It might seem reasonable to assume that online marketing is only good for expanding nationally. While it’s true that the digital age makes the world a little smaller, online marketing can be just as effective in growing your business locally. 

The average dealership relies heavily on its local market. While many dealerships are trying to find ways to expand their parts business from coast to coast, they don’t want to completely abandon their local customers either. However, digital marketing can be just as effective in growing your local business, depending on how you use it. 

So how can digital marketing techniques typically used for rapidly expanding businesses be applied to the corner dealer looking to grab more of their local customers? 

Here are five tactics you can use to grow your local parts business.

Use Local Segmentation For Your Ads

When advertising online, no matter what platform you use, segmenting your audience based on location is key to growing your local customer base. Look at your segmentation options, whether you’re running shopping, social media, or video ads on streaming services. If you can segment your audience based on location or, even better, zip code, you serve highly targeted ads to those customers and only those customers. 

If your dealership is in Massachusetts, you won’t have to set up an ad campaign with blanket coverage for someone in California. This also helps you ensure that you’re only paying for customers that are actually going to convert, given their proximity to your dealership. 

Then–Retarget Those Ads

Ad retargeting is one of the most effective marketing tactics online. Ad retargeting is exactly what it sounds like. You take ads you’ve already run and retarget them to get in front of certain people. If you advertise across multiple digital channels, this can help you set up a healthy marketing mix.

The great thing is you can set up these retargeting ads to capture local customers.

Here are a few ways you can set up retargeting ads:

• Retarget to users who didn’t engage with your ad. 
• Retarget to users that clicked your ad but didn’t convert. 
• Retarget to users that have items in their cart but have not purchased.

Ad retargeting with these approaches in mind gives you a few benefits. One, it helps you turn more leads into customers. Two, it helps reinforce your brand to online customers without additional work (redesigning ads or resetting campaigns). Three, it helps you determine what messaging resonates with certain types of customers and what doesn’t. It’s a great market research tool.

When developing your ad retargeting strategy, there are a few key things to keep in mind.

#1 – Break down your target audiences into different stages (i.e., abandoned cart audiences, engagement but no conversion audiences, etc.).

#2 – Test your ad campaigns before you run them. If your messaging isn’t strong enough from the beginning, odds are you’re going to have more trouble retargeting ads down the line. 

#3 – Optimize your ads with the right CTA, ad budget, localization scope, and campaign length.

Brush Up Your SEO For “Near Me” Search

Another way to capture the attention of your local market is to optimize your website for the “near me” searches. You’ve probably seen this tactic used before.

A customer goes online and searches for the closest business to them. They type in “find a repair shop near me,” and in a millisecond, the search engine pulls up a list of businesses and sorts them by location. That person will then click on the business that’s closest to their area, and BAM! They’ve now got a lead. 

Your dealership can capitalize on this commonly used practice. Implementing local SEO strategies can help your parts department get onto that list. 

What strategies are best for your parts department to use for this approach?

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Claim and Optimize Your “Google My Business” Listing

You’re already behind if your dealership doesn’t have a Google My Business Listing. Google My Business helps you establish your online presence. Without it, your customers won’t be able to find you online easily. With a Google My Business listing, you can easily optimize your listing to help you rank higher in a search engine.

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Use Customer Reviews Wisely

One of the best ways to optimize your website and your Google My Business listing is to use customer reviews. The more positive customer reviews you have hosted on your site and your business account, the higher your chances of ranking on a search results page. Be sure to use and approve reviews with relevant keywords to your customer base.

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Build and Use Local Backlinks on Your Website

Are there local businesses you support? You may have a long-standing relationship with the local mechanic shops in the area. You can utilize their web traffic to your advantage as well.

Use their website links on relevant pages and content hosted on your site to boost your local SEO. Not only does this increase your customer base, but it also acts as a kind of free advertising for your existing relationships with your wholesale customers.

Build Your Social Media Community

While social media can connect people from opposite ends of the globe in an instant, it can also be a great tool for growing your local customer base. Social media communities are some of the best ways to interact with your local market and grow your parts business in the process. It’s a great way to build brand awareness and get insights into your customers’ needs.

So how can you best use social media marketing to gain more local parts buyers?

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Create Engaging Content

Test out different types of content on social media to measure what kind of engagement you get from it. Understanding what your customers are interested in requires you to put out different types of content in manageable quantities. It can range from sharing out blog posts to videos. 

This type of content marketing can help you determine your brand messaging and help you increase your pool of potential customers through your following base.

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Join Social Media Groups

Social media is a great way to build community online. It’s also a great way to glimpse what your competitors are up to. One way to accomplish both is to join social media groups. Social media groups can help you build your customer network, establish your brand image, and help you stay a step ahead of your competitors. 

