One Dealership of infinite possibilties
April 28, 2008 by admin
Wanted to take advantage of message by Seth Godin in one of his recent blogs. The blog touches on the subject of how Search, or search engines, makes the infinite more finite. It’s a valid point. The masses have come to rely on search engines for helping to initiate or at least narrow down a person’s infinite number of choices. But what does this mean for businesses?
Businesses, Car Dealerships included, can not be everywhere in Search and so you must be selective about where you position your website. If you focus entirely on where your competition is then you are missing out on opportunities to reach market share where you competition is not. By the same token, if you focus solely on where your competition is not then you will miss out on a lot of your market share. Alas, you need a balanced strategy for both.
This is where data and research become important. There is data available and there are tools that are accessible for determining where and how to position your website. For instance, Axandra and Web CEO which are two of the more popular software programs for researching and managing SEO (and to some extent your PPC efforts). There are also good online tools such as Webmaster Toolkit which are good for researching Search Markets too.
Car Dealerships have two choices…they can invest time and training into utilizing these tools effectively, or else they can rely on trusting providers to assist with or even manage these things on their behalf. Regardless, someone needs to be on top of these things in order for dealerships to thrive in today’s online marketplaces. For Dealers that do rely on providers to do this, which is the majority, they still need to be responsible for where and how these providers do position their dealer customer websites.
It’s all about supply and demand and while you do want to position your site where there is an abundance of demand, you also want to position yourself where there is little supply. You can obtain a lot of market share by positioning your site in spaces that are frequented and not saturated with suppliers.
So when it comes to Search Engine Marketing for Car Dealers, remember that you do not need to be everywhere for everyone. You do need however, a well-balanced mixture of visibility within your competitor markets and the market spaces where you can be the bright and shiny star in a galaxy of infinite possibilities.
Shouts out to Andy at Vinart for forwarding the Godin article.
Eye of Google
December 26, 2007 by admin
When it comes to the idea of Big Brother, Google really tops the list these days. Google knows more about your website than you do, which makes search engine marketing all that more interesting because even when you are implementing ineffective or harmful methods of which you are not aware, Google and the other engines know it.
Achieving SEO is not terribly difficult. There are some basics you should understand and some no-no practices that are published by Google. Beyond that it is more a matter of diligence. Like sports there is preparation, training, game time, and analysis involved with SEO. Do you want it more than your competitors and if so then how hard are you willing to work for it?
Diligence in regards to SEO comes from producing regular quality content written in a way that puts emphasis on the keywords and phrases you are targeting. Your content should also be natural. One method I find useful is choosing a message or topic and then writing about it for several ways, or numerous times over the course of a few weeks.
Blogs are useful for this, but unless people are commenting on your posts from other sites then your link backs may not be rich. You can publish articles on your website and then build static link backs to those from relevant sites. Of course, interesting content is ultimately what draws readership.
The ultimate no-no, and one that I find surprisingly ignored, is when people attempt to trick, fool, or cheat the search bots. Any sort of tomfoolery or black hat method is guaranteed to result in your site being penalized or having it completely banned from Google. The best SEO is the open and transparent type intended to be perfectly clear with the engines what you are set to achieve.
Whether you do your own SEO or outsource it, or a little bit of both, make sure the methods being applied are consistent, persistent, and legitimate. Your SEO technique is an extension of your business, your product, and you need trust and credibility with the engines and your customers.
[tags]automotive seo, search engine optimization, black hat, link back, natural, organic, methodology, technique, Google[/tags]
Dealers that get it
December 18, 2007 by admin
As stated in previous posts, the idea of brand marketing is not a new concept for car dealers. They have been doing it off line for decades with conventional advertising such as radio, TV, and print. But the car business has manifested in such a limited way on the Internet with its emphasis on conversion and lead generation that when you talk about online brand marketing it can be difficult for dealers to grasp.
“How can I measure the number of leads/sales I get from showing up high in the search results?” is one question often asked.
The great thing about marketing your business online by way of Search is YOU CAN MEASURE its impact through what is known as quantification.
When you advertise your autos on 3rd party sites such as Autotrader.com and Cars.com, not only can you expect leads to come in by way of vehicle inquiries from these sites, but also you can expect increased traffic to your website and your showroom because these shoppers also seek you out virtually and physically. Tracking the increased business not accounted for as email leads is a challenge, but as time goes on you should be able to “quantify” a general increase in business for your retail center which you can attribute some, if not all of it to your 3rd Party subscription depending on your other marketing efforts. The reason why is because by subscribing to these 3rd Party sites you not only benefit from lead generation, but you also are benefiting residually from limited forms of online brand marketing.
