Automotive Case Study
lead forms and 169 phone calls from organic search in four months
A model-and-city page grid wins the searches the manufacturer and listing sites used to own
A Ford dealership with more than 60 years in its market hired Focus Digital to win more buyers from search. The store sits in a Ford-dense market with eight competing Ford dealers within driving distance.
On the searches that sell cars, the dealership lost to Ford’s own site and to listing platforms such as Cars.com and CarGurus. Thousands of vehicle detail pages turned over every week, so the site had few lasting pages that could rank. Leadership wanted organic search to produce forms and calls the sales team could work.
The team mapped every town inside the dealership’s drive time and built a page for each one. Each page answers what a buyer in that town searches for: nearby Ford dealers, used inventory and trade-in value. Model pages followed for current trucks and SUVs, starting with the Explorer, Expedition, Maverick and Bronco Sport.
Inventory pages expire when a car sells. The team built model-year research articles on trims, towing, specs and comparisons, then refreshes about 40 of them each model year. Those pages keep ranking while the inventory under them changes.
The team added pages for the service department and collision center, where listing platforms do not compete. It also measured how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity recommend the dealership. The plan now targets the buyer groups where AI answers mention it least.
“The dealership stopped renting its buyers from listing sites. A page for every town in its drive time now brings in about 95 forms and calls a month from search.”
A page for every town inside the drive time let the dealership rank where Ford’s site and the listing platforms do not try.
Model-year research articles keep ranking after the cars on the lot sell, and a yearly refresh keeps them current.
The team reports lead forms and calls from organic search every month, so the dealership sees what search sells.
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