Richard Hardie, the North East dealer group, has improved its natural search ranking on Google after launching a programme to improve search engine optimisation (SEO).

The group represents Fiat, Abarth and Peugeot with sites in Sunderland, Durham, Ashington and Newcastle Silverlink and has improved its Google results position from 12.62 to 6.88 and its bounce rate has reduced by 70.5% in one month. This means more customers are visiting Richard Hardie’s website and then exploring more areas of the website before leaving.

The group appointed automotive digital marketing company RAZSOR to help the business improve its SEO.

The improvements focussed on improving directory listings, content creation, social media and link building.

Sarah Baggott, marketing executive at Richard Hardie said: "We have learnt the hard way that SEO is the key for any business to succeed and unless you do it right, it just won’t deliver the results."