Let’s say you join one social media group or, better yet, three to four. What should you do once you join them?

1. 1. Post engaging content: Post any content that helps build your brand. It could be videos, articles, accomplishments, news, or whatever you think will establish your brand effectively. 
   2. Comment, react, and share: Being part of an online community means being engaged. You’re not being a team player if you’re not commenting, reacting, or sharing posts you like.
   3. Ask questions: Don’t be afraid to be curious. Ask people questions. See if you can’t help them come up with some solutions to their problems. It gives you insight and helps you build relationships outside of the dealership.

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Connect With Local Shops/Auto Experts/Enthusiasts

Another way to build relationships online is by using social media to connect with relevant industry professionals. This could be anyone from your wholesale customers at the local mechanic shop to car enthusiasts who love your brand! 

Use social media to connect with and showcase their content. Not only does this help spread word-of-mouth for your dealership, but it also helps you determine what types of content resonate with your customers. It’s another way to better understand your customers’ needs and interests. 

Building a social media affiliate marketing program is also a great opportunity. Connect with relevant influences in your industry to post sponsored content and ads for you. They collect a little money, and you get all the customers they send you. It’s a win-win.

Get The Most Out of Your Marketing 

Online marketing is not only beneficial for national expansion but also for growing your local parts business. You can effectively target your local audience by using local segmentation for ads, retargeting those ads, optimizing your website for “near me” searches, claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing, and utilizing local backlinks. 

Furthermore, social media can be a powerful tool to engage with your community and connect with local shops, auto experts, and enthusiasts. Employing these strategies will help you create a strong digital presence, boost your local SEO, and ultimately drive growth in your local parts business.

Interested in more information on digital marketing tactics to grow your national audience? Download our free Parts eCommerce Marketing Toolkit.

The post Marketing Techniques to Drive More Local Parts Sales appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

Launching a parts website was the first step to harnessing eCommerce sales success, but now you need to get your website out in front of consumers and in their minds. A strong marketing strategy can help you do that. You might think it takes too long to get the right marketing strategy for your business up and running and delivering results, but that’s not entirely true. You can see results in a relatively short amount of time if you know how to leverage the right methods. 

Generating more online business means improving your website traffic. How many visitors do you get to your website now? How many would you like to get next month or next year? Once you set your web traffic goals, you can start implementing a marketing strategy to reflect those goals. 

Traditional advertising isn’t the only way to improve website traffic, although it certainly is one of them. If you want visitors to come to your website, you need to implement digital marketing solutions. Here are three proven ways to improve your website traffic and generate new parts business.

#1 Focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What better way to get parts website traffic than by ensuring your parts website appears in top search results?

Google and other search engines have complex ranking algorithms that determine which websites to put in the top 10 spots of a search results page. If your website has high-quality SEO, that means it’s more likely to appear in the top 10 search rankings and more likely to be found by shoppers. You can increase your SEO ranking by writing and adding unique content to your website (or having a marketing agency do this for you). Websites with optimized original content and targeted keywords are more likely to be deemed “credible” sources and rank higher, ensuring your customers find your website quickly.

Writing parts descriptions for your top-selling categories can go a long way in boosting your visibility. Make sure to include target keywords in the description too, like “Toyota Camry floor mats,” to help Google’s algorithm find you.

#2 Fire Up Google Shopping Campaigns

Advertising with Google Shopping is an investment, but it pays off! Google Shopping ads are convenient, easy to set up, and, more importantly, easy for customers to spot. 

We strongly recommend hiring a marketing agency to manage your ads for you. They can help you get set up with everything you need, get you direct access to your analytics, and help you understand how your ads are performing so you can rework them to produce the results you want. 

If you’re really ambitious and want to be in the top 1% of online sellers, then you should use high-quality parts photos to catch the eyes of your potential customers. Take pictures of all your best-selling parts and upload them!

Never tried Google Shopping? Read about some of the top mistakes dealers make with Google Shopping campaigns so you know what to avoid!

READ MORE: Google Shopping vs Google Search campaigns (+ Strategies for Success)

#3 Launch The Right Email Campaigns

With an email campaign, you have the opportunity to reach out to customers on a more personalized level.

Send out emails that:

• Share coupons
• Advertise promotions
• Give holiday sales information
• Offer personalized parts quotes
• Update customers on seasonal parts (and what they might need)!

If they had a good experience with you before, they’re more likely to return. You can even use email campaigns for other things too, such as saving an abandoned cart. When we analyzed conversions across all the sites that RevolutionParts powers, parts website traffic sources coming from email campaigns had 2X the conversion rates of organic or paid traffic.

