Any Suggestions for Building an SEO Friendly Auto Dealership Website?

[bryanmull]

Does anyone have suggestions for re-designing an auto dealership website? Is it possible to build a WordPress website that accepts an inventory feed from VinSolutions? I've been building websites and provided SEO services for years. This is my first time working in the auto industry.

The issue I am facing is that our dealership currently have two websites. Both are built on 3rd party platforms and I am seriously considered rebuilding our website from scratch.

Our first website was been provided to us by our Hyundai and the website is managed through Cobalt. While I like that the website is directly affiliated with Hyundai, it's very difficult to manage and I have yet to be able to get the techs to grant me access to the FTP server or provide help with installing Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools.

The owner of our dealership never liked the Cobalt website so they decided to launch a second website that is created and managed by a company called  Dealer Specialties. The site is also very difficult to administer and I only see problems later down the road.

Is anyone familiar with working with auto dealership websites? I would love to hear your comments on the best way to proceed with our new web presence.

[CarlosFernandes]

We had exactly the same problem as this. We then quoted the client to rebuild from scratch - but the cost was inhibitive for them.

The thing about these 3rd party platforms is that they get the client hooked onto them and they get comfortable just paying a nominal fee each month.

This particular client would spend the money to re do the website from scratch.

The problem with their systems is that you cannot do too much customization of the pages in terms of the SEO attributes or change the page names etc,

I am certainly not endorsing or recommending this company - but we have had more success with www.ebizautos.com  in terms of the issues I have just mentioned.

With their system you can change the page names etc and have the ability to create numerous pages with their own custom URLs that then can  be as optimized as you want. URLs are ertainly better than the Dealer Specialties ones.

Not as good as building your own system - but the results we have had from optimizing some of these ebiz ones have been better than using some of the other systems out there.  IT also helps if you have a client with serious budget constraints.

Downside:  
Still cannot get FTP access or them to even upload an XML file for GWMT.

Might be worth a go.  Hope this helps.

Carlos