Mark Gittelman is the car content writer. And before you hire somebody to write automotive content it’s a good idea to find out more about them. Many automotive journalists are just that. They went to school for long periods of time and learned about writing more than they did about the automobile.
Therefore, this lack of technical knowledge leaves them at a disadvantage. Especially when they try to write about auto repair or car repair shops. In fact, an automotive journalist often feels more comfortable when writing about new cars and the driving experience. With that said, a successful car content writer in the auto repair space needs the experience of actually turning wrenches and get their hands dirty.
Experienced Auto Repair Writer
In 1984, I gained a sponsorship from a local Pontiac dealership and enrolled in the first year of the General Motors ASEP program. While attending classes at the community college I took coursework in technical writing.
After receiving an Associate’s degree I decided that working on Pontiac cars is what I wanted to do. I spent the next 30 years working at a variety of dealerships and private auto repair centers. At the end of my career, I worked for a county repair shop that focused on fleet maintenance of dump trucks, ambulances and buses.
Working on this heavy equipment pushed me into an early retirement. I saw the writing on the wall a few years before I actually retired. With the back giving out, how could I pay my bills and take care of my family. The answer became obvious.
Time to Start the Car Writing
It was time to start writing about the automobile instead of fixing it. I launched a network of automotive sites in 2005 through 2007. These automotive websites provided complete solutions to automotive problems. We discovered early that when you provide exactly what the searcher is looking for, they don’t return to the search engine for additional information. This became known as a low bounce rate.
In other words, the search engine thinks that you provided exactly what that person was looking for and rewards you with higher rankings when the next person searches for those keyword terms. Although we found success in ranking individual pages we didn’t earn a whole lot of money. This is when I decided to write content for others.
In this section, you can click on a few links and see some examples of my writing style and see if it’s what you’re looking for. I started writing for answers.com and provided specific articles about do-it-yourself auto repair. When that website decided to move in a different direction, we secured a position with about.com writing for their classic cars section.
Read the Classic Car Articles
This company has now moved those articles to a different section they call thought.co. In the about.com environment not only did I write the articles, but I also formatted them, crafted meta-descriptions and titles and then posted them to the web. My prior experience with building successful websites and getting the on page factors right helped those pages rank quickly.
When their ad revenue took a dip the company changed hands. They let the automotive division go to focus on what was making money.
You can take a look at the thought.co classic car section and read through the more than 200 articles I posted. Moving on from about.com I took a car writer gig with Car Fax. This is where we learned something important about automotive SEO.
They had me writing articles for other car related websites that provided a link back to their main site. This is an important part of the story as it relates to auto repair shop search engine optimization. The posting and social networking of those posted articles pushed Car Fax higher in the rankings. You can take a look at an example of one of these automotive project articles. Scroll to the bottom of those articles and see how the linking worked.
The Car Content Writer Every Day
A few years ago a media company made me an offer on the network of car sites I built that I couldn’t refuse. Despite the website being built on a legacy platform the pages continued to outrank the competition for important keyword phrases. This led me to believe that it was more about the content than just about any other ranking factor. When you help somebody fix their problem search engines know it by analyzing user data.
In fact, they understand that this is the page to show someone for specific answers. The media company tried to outrank my old sites for some coveted keywords. When they realized that it wasn’t possible they decided to make an offer that I eventually accepted. After the transaction I realized that I wasn’t ready to retire and I missed having a website of my own to work on and grow.
I started a website called FixMyOldRide.com where we focused on common problems affecting vehicles in the 10-year-old range. You can visit the mark the mechanic page and watch a short video to gain additional information about my auto repair certifications. I didn’t expect to receive any rankings with a new website.
How Long Does it Take a New Site to Rank
It’s generally believed that it takes a few years for a new site to start ranking on the first page for long tail phrases. Sticking to my content creation plan I continued to build pages that provided solid answers to common problems. To my surprise we have about 20 percent of the total pages ranking in the top 20 after only eight months.
In fact, for specific automotive problems we’ve reached ranking in the top five for those specific keyword phrases. This only strengthens my resolve that it’s the quality content guidelines we stick to that remains the most important part of automotive SEO. When you provide the solution and answer all the questions the searcher doesn’t return to do additional searches. These metrics are one of the most important ranking factors.