SEO for Car Rental Companies

by Venchito Tampon Jr | Last Updated on July 6, 2023

Today, I’ll cover link building ideas and SEO for car rental companies.

There are a lot of link opportunities you can dive into this vertical besides those common directory and citation links. Let’s start with a strategy with the most plenty of link targets.

 

How to Do SEO for Car Rental Companies

Airport Transport Options

Airport websites normally have pages dedicated to passengers looking for transport options such as taxis, buses, car rentals, and even bicycle rentals.

This is a great link acquisition methodology if you are pursuing high-quality backlinks to your category page (www.domain.com/car-rental) or a sales page dedicated to bookings or reservations.

 

You start this approach by sourcing out available link targets. You can find transport options pages with a few simple Google search queries listed below.

• inurl:”transport options” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• intitle:”transport options” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• “to and from” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• intitle:”public transport” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• “public transport” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”

You have to qualify these pages by understanding the purpose and context of resource pages. For example, some pages will give you a hint that they only link out to major car rental brands (i.e. “here are major car rentals”). So if your car rental company is new, you are less likely to get a link from the links page.

Next thing, be cautious when doing email outreach and make sure you use a corporate email from your car rental company (e.g. venchito@carrental.com)

When reaching out, craft a short email of who you are, what you represent, and why you deserve the link. If you can include customized discount codes in your email (which you also normally give to your active customers), you would have a high likelihood of acquiring the backlink from the transport options page.

Places to Hire a Car and Transport It [Location]

Besides airport websites, tourism blogs and even non-travel sites publish hire a car or transport in [LOCATION]. If you can refine your Google search queries and find them, they can be added backlink opportunities to your outreach list.

You can apply a similar discount code strategy for email outreach to get a better conversion rate.

Getting Here and There Phrases

We all use the same old opportunity phrases for search queries, i.e. inurl:links OR inurl:resources “niche”). So if you’re in the transportation industry, you replace niche with the word “transportation”.

But there are common niche-relevant phrases used as titles and on-page texts on linking pages that aren’t universal.

For example, “getting there” is a common on-page title for related resource page opportunities in the transportation niche.

 

If you can use the exact phrase or any of its variations to find some relevant transportation resource pages, you’ll have better, more suitable link targets for link building. 

Below is a list of transportation search queries you can utilize for Google prospecting:

• “getting around” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• “getting here” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• “getting there” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• “getting to” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• inurl:”getting around” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• inurl:”getting here” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• inurl:”getting there” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”
• inurl:”getting to” [CITY or LOCATION] ~”car rental”

Corporate and Student Discounts

I’ve covered this strategy in my link building guide for hotels, but I’m constantly fascinated with this link building strategy because it also works well for other niches, such as transportation.

Educational institutions publish pages for alumni benefits and discounts which you can take advantage of by reaching out to them and offering your own kind of student discount.

 

Please note that some pages are only dedicated to alumna, while others are for current university or college students. Ensure you have some remarks in your spreadsheet only to offer a particular discount.

Optimize Blog Section

In building more backlinks to your blog content, you first have to identify what topics are mostly being linked to in your space.

Another option is to create new content assets not limited to the specific car rental niche. You can produce tangential content that has a believable tie-in to your brand.

Here’s a recent slide deck of Danielle Boone at Confluence 2018 about leveraging tangential content.

 

Here are some topics you can craftily publish on your blog or as guest post for other related publications.

1. Saving Money on Travel

 

2. Travel Guide

 

3. What to do or things to do in [LOCATION]

 

It is best to use Ahrefs’ Best Pages By Links to spot topics of pages with the highest number of referring domains and use Best Pages By Links Growth to see content assets that get links consistently over time. 

 

SEO For Car Rental Companies FAQs

How do I get leads for my car rental business?

To get leads for your car rental business, consider implementing effective marketing strategies such as optimizing your website for search engines, utilizing social media advertising, offering special promotions, partnering with local businesses, and leveraging online review platforms. Additionally, providing exceptional customer service and maintaining a strong online presence can help attract potential customers and generate leads. Remember to monitor and analyze your marketing efforts to make data-driven improvements. These strategies can help enhance your car rental business’s visibility and attract qualified leads.

How do I get clients for my car rental?

To market your car rental business effectively and get clients, consider creating a strong online presence through a user-friendly website, search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, and targeted online advertising. Implementing social media marketing, competitive pricing, and exceptional customer service will also attract clients to your car rental business.

Who is the biggest car rental aggregator?

The biggest car rental aggregator is enterprise.com. It held the number one position in the Car Rentals category in May 2023, making it the most popular website for car rentals.

How profitable is car rental business?

Car rental businesses typically have low profit margins, with larger companies like Hertz averaging around 0% to 5%. This is because of competition and high fixed and variable costs. However, success can still be achieved through efficient operations and excellent customer service.