8,296
sessions/month
Exclusive Webinar: Inventory Recovery: How OEMs are Rebalancing Supply and What You Can Do About ItRegister Now
The Results
205%
Increase in organic traffic
68%
Increase in organic leads
6000
Organic sessions from a single blog post
The Client
Jim Burke Ford is a dealership in Bakersfield, California with a strong local reputation and deep community ties. By late 2024, their digital presence wasn’t matching their offline reputation, and they were losing potential customers to competitors who showed up first in search results.
The Challenge
Traffic that wasn’t converting
Jim Burke Ford’s website had around 8,000 sessions a month, but most of it wasn’t leading anywhere. Lead volume was flat, and the content wasn’t built to attract or convert local car buyers.
Generic content that blended in
Like most dealerships, they relied on OEM-fed content: the same copy dozens of other dealerships use, with no geographic targeting, no differentiation, and no connection to what Bakersfield shoppers were actually searching for.
No path from content to conversion
Even when users found the site, they weren’t taking action. The content didn’t answer real questions or guide visitors toward a service appointment, vehicle page, or form fill.
What they needed:
- Organic sessions to grow from 8,000 to 10,000 per month
- Organic leads to increase from 166 to 200 per month
- Content that helped local buyers and converted them into leads
Our Approach
Campaign Structure: Equipment First, Location Second
By digging into Google Search Console and Ahrefs, we uncovered dozens of high-intent queries Bakersfield drivers were asking that no dealership was answering.
These weren’t “Ford dealer near me” searches. They were real, overlooked questions:
What they needed:
- “How do I turn off Ford MyKey without the admin key?”
- “What’s the difference between the Aviator and Palisade?”
- “What do these Ford warning lights mean?”
We built content around these exact needs, turning the site into a genuine resource instead of another digital showroom.
Traffic growth over six months
Lead growth over six months
Their original goals were a 25% traffic increase and 20% lead increase.
We more than tripled both.
35%
Increase in new leads
Technical SEO and Site Optimization
- Regular technical audits focused on inventory pages, service descriptions, and model-specific content
- Updated meta descriptions, headers, and content structure for better keyword targeting
- Strategic internal linking from high-traffic informational pages to sales-focused pages
When someone landed on the MyKey article, they had a clear path to explore inventory or schedule service.
Local Link Building
We identified unlinked mentions of Jim Burke Ford across local news sites and conducted outreach to convert those brand mentions into backlinks. These efforts targeted community events and sponsorships the dealership was already involved in, reinforcing their local credibility while improving SEO performance.
View Services
Honestly, our organic traffic compared to other dealerships is kind of embarrassing for everybody else—we’re 10 times or more the size of most dealerships. It’s pretty awesome.”
Daniel Green
Jim Burke Ford
Let's Talk About Your Dealership's SEO
If your website traffic isn’t converting, or you’re stuck with generic content that looks like every other dealer in town, we can help.
Get Your Free Automotive SEO Audit