How Your Backlink Profile Affects Your Dealer Website SEO

How to Earn High Quality Backlinks

Before requesting links, ensure you have content worth linking to. Create link‑worthy content such as how‑to guides, brand and model explainers, buying advice, finance FAQs, local dealership news, case studies, and rich media (video and imagery). The goal is to offer genuine value so other sites want to reference your pages.

Partnerships can also help. Consider mutually beneficial initiatives with complementary local businesses (for example, detailers, tyre centres, rider clubs, caravan parks), manufacturer or supplier references, community sponsorships, or charity events. Competitions and giveaways can work well if the benefit is clear to both audiences.

Backlink Research: Know Your Competition

You probably know your competing dealers — but do you know where they earn links? Competitive backlink research reveals the sites, directories, and publications that reference them. Use those insights to identify gaps and opportunities so you can strengthen your link acquisition plan and outrank competitors in the SERPs.

A Word of Caution

Reciprocal linking (“you link to me, I’ll link to you”), paid links, private blog networks, and spam comments can trigger search engine penalties. If there’s no clear user value or the link looks manipulative, it can harm performance and reduce rankings. Where links are paid or promotional, use appropriate attributes such as rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" and focus your efforts on editorial, relevant, high quality links.

Best Practice Checklist

• Prioritise relevance and authority over volume.
• Target pages you actually want to rank (not just the homepage).
• Use natural, descriptive anchor text (avoid exact‑match stuffing).
• Keep your content fresh so it remains link‑worthy.
• Monitor new and lost links to protect your profile over time.