The van and car rental market is having to adapt to the new normal like any other industry in the UK. While customers are changing their traveling and holiday habits, and rental companies are adapting to meet this changing demand, there is one thing that hasn’t changed - vehicle rentals must continue to perfect, improve and grow their website traffic to ensure business success.
Getting positive, effective traffic to your website is absolutely central to your company’s operation. But, high volume traffic to your website does not necessarily mean that’s the right traffic. Getting quality visitors to your website, and converting them into customers or potential customers is the aim, and there are a number of things you can do to guarantee your site is visible, informative, engaging and inspiring to your potential customer.
What is good website traffic?
Good website traffic can simply be described as visitors to your site who are interested in your services and want to make a purchase from you. It’s critical to remember that they may not necessarily make a purchase during that visit: what you want to do is provide well branded, easy to understand and relevant information to your visitor to encourage them to trust your firm and do business with your firm. This traffic is quality traffic.
What is bad website traffic?
These are visitors to your site that have no need of your services, have been redirected or accidentally found your site, or are potential customers that are unimpressed with your site and cannot find what they were looking for. This last point especially is particularly destructive to companies, and this typical visitor - the “click on/click off” visitor - is aggregated as a “bounceback” or “bounce rate”. The higher your bounce rate, generally the lower quality visitors you have.
So what can car and van rental companies do to encourage quality traffic to their website?
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and brand amplification via Social Media
Use the tools Google gives you for free! You can claim a free Google Business Profile once you set your company up, and on that profile you can set your company photo, website link, category, address, number, reviews, travel sites and include as many key words as necessary to start building some good SEO.
The review section on your Google Business page is critical, as new customers especially will search for the “best rated” rental companies in your area before making a rental decision.
You can then promote this page on your social media platforms via your business handle. A well-managed, visible business page will rank your website higher on Google, and encourage visitors.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation differs from SEM in that the specific wording, language, semantic descriptions and content on your page are found, or “indexed” by search engines as more or less relevant to your audience search criteria. The better your SEO, the higher your will rank for relevance, the more customers you will have.
You can afford to be specific. For example, use geographical descriptions on your pages to make sure you’re indexed by search engines in your area, IE “best car rental company in Essex”.
Also, incorporate questions into your copy, for example: “How can I rent a car without going to the rental counter” or “Are there keyless car rental companies in Scotland?”. Typically, companies will build an FAQ section on their website to include high ranking SEO questions.
Other key considerations here are meta-descriptions on your pages, keywords, on-page SEO, content marketing and other facets of your website “health” such as website load time and relevant images used.
Use images on website and landing page as customers prefer visuals
Your rental customers are overwhelmingly happier and more engaged with your brand and business with images on your website. Use them strategically to reflect your service, market your credentials, highlight and promote your fleet or better communicate your testimonials.
Mobile-friendly website
Mobile devices account for approximately half the world’s web traffic. Your customers will expect to have a website optimised for mobile viewing, and they will do business with you, enquire after your services or save your page for future consideration, if your site is usable in this manner.
Regular Email marketing...but not too much
Prompt your existing marketing base, or converted social media base, to visit your site through regular, but not too frequent, email marketing campaigns. There is an art to email campaigns, so do your research, encourage follow through with discounts or deals and make sure everything is GDPR compliant.
Prompt interactions on customer reviews and feedback for word-of-mouth publicity and return visits
Use your Google business page for reviews; encourage reviews on Facebook; build a referral system that’s sharable and connectable online, and reply to everyone. Your customers want to feel engaged with your brand. They want real time, real life relationships with the companies they do business with. Offer a “personality” to your customers and interact as often as possible.
Showcase your business through white label applications
For those rental companies using apps (such as Coastr’s), being able to use “White Label” brands is a critical tool in your marketing arsenal. Being able to put your own bespoke branding on a pre-made app offers an incredibly strong brand image to your customer base, and will encourage brand advocacy and circular traffic through app to site and back again.
If you would like to know more about how you can perfect and optimise your van and car rental social media strategy, please download our free Social Media Kit!