RELATED: 4 Must-Have Elements of a Promotional Email that Actually Drive Sales

Bottom Line

There are a variety of ways you can give your website traffic an extra boost. Ideally, you should be using all of them. Don’t limit yourself to one strategy if you can help it, and remember to check your numbers. Tracking where the bulk of your web traffic comes from will give you better insight into how you can streamline your strategy. 

Looking for more ways to boost your website traffic with precision? Download the Marketing Made Easy Guide for six tips on how you can use marketing to increase web traffic and revenue, and an inside look into using Google Merchant Center.

The post 3 Proven Techniques to Increase Traffic to Your Parts Website appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

A great eCommerce solution will let you customize to an even more in-depth degree. At RevolutionParts we want running a parts website to feel empowering.

Keep reading to discover how truly customizable your parts selling experience can be with RevolutionParts.

1. Dynamic SEO pages

If you really want to improve your online visibility, SEO (search engine optimization) is a great way to do it. With RevolutionParts Dynamic SEO pages, you can create unique landing pages to draw attention to the parts you sell and help customers find what they need.

Google loves useful and unique content. Just writing some short 250 word descriptions (click here for advice on writing these descriptions) of a few of your most popular parts can help your parts website show up in Google search results. You can even include a product picture to help customers know that they’ve found the right place.

*RevolutionParts offers SEO and Marketing for our clients, leaving all the product description writing to us (in addition to a wide variety of other perks and services!). Find out more here.

With RevolutionParts, you can create as many of these landing pages as you want!

As far as SEO, you can also adjust your general settings. Whenever we create a new parts website for a dealer, we automatically supply a template for how part information is displayed.

2. Custom products

Some dealers want to sell more than standard OEM replacement parts. If you have stylish or performance-boosting auto accessories or other auto-related merchandise, you can add these products, along with custom categories, to your inventory.

Aftermarket sellers make it big with selling accessories. What’s keeping you from connecting with a supplier to sell unique accessories options, too? Some larger dealers with an equally-large following will even use this as a place to sell brand merchandise, like T-shirts, keychains, or bumper stickers.

3. Custom pricing and shipping rules

The online world has more competition than the physical parts counter, so you need a flexible solution that can adapt to a changing eCommerce market.

Pricing Rules

Pricing tables (also known as Pricing Matrices) can make it easy to set prices that are both competitive AND profitable. You can set your own rules for how to price, such as list minus percentage, cost plus percentage, or a combination. It results in balanced, well-rounded pricing that is attractive to customers and profitable for you.

Shipping Rules

You also have flexibility in how you set shipping rules. When you set up different methods like standard mail versus 2- day shipping, you can set a shipping carrier and padding fees. You can even tier your pricing so that heavier items have a larger fee, in order to help you ship profitably.

4. Sell how you want

You’re not limited to a single sales channel with RevolutionParts.

You can sell how you want to sell and our platform has the flexibility to support you. You can sell locally, nationally, or internationally. You can sell on your dealership website, on a standalone parts website, or on a marketplace like eBay or Amazon.

5. Custom website design

When you first launch your site, we work closely with you to make sure that your new parts website meets and exceeds your standards. It’s your parts website, after all. We want you to be happy with it.

But sometimes later on, you decide you want a few tweaks to the design—something that requires a bit more technical knowledge to change.

We have an entire team dedicated to personalizing the websites of our customers. If you want some tweaks made to your parts website, let us know.

6. Custom coupon codes and discounts

Who doesn’t love a good discount? Coupled with a promotional email, coupons and discounts are a reliable way to attract repeat buyers back to your store for more auto parts.

The thing is, not all discounts perform the same—and if you always run the same type of promotion, your customers might get bored. It’s useful to mix things up and run sales events that are actually relevant to the occasion.

For starters, RevolutionParts allows you to generate custom promo codes (like 10%OFF99, JULY4TH, or something else that’s related to your sale). When you make those codes, you can specify what type of promotion it will apply to, how long the code will last, and how many times your customers can use it.

7. Run your own blog!

Blogs can be an educational resource for your customers and another way to boost website SEO.

Updating the blog frequently helps, but you don’t have to make it a twice-a-week duty. Shoot to post something new each month. Or, RevolutionParts can write your blog posts for you!