With Search Engine Brand Marketing you have the inverse. Your purpose is to create long-term residual online brand awareness of your business by way of Search Marketing, Link Building, and Social Media. Although you can expect to see an increase in leads from your website, you also can expect a general increase in business everywhere else, including on your 3rd-Party lead generator subscriptions. Your success however is not measured by the number of leads you receive, but by quantifying the overall impact this has on your business through time.
A good example is that of an Internet searcher discovering your dealership for the first time by seeing you appear in Search (PPC and Organic) and maybe even on a social site or two over the course of 2-3 months. Then, when the shopper becomes actively engaged in a search he goes to Cars.com, bumps in to some dealers, including yours, and WHAM!, the user is jolted with a sense of familiarity of having seen you around here and there recently. Suddenly, your retail center has an increased amount of credibility and recognition with this person which makes it all that more likely he will inquire with you.
Dealers that grasp this have an edge on their competition. A simple philosophical shift in how you use the Internet to market your business can have tremendous impact for you in the short-term and the long-term. Applying these principals today will place you a step ahead over the next several years. Failing to do so will make it all that more expensive and cumbersome to do so down the road.
Careful planning is fundamental to success
December 17, 2007 by admin
Short-term thinking is a dangerous practice no matter what business you are in. For auto dealers, however, it seems that the consequences for it are not as dire. Or are they?
Earlier this year, an auto group was formed which acquired a handful of dealerships. Naturally, along with the acquisitions also came vendor relationships and term contracts. In an effort to maximize resources, most (if not all) of these agreements were renewed without consideration for their long-term impact. Within the first 6 months this auto group ended up canceling more than one of the re-newed agreements and signed up for similar (and hopefully better) agreements with other vendors.
You could argue that the decision to re-new these existing agreements was short-sighted. You could also argue that doing so was appropriate and that canceling them so soon afterwards was inevitable. The point is that anytime a decision is made that impacts the long-term business operation and which is then negated shortly there afterwards is the result of POOR PLANNING and SHORT-TERM THINKING.
Recently I met with a dealership interested in a new online marketing strategy, or so I thought. What they really wanted, it turned out, was a “website”. While there, my team explained that our services were designed to promote a dealer’s website through organic search engine marketing and social media and that while not having a website in tact to properly represent the dealership would be an obstacle, the importance of putting together an online marketing strategy for their website-to-be was of equal if not greater importance than the website itself. The dealership seemed to agree at the time but then a week later it was explained to me that they had decided to just focus on getting a website launched and then get with us on the marketing sometime in the future.
The outcome could be attributed to a variety of things, including ineffectiveness in our own representation or communication, but the unspoken response I heard from the dealership was that they had their sights set on building a website and that everything after that was a distraction they would deal with afterwards.
This is an all-too-common scenario in the car business and I think it demonstrates the way many dealers think. The Internet is an overwhelming and ever-changing medium for many people and so it is intimidating to for some to approach it in ways not familiar to them, or at least in ways not yet popularized by their peers. Five years ago, many dealers we still fighting with the idea of whether or not they should have a website for their dealership. Three years ago dealers were jumping on the PPC bandwagon.
Today, dealers are faced with the reality of using the Internet to built lasting transparent relationships with their customers. It’s everything they have been able to avoid for the past several decades now staring them in the face like was depicted in the epic poem Beowulf.
ps - Shouts out to Brian Hoecht of Ai-Dealer for his wizardry in reflecting on this great tale of our time.
Search Engine Brand Marketing for your Dealership
December 11, 2007 by admin
When you explore the topography today on the topic of search engine marketing throughout the auto industry, you will find there are common misuses and misunderstandings about certain key concepts and terminology. This causes long-term problems for dealers because they are getting caught up in contracts with the wrong expectations. It’s like PPC all over again.
One example of this is Automotive SEO. When you look at the marketing copy of SEO providers, the main themes and expectations being set are:
- Keyword research
- Content Authoring
- Tagging
- Link Building
- Search Engine Submissions
- Site Analytics
- Increased Site Traffic
SEO providers have geared and pitched their SEO product as something that drives traffic and increases leads. Ok, good. But they are selling you short. These are all great things and are indeed features and benefits of SEO, but there is one thing missing across most all marketing copy you will find on the Web in automotive land - YOUR ONLINE BRAND MARKETING STRATEGY.
Online Brand Marketing, or iBrand Marketing, is important to grasp because SEO is permanent part of your dealer operations.
Consider other areas of your business such as the Service Department and your CSI. Or the F&I department with your upgrade incentives and warranty packages. You don’t just pay some random vendor a few grand to make it work. You put thought and time and training into these things in how they impact your dealership long term because they are forms of reputation management.
