11 posts tagged “automotive seo”
Friends, I owe you all an apology. This blog, which according to analytics has had a nice amount of traffic over the last several months, has gone terribly inactive. With my workload expanding and new adventures starting helping others improve their status, I have simply had much less time than I would have liked to blog.
That will be changing.
Now.
With my old automotive SEO video desperately needing an update, that will be the first priority. I will shoot more of a tutorial rather than rely on the interview itself. We are rolling out a more comprehensive social media package for car dealers that will greatly increase the visibility for all involved.
Perhaps most importantly (to you) I will be dedicating myself to post at least one blog post a week to help those in the industry, whether automotive or search engine optimization, to learn and grow in this every-changing realm.
Come back soon!
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Read more about car dealer SEO on this blog.
Last month on Driving Sales, we discussed the recent changes that Google has made as well as some of the changes that they are planning on making in the near future. While the article was good from a generic perspective, the question still needs to be answered:
"How will these changes make a difference in Automotive SEO?"
There is more to it than that, though. Google's changes will affect the way people search and what they are offered for results, but the manufacturers are changing their policies as well. Many are starting to force dealers to stay within their market area by not including cities and other geographical locations within the content and meta-tags on their websites. For just about every website provider and automotive search engine optimization company out there, this will pose tremendous problems.
TK Carsites is ready to face the challenge.
We have analyzed both the data that we've received from Google and the specifications requirements listed by the manufacturers and we have a plan to be able to get our dealers the rankings that they want to be able to compete. People are willing to drive longer distances in today's world simply because the Internet allows them to browse a wider area. If their perfect vehicle at the perfect price is an hour away, the Internet allows them to do just about everything they need to do to secure it. What's an extra 30 minute drive if it will save someone a few hundred dollars or give them the exact vehicle that they want?
Because this is a blog that is visible to the public, we will not go into details here about our strategy. It isn't that it's difficult, but it does require a lot of effort. As a company that puts the majority of our effort into marketing our dealers' websites, we know that our techniques will be effective and they will yield results.
Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions: 949-310-1727 or jrucker@tkcarsites.com
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Read more about Automotive SEO on this blog.
Search engine optimization has been a thorn to many manufacturers. They want their stores to be ranked for generic searches such as New Car Dealers Springfield or New Trucks in Oklahoma City, but they don't want them to compete into each other's market area.
What has been pushed for a long time - competing with other dealers of the same make - may be coming to an end for some brands, particularly imports. Honda has started restricting what dealers can put on their websites. They don't want them straying away from their market areas. They don't mind a Honda dealership ranking well for Used Cars Shreveport or Used Cars Minneapolis, but when it comes to their brands, they want you to stay close to home.
It even goes into their other products such as service and parts. Toyota Service Minneapolis is a no-no as a keyword for a dealership outside of that market area. This makes it tough for dealers whose market area is lightly populated. Take Griffith Toyota, for example. They are in Oregon, but they are outside of the Portland Toyota Dealers market area and soon, it's possible that they won't be able to mention Portland on their website.
Same holds true for First Honda, who is 40 miles north of Los Angeles. It would be nice to rank for Los Angeles Honda Dealers where they would be able to pull thousands of visitors, but it is difficult with the current rules. Even someone to the south like Orange County Toyota Dealers would love to rank in LA. The question is - will they be allowed?
While all of this makes it harder for car dealers to get ahead of their competition, the manufacturers are seeing it as a negative. What they fail to realize is that, with record-low sales of new cars, competition is a good thing. Chances are strong that a dealership savvy enough to know the value of SEO and that is willing to invest in it is probably the type of dealer that should be getting the traffic. They are more likely to understand what it takes to sell a car in today's market.
Selling them short will be a big mistake.
Read more automotive SEO advice on this blog.
After speaking to Paul Rushing, Community Development Manager at Driving Sales, it's apparent that one aspect of the automotive social network is definitely heading in the right direction.
Giving the ability for people in the automotive industry to share their expertise with other interested people, specifically dealers, is one of the best things that has come out for the industry in a while. Car dealers are often a little behind the curve when it comes to what is fresh and new on the Internet. The automotive blogs at Driving Sales gives everyone a chance to get caught up.
"We're building a community, plain and simple," said Rushing. The goal is to offer a venue for dealers and vendors to exchange ideas and discuss what it will take to turn business around in the volatile market that we are in."
Whether you are looking for a Car Dealer SEO blog, a car sales advice blog, or a general car business blog, Driving Sales has expert advice for everyone in the industry.
Read more automotive SEO advice right here.
With so many automotive search engine optimization firms out there selling their products and with a lack of available knowledge about how automotive SEO really works, it has become very difficult for car dealers to know the difference between a true search engine optimization company and one that is selling a cheap product.
First off, let me say that price doesn't say a whole lot. Sometimes, the best services are inexpensive and the worthless ones are very expensive.