Think about what would be useful to your customers. Many of them are either DIY customers or small body shop owners, so these might be a few topics to focus on:

• Articles on tips, tricks, and best practices during installation
• Informational articles on what certain parts do and when to know they need to be replaced
• Step-by-step installation guides
• Reviews on the latest parts, accessories, or vehicles
• Automotive news
• Website updates (latest sales, discounts, contests, sweepstakes, etc)

A unique site help your site make a memorable impression on your customers, but it’ll also help you attract customers in the first place. The ability to take charge of your own parts website can boost the profits of your online parts business. Every little piece of your website can contribute to overall success.

An optimized pricing strategy will boost the effectiveness of your ad campaigns and draw in more customers. A well-designed and easy-to-navigate site will give customers a positive experience and encourage them to return next time. Unique content from dynamic SEO and catalog pages will drive up overall traffic to your website.

It all begins with having the tools you need to stand out from the crowd!

The post 7 Ways You Can Customize Your Parts Site with RevolutionParts appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

Every month, more dealerships start selling parts online. The long-time sellers have an advantage, since they’ve had time to build up marketing efforts and improve SEO.

But it’s not hopeless for the new sites, and there’s one key trick that many dealerships are choosing to ignore…

The Trick: Inbound Links

When another website links to your website, it’s called an “inbound link.”

Inbound links are a powerful thing. They show Google that your website is trustworthy and valuable to internet users, and will rank your website higher in search results as a reward.

Now, we need to be clear: Adding inbound links isn’t guaranteed to get your parts website into the #1 spot. SEO is comprised of many different factors, and inbounds links are just one of them.

But many dealers choose to ignore adding one of the easiest inbound links available to them, and a link with enough credibly to make a difference.

We’re talking about the inbound link from your main dealership.

Your dealership’s main website is a powerful, credible source that can help your parts website succeed. It’s already been established as “credible” by Google, so having your dealership link to your parts website creates a strong inbound link.

Reasons why you should link your parts website and dealership:

1. It helps your Parts Website get started.

When you first launch your parts website, it’s unlikely to instantly rank #1 on Google. It’s too new to be considered “credible.”

Adding the powerful inbound link from your dealership can help your website get indexed faster. This means Google will notice your parts website sooner and start listing you in search results. It may not make the 1st page of search results right away, but it’s better than nothing.

2. It’s a free, easy way to boost parts website traffic.

Some website owners spend a lot of time and effort building up their site SEO. Credible inbound links can be surprisingly hard to get. Actively guest-blogging for automotive websites or sharing your website in auto forums takes time and sometimes money, and the quality of that link can vary.

Your dealership website is basically FREE advertising for you. Plus, adding the link should take hardly any time at all.

3. The SEO boost lasts as long as the link is active.

Once you add the link, you get to enjoy the SEO boost forever. It’s a one-time investment that doesn’t even cost you anything.

The quality of inbound links doesn’t decay over time, so your website will constantly benefit from making the connection.

That said, when you remove the link, the benefits end.

4. It helps build brand authority and credibility.

When a shopper stumbles upon your website, there’s a good chance they don’t know who you are. And humans are naturally suspicious of strangers.

The shopper might not know if you’re a real, legitimate seller. We’ve even had shoppers contact us at RevolutionParts to ask if certain parts websites were legitimate and safe to buy from (Don’t worry—we assured them that yes, we only work with legitimate dealers!).

The link to your dealership can help reassure them that you are a real, trustworthy dealership based in the US—not some scam. This also goes for adding your phone number and address to your parts website, so you’re easy to contact in case a customer has suspicions!

5. It captures sales from local customers that might have shopped somewhere else.

When customers click on your parts website from the dealership website link, they have somewhere to buy right then and there. Without the option, they’d easily find another parts website to buy from.

Chances are, they’ll buy from you. You’ve made it easy for them, and they know your dealership. It goes back to reason #4—they already trust your dealership, so it’s easier to get the sale from them.

Will local customers be upset to see a lower price online versus at the counter?

With so many benefits, why do so many dealerships choose not to link their dealership websites? Mostly, they’re worried about local customers finding out about the cheaper prices online and getting upset about being “ripped off” at the parts counter.

In truth, this shouldn’t be such a cause for concern.

Most customers won’t even notice.

Most customers won’t think to look online, and when they do, they probably don’t have your in-store prices memorized. As for the few customers savvy enough to figure it out, they’re also savvy enough to find a better price online anyway. It’s better that they buy from you, even if it’s at a lower price than at the counter.

Large retailers do it all the time.

Brands like Target and Best Buy regularly have better pricing online versus in-store. Again, most people don’t notice, and of the customers that do, they aren’t upset.

At this point, everyone knows that the internet is more competitive and they expect to see lower prices online. These retailers are happy to price-match online prices to keep customers happy.

Customers will simply be happy to get a lower price.

