forms of media online. Did you know that the average American adult spends one hour and 43 minutes per day watching digital video on devices?

The way they watch these videos can be intentional or unintentional. For example, they may need specific help replacing a dead car battery. Most people turn to online car repair tutorials to learn the dos and don’ts of a car battery replacement.

Don’t let your clients and visitors miss out on the information you hold. Share your knowledge by filming tutorial videos. The best types of content to film are common car issues with easy DIY solutions, including:

● Repairing engines

● Fixing breaks

● Replacing a car tire

Are you saving on marketing costs? You don’t even need to hire a professional videographer to help you out. You can shoot the video with a mid-range smartphone. Remember to be consistent and informative.

Accumulate Reviews on Your Auto Repair Shop

Including reviews in your website is how you create trust between you and potential clients. It’s also how you boost your car repair SEO strategy.

People love reading reviews about a business or service for various reasons:

● Reviews attest to a brand or company’s reliability

● Reviews ease the customer’s decision-making

● They offer guidance from past clients

● They may mention the strengths and weaknesses of a service

● They give consumers insight into the service or product quality

Remember that the modern consumer is smarter and more informed. Over 88% of online consumers trust online reviews before they buy anything. It’s how they know if they should use or avoid the services they’re considering.

Google My Business is one of the best platforms to garner reviews. After all, the platform already plays a part in the Google website ranking system. In short, good GMB reviews can quickly and significantly improve your Google rankings.

Choose a Fast Hosting Service for Your Car Repair Shop Website

Most people today expect the website they visit to load fast. However, if your web host isn’t up to par with other hosting services, you’ll lose your business and traffic. Google can also tell if a website is slow. Despite your SEO efforts, it can give your auto repair shop website a lower ranking.

The common reasons behind slow web hosting are:

● You’re using a free web hosting service

● You need to upgrade your site’s hosting account

● You’re using a low-quality hosting service with poor support

The best solution for this is to invest in a high-quality and quick web hosting service. Never go back to using free hosting. Instead, look for a web host that best suits your budget and web hosting needs.

With the right web host, you can rest assured that your auto repair shop SEO and website improve rankings. 

Use a CDN to Increase Your Website’s Speed

Let’s stay focused on improving website speed. Do you use a content delivery network or CDN? If you haven’t tried using one yet, now is a perfect time.

A CDN splits the data into various servers like a crossroads instead of a single server. Imagine that you have only one road going into a city. You risk creating heavy traffic. Adding more roads that lead into the same city lightens the load and reduces traffic on the first road.

A CDN does the same with your data. Having more pathways lessens the load on each server and allows your website to load faster.

Keep an Eye on Your Results

Our last piece of advice is to monitor and measure what you measure most. Your weekly car count and average repair order. 

Not all marketing strategies apply to car repair shop businesses. You should know right away if the tactic you used happened to be incompatible with your business. At least you could change your strategy before you invest too much money and time into it.

Observing your results and SEO analytics can also show you your SEO marketing strengths. You’ll know which strategies to keep and which ones to discard.

With all that said, we hope you now have a deeper insight into SEO for auto repair shop marketing.

If you have questions just send us a message and let schedule a time to talk shop.