Day 16 of SEO Car Dealer Tips — STOP Using Stock Photos!

Today's tip: swap every stock photo on your site for real photos of your store.

If the whole goal is search engine optimization, why is your homepage running a generic stock photo? Nothing about that is optimized. Stock makes your site look like a hundred other sites, and generic is exactly what doesn't get ranked.

I still land on dealer homepages with a stock Ferrari or Bugatti on them. You don't have that on your lot. All it tells a buyer is that nothing here is real.

Shoot the real thing

The phone you're watching this on shoots better photos than a professional camera did ten years ago. Walk your lot. Shoot the building, the office, the finance desk, the row of cars, a customer with their keys. They don't need to be perfect.

Let AI clean them up

Hand AI a photo of your lot and tell it to optimize the shot for a website hero image. I've taken a Google Maps street view of a dealership and turned it into a usable hero image that way. Then send the whole batch to whoever handles your website.

A buyer who can see your actual building before they drive over shows up already trusting you. That's the point of all of this - the ranking is just how they find you. (Generic text is the same problem - that was Day 4.)

Want to go deeper on building dealer pages that actually rank? See Automotive SEO for car dealers.

New tip every day I walk the dog. Want to find me later? Search "KGI SEO" on Google.