Why would customers be upset to stumble across a surprise discount? Next time they need to buy something, they’ll know they can buy online from you for a good price.

Sure, you won’t make as much profit on the sale as if they had visited your in-store counter. But they’re a loyal customer now, and loyal, repeat customers can have a HUGE impact on the success of your parts website.

RELATED: 7 Pricing Mistakes that are Hurting your eCommerce Store

Ways to Handle Local Customers When Selling Online

Financially, using this to boost parts website traffic is worth it. But if you’re still concerned about your local customers, there are some simple solutions to keep it from being a problem.

Not all of these tactics are recommended, since they can give your customer a poor experience, but in the end the choice is yours.

1. Exclude your local area from seeing your advertising

If you or your marketing agency is advertising with Google AdWords, it’s really easy to exclude people within a radius of your location from seeing your ads. This way, you’re only marketing to non-local customers.

A lot of customers come to a site from Google Shopping or Google Search campaigns. Even though your online price is lower, you won’t be advertising it to everyone.

Local customers might still find your lower online prices by chance, but this trick will reduce the likelihood of it happening.

2. Price-match the online price

If a customer comes to your parts counter with your website price on their phone, offer to price-match the online price.

Sure, it cuts into your total profit, but it also saves you the time and hassle of packaging and shipping the part instead.

It also guarantees that YOU get the sale right then and there. If you refuse to price-match, some customers will leave and buy online from a competitor. Once they leave your parts department, there’s no saying where they’ll actually buy.

3. Online-exclusive price

If a customer visits your parts counter to point out the lower online price, say that it’s an “online exclusive price/sale.” These kinds of exclusive online sales are common, and customers will usually understand (although some might get not be too happy with this).

They’ll probably choose to order online for the lower price. But again, there’s no way to guarantee they’ll buy from your parts website. There’s a chance that they’ll find a better price with another retailer and shop with them instead.

4. Not recommended: Exclude local customers from online prices.

Post on your website that online pricing is not available for customers in a certain zip code. By simply excluding your local customers from your low online prices, you avoid the matter entirely.

However, this ruins a customer’s experience with you. It will upset them even more than knowing that your online price is less than the counter price.

5. Not recommended: Charge an extra fee for local pickup.

Even though they can buy at the lower online price, you might choose to discourage local customers from buying from your parts website with a fee.

Again, though, it’s a poor customer experience that will likely upset them. Most customers choose local pick-up to avoid the shipping price, so a fee will lower their opinion of your dealership.

Conclusion

We strongly recommend the price-matching your online price if a customer brings it up at your parts counter. It’s what customers expect. You don’t have to mention to in-store customers that you have a lower price online, but if they’ve done their research and can point out the sale on their phone, give it to them.

They won’t be mad about a lower online price. Instead, they’ll be mad if they’re not allowed to buy at that lower price. It ends up hurting your dealership two-fold, since you’ll lose their online business AND their local business.

At the end of the day, putting your customer first is the best way to gain their loyalty. Linking your parts website and dealership website will give you a worthwhile boost to parts website traffic, and it doesn’t have to hurt your local relationships.

The post 1 Trick to Boost Parts Website Traffic that Most Dealerships are Missing appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

Investing in some manner of marketing is always a good idea, but there are things you can do to improve your parts website traffic without spending a cent.

With a few tweaks to your parts site, you can be a highly-ranked site that your customers will see first when looking to buy. It’s called SEO (search engine optimization), and if your parts website focuses on SEO, you’re much more likely to make parts sales.

Google’s algorithm for high rankings is constantly shifting, so there’s no set-in-stone way to reach the #1 spot.

But here’s the trick: Google cares about high-quality, authoritative content, so a lot of SEO is based around that idea. It’s still a good idea to invest in more than one type of marketing, but SEO remains one of the best ways to gain traction online.

There’s still some work involved, so it’s not something you can knock out in an hour or two. But it’s worth your time. Here are the steps you can take to convince Google that your website is worthwhile:

Original Content

Content is key when it comes to organic search results. Keyword-rich chunks of text can go a long way in showing Google that you run a high-quality website.

For the best results, you should write content in several different places on your parts website. This gives your site an overall more authoritative look in Google’s standards.

You can outsource these writing tasks to a freelancer or marketing agency if you’re too busy to write it all yourself. Just make sure to read over their work for accuracy. You know your parts business and what you’re selling better than an agency!

1. About Us Page

Believe it or not, Google specifically at the About Us page when it comes to SEO.

Even if it didn’t affect SEO, you’d benefit from a well-written About Us page for the sake of building trust with your online customers. Show your shoppers that you’re a team of real people behind the website!

