4 posts tagged “automotive websites”
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.
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.
It was once possible for a good search engine optimizer to visit dozens, even hundreds of blogs per week and get links from them by posting comments. Nofollow has made comment posting nearly worthless across the board.
Now the theory is, if you can't comment on a blog, build your own.
It is possible and effective for car dealers to create or have someone create a dealership blog that not only brings the all-important link, but also directed the more-important traffic to the dealers' websites directly. This isn't a new tactic, but for many car dealers across the country, it's a novel idea and they're glad they thought of it.
Creating blogs is easy. Getting them indexed is more difficult. Making them popular is hard. Turning them into a viable source of traffic and increasing its status as an authority site with high trust rank in the huge automotive arena is nearly impossible for those who don't know exactly what they are doing and who are willing to spend the time to make it happen.
Automotive blogs like American Car Dealers, Autoblog, Carspace, and DriversDrive are excellent examples of how automotive blogs should look and feel. As you can see, some are very simple and straighforward, while others have a dedicated staff plugging in contact and fixing issues that arise on a heavy traffic website.
No matter what you want to do with your website, get into blogging, even if only on a limited scale. The juice from it can be great, but more importantly, the traffic that you can get can be even greater.
