What you should get from an auto parts SEO company
If you’re shopping for auto parts SEO services how do you know what to expect for your investment? What SEO services are included or not included? Here we take a deep dive to find out what to expect.
What auto parts SEO services don’t include
Do you need an SEO? First, it may be helpful to know what not to expect from signing an SEO contract. SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” This is the art and science of improving organic rankings for a website. An optimized website will show up better in organic search results.
This does not include paid search services, which is a totally separate service. Sometimes SEO or paid search is referred to as “SEM,” which stands for search engine marketing. Technically SEM includes SEO as well as paid search since you’re marketing products and services on search engines.
Clarify all services with any automotive SEO services agency you speak with to make sure your expectations match the contract, before you sign.
What auto parts SEO services should include
A good SEO agency that understands auto parts will know how to get your website to rank. They’ll have expertise in automotive aftermarket parts and accessories, and how that relates to SEO.
They’ll also understand “white hat” vs. “black hat” SEO optimization. “White hat” techniques follow SEO best practices and truly focuses on what matters the most. That includes high-quality, unique website content that offers value to a reader, and high-quality backlinks. You want your SEO services to use “white hat” techniques!
“Black hat” SEO services, on the other hand, may get you short-term results but it doesn’t usually last. These types of services are usually low-quality short cuts. Ask any SEO company you speak with to give their opinion on “white hat” and “black hat” tactics.
Think of it this way: “Black hat” focuses on short cuts and optimizing for Google. “White hat” focuses on high quality content, written for humans.
Your services should take into account Google’s E-E-A-T recommendations. That stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google ranks websites and pages using E-E-A-T as one of the signals. There are recent algorithm updates that take this specific metric into account. (Scroll down for more information on E-E-A-T.)
A list of important auto parts SEO services includes things in this list:
- Experience with the most commonly-used automotive ecommerce platforms. This includes Shopify, BigCommerce, WordPress/WooCommerce, Web Shop Manager, eTool Developers and others.
- The ability to create unique, non-duplicated website content. This is an important auto parts SEO service because quality content is extremely important. And of course, knowledge on how to create metadata, headlines and title tag optimizations for your unique content. This includes knowing when to use, and not to use, AI when generating content.
- Knowledge of automotive-related search topics including ways to rank your site for how-to technical information. See more information on types of Google searches.
- The ability to conduct a website audit to evaluate site content or technical site structure.
- Auto parts research including how common auto parts are searched for and how they are found organically.
- Knowing the difference between different automotive market segments such as off-road, racing, truck, and similar segments.
- The ability to build external backlinks to your auto parts site and monitor your website’s backlink profile.
- The ability to create internal linking for a better customer experience and more complete web crawling.
- Detailed reporting on ranked keywords, organic revenue, ranking trends, and so on, so you can measure progress.
Questions to ask about auto parts SEO services
Before hiring any automotive SEO services be prepared to have a detailed conversation and ask questions like these:
- What is your experience in the automotive aftermarket? Do you have knowledge about different market segments in the aftermarket?
- How long has your company been in business and do you have a permanent business office with employees?
- Do you use Google Search Console, SEMRush, Ahrefs, or other tools? How do you utilize the recommendations found in Google Search Console?
- If we engage you, how will you communicate results to us? What kind of reporting do you offer to clients?
- Who will make recommended changes to my website? You, me or my web developer? Who will be creating unique content for my website? Do you outsource that work?
- What kind of results have your other automotive clients had? Can you share any client success stories? What are your most important SEO techniques?
- What automotive aftermarket website ecommerce platforms do you have experience with?
- How long will it take for me to see results from your SEO work and how do you measure success for a particular project?
- Do you offer complimentary digital marketing services such as paid search or email marketing?
The importance of website speed and usability
Websites are increasingly required to load quickly. They must have a good user experience (UX). If a site doesn’t load quickly it won’t rank as well as an equivalent site that does.
Pay attention to your Core Web Vitals. It’s important to also know these are changed in 2024. Work with someone who either can diagnose and fix problems, or diagnose problems and relay them to your web developer or IT department. Learn how important Core Web Vitals are for auto parts sites.
What you should expect to pay
Fees to provide auto parts SEO services have a wide range. Most SEO agencies charge a monthly fee. Be careful of a low fee. Some agencies headquartered overseas or with only contract employees will offer low fees but typically don’t get good results. Be wary of unsolicited emails (especially those with poor grammar!) soliciting SEO services.
A monthly fee on the low end of the scale, say a few hundred dollars per month, may be too good to be true. Many agencies that charge only a few hundred dollars are often off-shore, rely heavily on outsourcing or don’t specialize in the automotive aftermarket.
A legitimate SEO company with experience in the automotive aftermarket will charge $1,000 to $5,000 per month. Less legitimate companies may charge a few hundred bucks. Find out what services are included for any fees.
Watch for the “guaranteed results” SEO scam. Some SEO companies charge a monthly fee but also offer a “guarantee” that if they don’t produce results you can simply stop using their service. What they don’t tell you is that this is part of their business model. They aggressively sign new clients but only plan on keeping them for a few months. In other words, they don’t give great results and plan on high churn rate with their clients.
What about local SEO for auto parts stores
SEO services for local auto parts businesses is significantly different than optimizing a website for national search results. Any good local SEO campaign includes strategies to improve visibility on mobile devices for local search results. Local search results also depend on a good profile on your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). Your Business Profile needs to include business hours, a local phone number and address, and your location on Google Maps.
Most local search is done on mobile phones. It is important to show up for local “near me” searches. This can include “auto parts store near me,” “truck parts near me” and similar search queries. A good Business Profile can help with all of that, but it’s also useful for national searches, too. Your Google Business Profile populates what’s known as a Knowledge Graph. This is the information on a company that appears to the right side of search results. The Knowledge Graph shows searchers more detailed information about a company they’re searching for, including their social accounts.
Basic principals for good automotive SEO
Let’s say you hire an SEO. Great! How do you know what they should do to your website?
You can’t go wrong if your SEO follows best practices for SEO. It starts with high-quality content. Your SEO should make content for web users and auto parts shoppers, not for search engines. As soon as you start thinking about how to optimize a page for Google, instead of your users, you’re going down the wrong path.
Your web content should not be misleading to readers. Your website should keep in mind “E-E-A-T.” This stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness as we mentioned above. If your website and your content is created to be useful for the reader, using E-E-A-T, you will usually end up having good results for SEO.
A good auto parts SEO won’t try to trick Google or Bing into improving your website rankings. Try this test for any SEO strategy: pretend you have to explain your strategy to your competitor that you just ran into at the SEMA Show. Would you feel confident in your approach? Or uncomfortable because some of your tactics were a bit shady?
Bottom line: your website content should be engaging to auto parts shoppers and should be better than any other website!
Steer clear of linking schemes
Linking schemes are a black hat SEO method and bad for your website. Black hat linking schemes include paying for backlinks, exchanging backlinks with other website for the purpose of manipulating rankings, or external links from pages with over-optimized anchor text. Google even has a policy on this, which is called “link spam.”
A good auto parts SEO strategy doesn’t use linking schemes to improve your SEO results. A good strategy is to create outstanding content that others will want to link to.
A website with paid backlinks should use Google‘s latest rel=”sponsored” tag. Traded backlinks should use Google’s rel=”nofollow” tag.