Don’t just write a sentence or two about how you sell auto parts online. Go into more detail. Talk about what your company stands for and why customers should buy from you. Do you offer the best customer service? Unbeatable prices? Fast shipping?

Include pictures of your parts team and dealership. Images can have a direct effect on your SEO, as long as they’re high quality and relevant.

Local Content

If your parts website is associated with your dealership, then talking about your service to the local area can give the page another SEO boost. Specifically mention the area where you serve customers and the benefits of local purchases, such as faster delivery and local pickup options.

2. Parts Descriptions

You can find a lot of success with something as straightforward as writing parts descriptions.

Pick a popular category or product (such as brake pads or filters) and type up a quick description of what it does, how customers can know when it’s time to replace, and why they should always buy OEM.

Start with descriptions of your top-selling parts. If there are fewer than 50 monthly searches for a type of auto part, then it’s not worth your time to write a description for it. Focus on keywords that get over 50 hits a month.

In order to work, make sure these parts descriptions are at least 200 words, although a word count of 300-500 will be more effective. You can also embed links here to related parts, which helps your SEO even more.

3. Running a Blog 

A blog is worth its weight in gold, even if you only post once or twice a month. Focus your content on subjects that DIYers and car enthusiasts would like to read. If you can get blog subscribers, the benefit increases tenfold, since you can send out promotional emails about sales and specials going on at your parts website.

You can write about:

• Industry news
• Installation guides
• Reviews on vehicles and parts
• Tips and tricks

Google is especially fond of data-driven articles or articles with great storytelling. A powerful headline is arguably the most important part, since it can drive customer clicks and improve your ranking through the “vote” of the people who click your article.

4. Unique store policies

When you first launch a parts website, it’s most likely pre-filled with default shipping, return, and cancellation policies.

Meaning your site and many others have the exact same duplicate content for these store policies! (Remember: Google can actually penalize you for having the same content as another website!)

Customize the policies to fit your store and tweak some of the wording where possible. Even small changes will distinguish your policies from other stores!

5. Embedding Links

A healthy number of links can improve your authority in the eyes of Google.

We want to emphasize the word “healthy” in that sentence, since posting too many links will actually hurt your Google rankings. Links need to be natural and helpful, not just placed around for the sake of boosting SEO.

Embedding links in any of the above content areas (blog, parts descriptions, About Us page) will help increase your Google SEO rank.

The strongest links connect both ways. This means that you link to another website, and that website links back.

Here are some ways to get other websites to link to your parts website:

• Guest blog posts
• Putting together a list of affiliate companies
• Writing testimonials for other companies you work with
• Donating to charity — Not only will it improve your reputation among customers, but often charities list benefactors on their website.

Keep an eye out for webpages that mention your business with a tool like Google Alerts, so you can link back and make the connection stronger.

The Easiest Link that Most Dealerships Miss

It’s surprising how many parts managers forget about one of the easiest links you can connect from: the dealership website. Adding a link from your dealership website to your parts website has so many benefits and can give your parts website a major boost.

We strongly recommend creating that link! It will definitely pay off.

Other Factors

Content is a major factor in raising your website’s SEO, but it’s not the sole contributor. Unfortunately, the other ranking factors are harder for you to control. Often it depends on the structural build of your website, which changes depending on your eCommerce provider.

If your eCommerce solution isn’t up to snuff, then it’s hurting your Google ranking and perhaps it’s time to consider changing platforms.

6. Mobile-friendly Design

More people than ever are using smartphones to browse the internet. So it makes sense that Google has made a fairly recent change to have this affect a website’s SEO.

Websites that are easy and intuitive for mobile users are more likely to rank higher. Sometimes this is called a “mobile-friendly” layout, but technically the term is a “responsive” website design that is optimized for navigating on smartphones and tablets.

Look up your parts website on a smart phone to see if this factor is hurting or helping your ranking.

7. Website Health

Website speed plays a role in Google rankings. Make sure you’re working with a solution provider who can ensure a quick-loading website. Website health can help convince Google that your content is worthwhile, which is why load screen is something to keep in mind.

Additionally, 40% of consumers will abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, according to a study by Akamai. Not only will this hurt your conversion rates, but also reduce your traffic. Google likes to give special attention to websites that see a lot of visitors—not websites where shoppers give up after only a few seconds on the site.

Domain age can also hurt or help your Google ranking. If your domain has been in use for a while, Google sees it as a more reliable source. If your domain is brand new, don’t worry—it will improve over time as it ages.

After all, SEO and Google rankings takes time—you can’t reach the top spots in only a day.

