I was working with this car dealership in Central Florida – they started out as this little family-owned place in Fruitland Park, selling used cars. Really good people, honest business, but they had big plans to expand.

The Situation When I Started

When this website was handed out to me, they were in an interesting spot. They’d built up a solid reputation locally. You know how it is with car dealerships, word of mouth means everything. But they wanted to open two more locations across Central Florida, and they were smart enough to know they needed their website to actually work for them.

The owner was pretty straightforward about it: “We can’t just rely on people driving by anymore. We need customers finding us online, but we have no idea if our website is doing anything for us.”

So I took a look at what they had going on.

What I Found (And It Wasn’t Pretty)

Honestly, their website was a mess. I mean, it looked okay at first glance, but once you started digging in… yikes.

The site was loading like it was 2005. I’m talking 8-12 second load times. You know how that goes. People are gone before the page even shows up. Then I tried looking at it on my phone and it was basically unusable. Text was tiny, you couldn’t tap buttons properly, and trying to browse their inventory was just painful.

But the real kicker was when I started checking how they showed up in search results. They had maybe 20 people finding them organically each month. For a car dealership. In Florida. That’s… not good.

Getting to Work

I knew we had to start with the basics. No point in trying to get fancy with content strategy when the website barely functions, right?

First Things First – Making It Actually Work

I spent the first few weeks just fixing stuff. Server issues,404 pages, mobile responsiveness problems. Not glamorous work, but necessary. The load times went from 8+ seconds down to under 3. The mobile experience became actually usable.

You know what’s funny? Just fixing those basic issues started bringing in more leads immediately. Turns out people were visiting the site before, they just couldn’t stick around long enough to contact them.

Then I Worked on the Search Visibility

This is where it got interesting. They had three locations they wanted to rank for, but I had to be careful not to have them competing against each other in search results.

I started mapping out what people in each area were actually searching for. Turns out folks in Fruitland Park were searching for different terms than people in their other target cities. Makes sense when you think about it – different demographics, different needs.

I updated their vehicle pages with proper structured data so Google could understand what they were selling. Added location-specific schema for each dealership. Fixed their internal linking so everything connected logically.

The content needed work too. Everything was generic “we sell cars” stuff. I rewrote it to speak to each local market specifically, using the actual terms people in those areas were searching for.

The Ongoing Work

Here’s the thing about SEO. It’s not a one-and-done deal. I set up monthly reporting so we could track what was working and what wasn’t. Every quarter, I’d adjust the strategy based on what the data was telling us.

Some months were better than others, but the trend was consistently upward. Each location started gaining traction in their local search results. The lead forms started getting filled out more regularly.

What Happened Next

The results were honestly better than I expected. Over the course of the year, organic traffic went up 70%. But more importantly, the quality of that traffic improved dramatically. We saw a 61% increase in actual leads.

Each location found its footing online. Instead of cannibalizing each other, they were each dominating their local markets. The owner told me they went from maybe 5-6 online leads per month to 15-20 quality leads per month, per location.

Why I Think It Worked

Looking back, I think a few things made the difference:

I fixed the foundation first. Too many people want to jump straight to content and link building without making sure the site actually works. But if people can’t use your website, nothing else matters.

I focused on local intent. These weren’t trying to compete with CarMax or AutoNation nationally. They were local dealerships serving local communities. The strategy had to reflect that.

I kept it data-driven. Every decision was based on what the search data and user behavior was telling us, not just what sounded good in theory.

I stayed patient. SEO takes time. The owner was great about understanding that – he could see the monthly improvements and trusted the process.

What I Learned

This project taught me a lot about multi-location SEO. Each location needs its own strategy, but they also need to work together as a cohesive whole. It’s a balancing act.

I also learned that in the automotive space, mobile optimization isn’t optional – it’s critical. People are literally sitting in parking lots comparing dealerships on their phones.

The structured data piece was huge too. When people search for specific makes and models, having that information properly marked up makes a real difference in click-through rates.

The Bigger Picture

What I love about this project is that it shows how SEO can directly impact business growth. This wasn’t just about rankings or traffic numbers. It was about giving them the confidence to expand their business.

If you’re running a multi-location business and your website feels like dead weight instead of a growth engine, I get it. It’s frustrating to invest in a website that doesn’t deliver results. But with the right approach (fixing the technical issues, focusing on local search intent, and staying consistent with optimization), you can turn that around.

The key is understanding that your website should be working as hard as you are to bring in customers. When it’s not, every day you wait is potential revenue walking out the door.

Want to know more about how this approach might work for your business? I’d be happy to take a look at what you’ve got going on and give you my honest assessment of where the opportunities are.