Five trends, and all five still hold at least in part. Answer shoppers' common questions directly on your landing pages, give every image a descriptive file name and alt text, keep your local listing complete so you show up in Google Maps, and build trust with evergreen content and replies to reviews. Only the voice-search advice has partly dated, because it was written around assistants like Google Assistant, which Google is retiring on most phones. I first wrote about dealership SEO in November 2024; this post carries it into 2026.
In November 2024 I wrote an article on dealership SEO for Adpearance, where I worked at the time. This post carries those ideas into 2026: five things a dealership's website can do so more nearby shoppers find it in search and choose it.
Answer shoppers' questions directly
Search engines now put an AI-written summary at the top of many results, like Google's AI Overviews. Google says there is nothing special to do to appear in them, so the best preparation is plain good writing: take the questions shoppers ask most often and answer each one clearly, near the top of the landing page it belongs to, under a heading that says what the section covers. A page built that way is easier for a shopper to read and easier for a summary to quote.
Five dealership trends, one piece each
Each piece stands for one of the five trends: AI summaries, voice search, images, local listings and trust.
Describe your images in words
Photos do a lot of the work on a dealership site. Google reads an image both from what it shows and from the words around it. Give each one a descriptive file name and alt text that says what it shows, and compress it so the page still loads quickly.
Keep your local listing complete
A dealership sells to people nearby who are already shopping. To show up when they search, including in Google Maps, fill in every detail your Google Business Profile asks for, like your address, phone number, hours and category, and keep it and your other directory listings accurate. My post on why local SEO is underrated covers the rest of a local plan.
Build trust that lasts
Trust comes from two habits. The first is evergreen content, posts that stay useful long after they're published, like car maintenance tips, vehicle comparisons and financing advice. The second is replying to customer reviews. Google's own help page says a reply shows customers you value their feedback, and other shoppers see it too.
Advice written for voice assistants has dated
The original advice was to write for assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, because a question asked out loud tends to be longer and more specific than a typed one. What dated is the assistant: in March 2025 Google said the classic Google Assistant will no longer be available on most phones, as Gemini replaces it. That retires a product, not people asking questions out loud, so the table below marks it as holding only in part.
First published on my old site January 28, 2026 and moved here October 11, 2026.