Conclusion

Showing up higher in Google rankings can improve site traffic overall, so it’s worth the time and effort. Setting aside 20 minutes a week to boost your SEO is a perfect place to start. You can even hire a freelance writer or a marketing agency to do the work for you, as long as it gets done.

The majority of parts sites don’t bother investing the time to improve their SEO. This presents you a great opportunity that is ripe for the taking. Dominate the top spots with a worthwhile investment and your parts website traffic will see the difference!

The post How to Boost the Google Ranking of your Parts Website in 7 Easy Steps appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

Whether it’s on eBay or your own auto parts website, the product description matters. It’s the first thing a potential customer will read when they’re still debating their purchase, and by clearing up any confusion right away, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.

When you put together a high-quality part description, you’ll see more than one benefit. It improves your selling ability all around, from how easily customers find you to how willing they are to buy. Here are only a few of the improvements you’ll see:

More revenue.

Better descriptions draw in more customers and help you sell more auto parts. Not everyone is a car part expert, so a lot of shoppers need to see some extra details before they follow through with their purchase. Online shoppers will be more confident in purchasing the part if there is detailed information and they know it will fit their car. 

Better SEO.

There are plenty of auto parts stores online that your customer can buy from, so how can you help them find YOU? You can always invest in marketing, but the cost-free way to boost your visibility is by making your site more search-engine friendly.

It’s called SEO. Unique and original content on your site improves your SEO, thus improving how well you rank on a search engine result page. This means your product will show up in more searches!

Fewer returns.

When your product description has accurate and easy-to-understand information, buyers will be less likely to order the wrong part on accident. The more details you include about a part, the easier it will be for a customer to confirm that it’s the part they need. A great description will improve customer confidence and reduce the chance of messing up.

Fewer phone calls.

As much as you want to show off your great customer service, you also don’t want to get bogged down with calls. Readily available information (such as FAQs, company information, and product descriptions) will reduce the amount of questions customers have about your products. Something as simple as a shipping or return policy can give customers the info they need and save you both the time of a phone call.

Nice, right? Now that you’re interested, the question is how do you write an effective product description? According to the experts at Shoplo, the best descriptions are split into two parts: a paragraph of explanation followed by a list of product spec.

[Section of normal written language] + [Bullet Points of Specs or Features] = [Engaging and Converting Product Description]

With that formula for success in mind, let’s get started on breaking down the pieces…

Paragraph of Prose

The paragraph section is normally around three or more sentences. In it, give a brief written description of what the product is and where it will be used. The paragraph section is supposed to entice a potential customer to buy the product—often, it tells the part’s “story.”

The product description can be especially effective for car part upgrades. Some customers purchase upgrades to give their car personality, and by knowing your audience, you can tailor the description to them. You can write descriptions that include stats on performance or the material of the part.

Here are some other things you can talk about in this paragraph:

• A touch of history about the vehicle model.
• Why a customer should buy OE parts.
• How often the part should be replaced.
• When a customer can tell their part needs to be replaced.

Bulleted List of Specs and Features

Some readers will only skim product descriptions, so they’ll jump straight to the bullet points. This is where you have simple facts and specifications about your part, in a clear and to the point way.

The bulleted list should include:

1. Part number
2. Part dimensions, if relevant
3. Shipping information
4. Warranty information
5. Which vehicles the part fits (This will automatically be generated by the parts catalog from your eCommerce provider.)

Vehicle fitment is critical information that helps ease consumer fears over buying the wrong part. Choose a parts catalog and online store provider that will let your customers put in their VIN number and show verification on the product page that the part is guaranteed to fit their car.

It’s better to have too much information than not enough. Provide any basic facts about the product that you think a customer would like to know. Pay attention to the questions your customers ask most frequently and include that information, too.

Of course, with a inventory of thousands, you don’t have to do this for every single part. Focus on the most popular ones or hire a marketing agency to write the descriptions for you.

Final Thoughts

Don’t forget that you need this description to be professional. This means checking for spelling and grammar mistakes. Check and double check that all your spec lists are accurate. Avoid using excessive all caps when writing, since it looks like shouting. Editing may seem like a small step, but it’s an important one!

You might be thinking that writing all these product descriptions will take a while, and you’re right. It is unrealistic that you will have a unique and full description for EVERY single part you sell. Look at your reports and see which parts sell the most often and make a plan to write descriptions for those categories of parts. (Here’s a hint: brake pads are really popular)

At first it might be a bit tricky to get started. But if you’re determined and make a habit of writing just a few descriptions a day, you’ll get the hang of it and quickly find yourself ahead of the competition.

The post Drive More Traffic To Your Auto Parts Stores Online appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

Did you know braking systems are one of the top three categories of most popular parts shopped for online? To make the most of this market, a unique high-quality product description is sure to draw in more customers.