The Internet is no exception and these things must be considered and incorporated at an even greater capacity because your online presence is more than just a lead generating conversion tool. It’s a representation of your brand, i.e. the unique qualities and character of your dealership.
[tags]auto marketing, sem, search engine optimization, organic search, ibrand, brand marketing, marketing strategy, car dealers[/tags]
SEM not just about search engine prominence
December 10, 2007 by admin
Your site is well-optimized. Your page titles are well-researched and carefully selected. Your keywords are consolidated, dense, and relevant. You are now in position to quickly become the authority in your targeted search markets. In fact, a few weeks go by and you are climbing the ranks, “top of the pile” as some say. But the leads are not increasing? Your conversions are not increasing. What is wrong? Could it be that you are not converting your site traffic?
Converting site traffic in to prospects and customers is probably more challenging than getting them there. In fact, with so may variations of search markets and tools and techniques to dominate them, conversion is probably the more difficult aspect of your search engine marketing strategy.
Now that you have attracted so many visitors to your site through effective search engine marketing, it is vital to not lose them by failing to convert, or connect. Visitors have different priorities, needs, and interests for reaching your site. In order to keep your bounce rates low and to maximize conversion, you must consider your site’s calls to action.
Studies show that choices and selections confuse visitors. Therefore, your landing pages not only need to be well-optimized for your target search markets, but also they need to be clear and focused on one or very few calls to action.
Some tips for accomplishing this are:
- Make sure your home page has a good balance of sales and retention interest.
- Make the navigation and links obvious.
- Use clear unambiguous wording. Avoid hiding or obscuring text for the sake of SEO.
- Make choices and next steps obvious.
- Remove wording or imagery that is not necessary, confusing or distracting.
- Be consistent with your conventions and techniques throughout the site.
- Include site search and a site map.
People visiting your site are anywhere from 6 months to one click away from purchasing a vehicle. Your home page needs to have options for these visitors and those in between. Your sub-pages should be formatted specifically for its intended visitors with clearly visible exit links for non-intended. Little things like this make a difference. Study your traffic and visitor analytics and get to know who is arriving, how, and what they are doing.
[tags]auto marketing, car dealer marketing, dealership website marketing, sem, seo, conversion, increase site traffic, search marketing[/tags]
Hidden marketplaces of online auto shoppers
November 29, 2007 by admin
Since the rise of the Web, dealers and vendors have scrambled to find ways to use the Internet to sell more cars and increase ROI. While much has been accomplished in the past 10 years, there seems to be a growing gap between where consumers are and where dealer inventory is displayed.
A recent article published on MediaBuyerPlanner suggests that,
“More than 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, and 28% said at some point a “friend” has recommended a brand or product to them.”
Few website/marketing providers today have the tools and technology in place to reach these consumers which means that your advertising dollars are not reaching the eyes and ears of large volumes of prospective buyers. They are only reaching those that consciously seek what you sell.
The priority then for dealers and advertisers is in finding ways to reach these audiences.
Much like with conventional advertising such as radio, T.V., and print where your dealership is made visible to audiences actively engaged in a car-buying quest as well as those not even thinking about it. The Internet should not be treated any differently. Dealers need to focus their marketing efforts on both spectrums - generating leads AND building their brand.
Building a dealership brand is fun and exciting and adds a whole other level of business to your cause. In a recent Nielsen study reporting that 77% of people shop online to save time, dealers can not resort to strictly lead generation if they intend to penetrate today’s buyer market.
While Search Marketing has reached parity with OEM sites and Third-Party Automotive sites as a top destination of choice for their research, there is still and always will be something to be said for marketing to your current customers to. This of course is accomplished through CRM efforts that include newsletters, direct mail, blogs, and discussion forums.
[tags]automotive marketing, internet marketing, social media, smo, search engine marketing, oem, blog marketing, blogging for car dealers, crm[/tags]
Getting started with social media marketing
November 27, 2007 by admin
Social media marketing is a new form of marketing quickly appearing on the automotive front. There is an overwhelming number of social media sites that can be leveraged by car dealers to assist with their strategy, so many in fact that it is not realistic to utilize them all. So how should car dealers discern which ones are best for them? Success in social media marketing is not an overnight thing so you want to be sure to choose your tools wisely so as to avoid wasting months of time and money.
A post was made recently on Search Engine Land that is meant to serve as a getting started guide of sorts, some of which we have re-iterated here for you with an automotive spin.