With that out of the way, let's discuss what accounts for arguably 80% of the real value, the true "juice" in search engine optimization. It's all about the links. There's no question. It's not even an argument.
Properly formatted links from automotive-related, well-established sites -- those are the real ticket to search engine success. For example, a link that says Used Cars New Hampshire is helping to rank the target site for that term. Sure, the content, tags, and linking structure internally have an effect, but that's the easy part. The things that are done on the site are set up and let go from the beginning with occasional tweaks. In the whole scheme of things, it only accounts for 20% of what search engines look for.
No, search engines want inbound links form outside sites. They want to see properly written content such as this:
"When you are in Connecticut, the place to go for your next Acura would be the local Acura Dealers in Hartford where price and good customer service breed success."
That, in its basic form, is a portion of an article that will have more effect on the search engine rankings for this dealer than anything else they do on the site. By posting relevant and unique stories to blogs, article sites, and press release providers, you stand the best chance of moving up.
Format is important. If you want to rank for your brand in a particular city, you will use an anchor tag format that highlights the keyword as the link itself. For example, using other members of the same auto group, you would put links in an automotive story that would contextually include Dodge Dealers in Hartford, Hartford Saturn Dealers, Kia Dealers in Hartford, and Hartford Nissan Dealers in the text of the article.
For dealer groups, they may want to include their splash page in the mix. "For the largest selection of new and pre-owned automobiles in the area, visit Hartford New Car Dealers and find out how we make things happen for our customers.
That's it. There is nothing to it. Of course, it's the work that has been done of the months and years that truly makes the difference. Creating a blog today and starting to post links will have minimal effect becaue they have no history or relevance. They are not trusted yet by the search engines. You have to find a company that already has established a strong web presence across the board. The better they maintain their own web properties, the easier it will be for them to optimize your site.
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Read more automotive SEO articles on this blog.
Sometimes, finding the best resources to use for a given task is more challenging than performing the task itself. In the case of search engine optimization, especially for the automotive industry, this is ever so true.
First, here's a video that will describe what we do and how we do it in the realm of automotive seo:
Sometimes, the best advice is a quick read away. Here are some articles that will help you in your quest for the ultimate in search engine optimization for car dealers.
This "oldie but a goodie" from PromotionWorld was once the highlighted story on the front page. Since then, it has been viewed over 2500 times by people interested in the Myths Surrounding Automotive SEO. In it, you will learn some of the tactics that various vendors use to promote their products or downplay the products of others.
This, too, is an older one, but all of it still applies. Things can get ugly in car dealer SEO, and this article points out some of the things that make it bad sometimes. Don't worry - we only practice the good stuff here.
For a more basic overview, here are some automotive SEO FAQs. This is very basic stuff, but hey, you have to start somewhere.
Microsites are starting to pop up everywhere. This article that talks about SEO for Automotive Microsites is a quick but informative read.
Sometimes, it isn't how you optimize but for which keywords you optimize. When picking out automotive keywords, having a strong Car Dealer SEO keyword strategy can be the first step to driving the right traffic to your site.
Looking for more basics? Why not start with this article about automotive SEO basics? It just makes sense, right?
Sometimes, SEO is not the complete package. This article that goes into detail about general Automotive Internet Marketing talks about the other aspects beyond SEO that can drive visitors to site and help turn them into leads (and eventually sales).
There is so much more that needs to be said, but this is a good start. By the time you're done reading them, there will probably be more listed here. If not, check out the other articles on this automotive seo blog. See you around!
Everyone has an opinion. Which is better, SEO or SEM? Some say search engine optimization is the way to go, getting great rankings on the natural listings of searches. Others say being at the very top through the paid search sponsored results will get more leads.
The real answer is, “Yes”.
In today’s extremely competitive automotive internet marketing world, it pays to invest in both SEO and SEM. The ever-so-important factor is in finding the right company who understands the car business, understands the car buyers, understands the dealer’s website, and knows how to position both SEO and SEM properly.
They are not competing disciplines and should work in conjunction with each other. SEO takes time, so if a website isn’t optimized already, it is imperative with any launch to have some sort of search engine presence. PPC marketing is the best and fastest way to achieve this.
Once the website is found on the search engines, a lower budget for search marketing may be in order. Some dealers choose to never pull the SEM plug, as a lead through PPC marketing often costs under $10. Compared to 3rd party lead providers, this is dirt cheap, even less than half of what dealers pay for their 3rd party leads.
Just look at the lead providers themselves. How do they do it? They create sponsored ads, micro-sites, and portals to draw the customer in. Then, they start a PPC campaign. If they are paying $6-$10 per lead, it makes sense for them to charge the dealer over $20. Why? Because so many dealers will pay it.
So where does that leave SEO? If SEM will get cheap leads, what can SEO do? Optimizing a website to place at the top of the search engine results pages under the natural listings will get more leads for cheaper.
On average, 60% of internet shoppers and researchers will click on the natural listings if they are not looking for a specific website. While it takes longer to get ranked on the organic search, it can be more rewarding. Also, the investment is normally lower in the long run.