In general, an effective product description is a great way to improve your customer conversion rate, which means more revenue for you and your dealership. Helpful and well-defined information will increase customer confidence when they buy and reduce the amount of questions and returns you’ll have to deal with in the future.

As an added bonus, descriptions for your products will boost your SEO, making it even easier for customers to find your parts website when they search for something. Try to make your description at least 100 words in order to get the best results.

When writing your product description, consider some of the most commonly asked questions and incorporate answers into your description. This article has a special focus on brake pads, but this information can apply to any parts descriptions you plan on writing.

The most commonly asked question for auto parts: “Will it fit my car?”

Your online parts store should make this answer obvious. Make it easy for customers to search a part by VIN number. You can also allow customers to search parts by make, year, and model, then narrow the search to only show parts that fit that car.

Comfort your customers by including a list of all compatible vehicles on each product’s page. Verify that the part will fit their car. And be sure the information on your website is accurate!

Here are some other common questions about brake systems that you should address in your product description:

1. What other parts do I need to go with it?
2. What “Installation Hardware” is included? (Clips, shims etc.)
3. Does this product have wear sensors?
4. Are these for the front or rear?
5. Is it a pair or single? Ex: Does this come with 2 or 4 brake pads? Is this one pair or two pair?
6. How heavy is it?

And don’t limit yourself to this list. Listen to your customers. What other questions do customers frequently call your dealership and ask about braking system parts? If you keep hearing the same questions over and over, add those answers to your product descriptions.

The post How to Write a Killer Product Description for Brake Pads appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.

But for all of the benefits to selling on eBay, there is one glaring challenge: standing out from the crowd. A lot of competing parts stores will also be selling on eBay, and sometimes it might feel like random chance if a customer chooses them over you. Other than lowering price, how much more can you do?

Other than competitive pricing, there are a few things you can do to increase the visibility of your eBay store and rising above everyone else. This article is not for those who want to list it and leave it. These tips are for those go getters who want to rise to the top of the marketplace.

1. Gain Top Rated Seller status.

Not only does Top Seller status win your parts store some great benefits (such as discounts on fees and shipping), but it also marks your store and listings with a special badge for customers to see.

To customers, Top Seller status marks you as a company that can be trusted. You have to meet certain requirements to earn and maintain this title, such as specific sales and tracking goals as well as a low transaction defect rate. It’s definitely worth the effort!

After Top Seller, why not reach for Top Seller Plus? It only has a few more requirements, and you’ll be rewarded with an even better seal for your profile.

Pro tip: Read up on some tips for gaining and maintaining Top Seller Status and stay ahead of the curve!

2. Improve the SEO of your listings.

By boosting your listing SEO, you increase your chances of having your part show up whenever someone conducts a search. You can boost SEO by optimizing your item titles, subtitles, and descriptions.

Keywords

Keywords are perhaps the most important factor for optimization!

Your title can have up to 80 characters, so use as many as possible, as efficiently as possible. Include information about the part that customers would need to know at first glance.

Subtitles

Subtitles let you describe your product a little more. You can add more keywords or information here, or list product benefits such as warranties or promotions.

Item Descriptions

As for your item descriptions, make sure they are rich, detailed, and sprinkled with keywords. Include all the information your customer needs to know to ensure they’re looking at the correct part for their car. This article can provide you with a more in-depth breakdown of writing quality parts descriptions.

Pro tip: What are frequently asked questions about certain parts? Use this information to write a really useful description for your customers!

3. Use high quality images.

Many eBay customers shop based on pictures—they might even pass up a lower price if the image provided has poor quality. This is because a clear, professional image is often the mark of a trustworthy and professional company. They won’t feel as safe buying from you if your images look like they were taken at your house, which might mark you as an individual seller just looking to clear out junk from your garage.

Luckily, you don’t need to be a pro with a camera, and taking quality photos doesn’t have to be expensive. Just make sure your pictures are clear, well-lit, and in-focus with a blank or solid color background. If you need more detailed advice on how to take better parts photos, we have an article that will help.

Pro tip: Sometimes, manufacturers provide parts photos for dealers to use. They probably won’t have images for your entire inventory, but it can certainly help you get started. Check with them to see how they can help!

No matter which steps you take to boost your visibility, make sure you’re watching your key metrics every step of the way. The seller dashboard provides you with all sorts of statistics to see how your eBay listings are performing. When some succeed where others fail, try to figure out the differences so you know where to focus next.

The post Top 3 Surefire Ways to Increase your eBay Visibility appeared first on RevolutionParts - Sell Parts and Accessories.