1. The first thing to consider is the functionality of the site. While most social sites offer similar features, how they are applied and the result they produce can vary. For instance, digg and del.icio.us are both social bookmarking sites, but the utility is drastically different. We use digg to network with other diggers and promote articles, but we use del.icio.us to help manage out content creation and management process with our writers.
2. What are your intentions? Car dealers want to sell cars. Service managers want to fix them. Both want to make money. If you enter into a social media site intent on your sole purpose then you will quickly become an isolated cat. Therefore when take part in a network, make sure it is an environment complimentary to your dealership and those at your dealership participating. You are going to spend a lot of time on these sites so they need to be ones that genuinely appeal to you and your team.
3. Be mindful of your network audience. You are there to promote your dealership by engaging with the interests of others. If you do not meet their core interest levels then you will have a hard time getting them to meet yours.
4. Be there because you care, not for the sake of being there. If you log on to social sites, set up your profile and then occasionally chime in to see what’s new then you can not expect to see much success. You have to really get involved with the community and get to know the audience and this take time and genuine interest in learning about others.
As a car dealer, it can be difficult to look at something like this as beneficial to your dealership. The reality is, social media marketing is going to be a challenging form of marketing for car dealers. Which is why it is important to know what you are up against before plunging in.
Earlier this month we posted a series of segments about specific uses and benefits of social media marketing. These included things such as the SEO benefits and online brand awareness. Our approach to social media marketing at web2ologies is to help auto dealers realize these benefits as a type of search engine brand marketing.
There is a form of engineering involved for your dealership to be fruitful in these things and the more you can apply these aforementioned guidelines in your strategy then the more impacting will be your results.
[tags]car dealer marketing, dealership website marketing, brand marketing, search marketing, social marketing, social media, Search Engine Land[/tags]
Short tail authority for your dealership website
November 26, 2007 by admin
If your dealership website is not one of the top 3 listings in searches that include your dealership name, then you need to take action on your search marketing strategy. However, for most dealerships this is a non-issue unless of course you have a generic or common name such as “Friendly” or “Courtesy”.
No matter what your dealership name though, it needs to be appearing in the top listings when people are entering it into their searches. Studies show that people do not spend too much time locating companies online because there are plenty of others from which to choose.
The best way to make sure you appear in the top of organic listings when people search for you is to build keyword density on your dealership name and the local area, and not just on your home page. You want your site to be the complete authority when it comes to your company name and this can be accomplished rather easily by ensuring search engines have no question of your dealership name and local area.
In cases where there are multiple other dealers with the same or similar name as yours, then you definitely want to target your geo market with authority by making the metro area and surrounding towns dense with keywords on your site.
In addition to this you might also want to have a some PPC advertising in place so that your dealership has natural and paid authority, which drastically increases your clicks-through according to a recent Nielsen ReelResearch study:
When a brand name was found in both the paid and organic results, the brand attracted 92 percent of total clicks on the page vs. 60 percent of clicks without paid results.
Focusing on things such as your dealership name and geo market is a form of short tail marketing, basically the idea of targeting search markets specific or even exclusive to your business.
[tags]auto marketing, dealership website marketing, search marketing, search engine optimization, short tail, sem, Nielsen, ReelResearch, organic search, PPC[/tags]
Physical neighborhoods not as reliable
November 21, 2007 by admin
The following information is provided to you almost verbatim from Dealer Marketing Magazine. Unfortunately, there is not an online point of reference to provide as it was delivered via email. However, you may request a copy of this email by submitting to us your request to do so here.
Research by Yahoo! and The Cobalt Group shows that 88 percent of new car shoppers research auto dealerships before making their first visit to a dealer lot. In fact, search engines have become the method of choice for dealership research.
According to the study, 79 percent of consumers use search engines to research auto dealerships. Not including physical drive-bys, online search now trumps all other media as the number one source consumers use when locating a dealership.
Consumers now visit an average of six dealerships during the buying process. One-third of those surveyed say they traveled more than 20 miles to visit a dealership, and online shoppers were the most willing to travel long distances to shop. This means a dealer’s sphere of influence in the marketplace can increase significantly simply by using online marketing tools effectively.
The research also uncovers a growing trend…the effect of social media outlets. These consumers are brand advocates, and it’s becoming increasingly important that dealers pay attention to them and their behaviors online.
For information about how your dealership can benefit from search engine brand marketing, please contact us today.
[tags]auto marketing, automotive marketing, car dealer marketing, internet marketing, search marketing, search engine marketing, brand marketing, brand awareness, social marketing, social media marketing, social network marketing, Yahoo!, Cobalt Group, Dealer Marketing Magazone[/tags]
K.i.T