Many firms operate under the assumption that SEO and SEM are competing markets. It’s the few who do both (and do them well) that truly understand what making the most out of search engines really means.
UPDATE
There has been a disagreement recently between dealer.com and Paul Rushing over whether or not search engine optimization can be used for quick rankings. As a proof of concept, Rushing posted an article about Dealer.com Search Engine Optimization vs SEO. That was this morning. Within two hours, it was ranked #1 on Google for "Dealer.com Search Engine Marketing" as well as being ranked on the front page of Google for several other searches. While we respect both Dealer.com and Paul Rushing, this is one that can definitely be chalked up as a victory for Rushing.
Two new words are emerging in the English language and spreading across the world like the Macarena. Okay, that was a slight exaggeration, but I want to introduce these two search engine optimization terms to you nonetheless.
Glinks refers to Google’s love of links. Earlier this year, I tested an established website that had under 25 words of content and no meta tags on the front page. Its title tag was a single word, the name of the company, and there was no way for a spider or bot to determine what the page was about.
In a month and a half of concentrated, advanced link building, I took the site to the front page of several medium-competition terms (1,000-50,000 monthly searches) and achieved #1 ranking for several of those terms. MSN gave the website even stronger results.
After two months, the results stuck. On Yahoo!, the website was nowhere to be found.
The website had three major assets working in its favor before I started building links. The domain had been live and registered to the same company since 1998. The registration was held until 2014. Finally, while it only had 3 inbound links, 1 of those links was a PR7 .edu homepage link.
Simultaneously, I ran a similar test with another website. It, too, was aged, had only a couple of links that were strong, and didn’t have content or tags until I touched it. I proceeded to load it with content, throw in appropriate tags, and worked on the internal linking. No inbound links were created.
After 2 months, it was at the top of its keywords on Yahoo!. It was nowhere to be found on Google or MSN.
Glinks and Yontent. Most good SEOs are familiar with this. For those who weren’t, here you go.
This article brought to you by the automotive marketing team for Hollywood Honda, Los Angeles Kia, and Glendale Nissan. In California, buying an import car, truck, or SUV is the best way to go.
Perhaps more importantly, this article brought to you by those who don't like seeing poor SEO tactics (other than those who are competitors.
Car dealer websites often miss one of the most obvious parts of their website that can help them in Google rankings. The funny part is, it isn't even part of their website.
Google sitemaps are one of the easiest ways to get pages within a website indexed. By indexed, I mean that Google goes through the page and puts it in its listings based upon where it thinks the page belongs. Without indexing, a page will never be found on the Google search engine ranking pages.
Keep one important thing in mind -- if your automotive SEO is really good, then submitting a sitemap to Google will not be necessary. The on-page sitemap should get indexed and should include everything that the SEO wants indexed. Links can also get a page indexed, especially ones from an authority site. Still, the majority of automotive SEOs and car dealer website design firms are not really good, so having them make and submit a proper sitemap is one way to ensure that it works.
Click Here to read the article with instructions on creating a Google sitemap.
After sitting in on several Content Gathering Sessions where auto dealers discuss what they want on their website as it is being created, I have come to a few conclusions.
Flashy
So far, only a handful of dealers care about what their website says. Bottom line, as most car dealers are "bottom liners", is that they really want the best looking websites in their market, while content is pretty much irrelevant.
There have been a handful of dealers who take complete control of their content, word for word, but generally, I would be surprised if they actually read any of the content. If the homepage is eye-catching, that's all that really matters. From a designer and an automotive search engine optimization point of view, this is ideal.
A great looking site the is considered cutting edge in the area of flash is Hollywood Honda Dealers. Having their inventory pop up immediately is a nice feature that many dealers are utilizing.
2005
Most dealers are trying to put content on their site that would have optimized it in 2004 or 2005. This is not their fault. Most automotive web design firms use antiquated methods to optimize their websites. SEO is such a dynamic artform that it takes too much research for car dealers and their designers to keep up to date.
Leads
Car dealers don't care what it takes, as long as they are getting leads. From an SEO and design point of view, this is also an ideal stance. Just as many dealership lots are poorly designed, so too would their websites be if they ha complete control of their websites. This isn't a knock against dealers -- they are in the business of selling cars, not architecture and website design.
Most research shows two different kinds of website viewers. There are the Z viewers who look at the top left, move their perspective to the right, then cut diagonally down to the bottom left and back over to the right. See Toledo Pontiac Dealers to see how this looks.
The other kind of standard viewer uses the F style. Top left to top right, then top left down to bottom left, then middle left to middle right. Albuquerque used cars is a perfect example of F-style format.
Either way, dealers will try to show as much as possible in the middle, but for true lead building, it is best to put the lead generating buttons to fit one of the two design structures.
Conclusions
Designing automotive websites is not rocket science. Dealers who go after a good look and feel but who utilize the expertise of their designers (assuming they have a good designer) is their best bet.
