Is There a “Right Balance” For SEO vs SEM Spending For Your Dealer Website?

Many car dealers use a mixture of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click search engine marketing (PPC SEM) to promote their websites. As a dealer, to maximize your return on investment, it’s crucial to find the right balance when you decide how much money to budget for each method.

Balanced Spending

Most marketing experts recommend a combination of SEM and SEO promotion. They urge advertisers to consider several factors when budgeting. For instance, your current position in search results and the urgency of lead generation both hold importance.

According to Smart Insights, small businesses typically devote around 24% of their marketing funds to organic search optimization. No “best practice” ratio exists, but it is wise to think about the cost-effectiveness of each method.

Return on Investment

Numerous marketing professionals agree that a dollar spent on professional SEO produces more revenue than the same cash in a PPC account. Search optimization typically yields a 75 percent higher ROI, according to data from marketing agencies and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

What are you doing? Is your dealership wasting money on pay-per-click SEM? To find out, you need to determine if the clicks actually produce sales. Only about three-tenths of Google’s advertisers track conversions adequately, according to Search Engine Journal. So, check your analytics and compare them to your sales to see if you are wasting money..

If fewer than 2 percent of clicks generate sales or there’s an unsustainable per-sale expense, you’re probably wasting funds. ProRankTracker recommends removing SEM keywords that have a high cost-per-click or low conversion rate and using SEO to target them instead. If you don’t know how to do this, then get a professional to help. It makes no sense to waste money.

Evaluating Results

To discover if your dealership has maximized its organic search performance, you should look at traffic data and your website’s rankings for relevant keywords. Remember that SEO efforts may take several months to yield traffic.

If your website isn’t making progress, you can take steps to improve it. Always avoid the temptation to use keywords excessively or purchase links. Instead, you can start with these four things:

  1. Enhance mobile accessibility
  2. Link to authoritative websites
  3. Optimize your site’s speed
  4. Add fresh, SEO relevant and unique content

In the End, SEO Has a Higher ROI

Although SEM delivers quicker results, SEO usually offers a higher ROI and click-through rate. It also supplies longer-lasting benefits. Basically, if you are not dedicating a solid portion of your dealership’s marketing budget to SEO, then you are missing out on the targeted traffic that SEO can produce, and, most painfully, are likely to be wasting money.

If you are not sure what to do and want help, give us a call at 954.507.6454 or contact us here for a free demo. The analysis and talk will be free, but the advice will set you up for money in your bank. ?

Leave a Comment