In automotive SEO, keywords are fundamental to success. That goes for OEMs, retailers and 3rd parties alike. Customers from all areas of the sales funnel are constantly searching online, and to make sure you’re in the best position possible to help them, keywords are the key to it all.
Keywords in automotive SEO help to understand not just what your customers are searching for, but also, how they are searching it, what they expect to find, and how you can be there to help them find it, all in one process. That puts you in the right place at the right time to answer their queries and keeps you at the forefront of the sales process when the time to convert finally arrives.
Although like everything in SEO, there’s always more to it than a simple list of keywords, as a rule of thumb, these are the types of keywords you can expect to find in your optimisations.
Transactional Product Keywords
Transactional (usually product) keywords are queries that involve products with a reasonable assumption that they are looking with conversion intent. Often examples such as “use” or “buy” but also things like years, colours, specific colours, specific trims or variations, and even finance options involved in the query can all suggest a customer is searching for a product to purchase.
Example: Buy 2021 range rover sport autobiography
Benefit: Targeting these keywords gives more organic presence, capturing more high-value traffic and ideally converting this traffic into your funnel rather than a competitor’s.
Educational/Informational Keywords
Educational or informational keywords are searches and queries in which the customer is looking for information, opinions, or answers regarding their search.
Example: Which is the best BMW 4 Series model?
Benefit: Targeting keywords in the educational/information stages can help customers to resolve their queries, build awareness of products or brands, and to provide more opportunities to prove authority and SEO presence.
Informational Product Keywords
As well as more generalised informational keywords, within the automotive industry, there will often also be a large level of informational product keywords specifically. This includes things often found at the latter stages of the purchasing funnel, considering areas like common faults, reliability, running costs, accessories, trims and much more.
Example: Ford Fiesta ST Line
Benefit: These are conversion-centric keywords despite often not seeming to be, and can help go a long way in increasing sales revenue. The people searching for these things are often already very far in the funnel, or looking at comparing vehicles to complete their purchase and need answers to some new questions.
Branded Keywords
Branded keywords largely do what it says on the tin, so to speak. They give your brand visibility online for people who are searching for it, for whatever reason. They might be looking for contact information, stock lists, information about your business and if it can be trusted, or anything else related to your organisation.
Example: Evans Halshaw Renault
Benefit: Ranking for your own brand name is fundamentally important for your customers to carry out their browsing and purchasing seamlessly without putting in any extra effort. It also helps new customers, potentially that have seen or been made aware of your business through other means to discover you correctly.
Local Keywords
Local keywords are keywords that involve your business, brand or branch along with the location that it’s found in. They are often targeted by your home page, contact page or even Google Business page, but in any case, they are highly valuable.
Example: Land Rover London
Benefit: Local keywords are used by customers searching for your business’s physical address, or looking for the service or product that you offer in your area, giving huge incentive to make sure that you’re the one ranking highest for it.
Navigational Keywords
Navigational keywords are keywords being used by customers to find specific areas of your website. They are likely looking for help or to continue with their sale or delivery somehow, and ranking for these keywords can be a big help in making things seamless for your funnel. That’s on top of keeping your organisation from having to deal with perhaps unnecessary queries in person or over the phone and inconveniencing your customers.
Example: Toyota Customer Login
Benefit: These keywords save your team time and speed up the conversion process, helping your customers to have a better experience with your brand at every stage of the conversion funnel, and can generally keep things streamlined.
