Tag Archives: seo
Automotive Website Link Building and SEO
Posted on 24. Feb, 2009 by admin.
Link building is related to SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Website Spiders crawl the looking for inventory, data, information, specials, and keywords. Search Engines like Google are looking for good unique content, and also websites that drive traffic to your dealership site or blog. The more links, and the more valuable links from important and highly creditble websites, the better the SEO rating for your site.
Link building is a fairly simple manner of getting your dealership’s name out there on the web, with links back to your important pages. There are many paid services who will submit your website’s URL to many different web directories or sites, but you must be careful not to spam Google or you could suffer some dire consequences
Contact us for more information or to learn how many links your dealership currently has, and how you can increase your dealerships Automotive SEO rankings.
Continue Reading
Top 5 pay per click marketing optimization techniques
Posted on 29. Dec, 2008 by admin.
We have posted some incredible pay per click (PPC) numbers for our clients. Before we give 5 good tips on how to maximize your automotive internet marketing, there are a few things you need to have prepared in order to measure the results. You need good analytics and a lot of time. That’s really it. If you work hard, you can get some results that look like this:
Chevy dealer automotive marketing sample
If you spend some time look at your bounce rate, exit pages, new visitor ratio, and keyword list, you can quickly match that up to your keyword and PPC budget to help your dealership spend less per click and get more for your money. The top 5 list below already assumes you have run a campaign and have some background knowledge on search marketing. It also takes into account that you have a Google adwords or similar campaign that has run for a month or so.
How to get more from your automotive pay per click budget:
- Review your keywords in your Analytics and remove those with very high bounce rates. If you are getting click after click on some top automotive phrases and still get a high bounce rate, then remove that keyword to give other keywords a chance to run. Some people will argue that a high bounce rate is indiciative that the dealership’s phone is ringing. This is possible so make sure to track every sales call to see if you can find trends. There are more advanced methods to track to phone conversion but we will save that for another article.
- Remove the keywords that are not converting. Do you have a decent bounce rate but they are not visiting any pages or filling out any forms? Remove it. There are usually some great hidden automotive keywords in your Adwords PPC account that have not had the chance to run that may convert better. Sometimes long keyphrases are good, sometimes they are not. There is no hard and fast rule that can be applied to all automotive advertsing online.
- Change your ads constantly. Testing testing testing is what marketing is all about. If you are not testing your ads or automotive copy then you are not maximizing your results. Just a few simple changes to your car copy or price of a vehicle in the small text ad can cause your automotive click through rate or CTR to skyrocket. We have a small handbook that we just may release to the automotive public on how to get the best click rates. Remember the phrase price sells cars? Well that often works with “price makes clicks” as well. A word of caution: Deceptive ads can cause high bounce rates, plus the fact that it’s just shady.
- Group your keywords into proper campaigns and make everything match. If you are marketing Hondas and trying to get clicks on Civics, Accords, and used Honda’s, then setup a campaign for each. You can subdivide further, but this will enable you to match the keywords to the ad copy to the destination web address which Google just loves when you are trying to sell more cars online. Google wants more clicks and will reward you will a high quality score, which leads to item 5.
- Fix your Adwords quality score. What is Quality Score you ask? In a nutshell, Google reads your keywords, campaigns, url, and destination page along with several other things including your relevancy and CTR, and gives your keyword a “Poor, OK, or GREAT” score. The Greater the score, the less you pay per click and the more relevant the results to the customer. You want the car buyer that is seeking a used Honda Civic to see your used Civic ad, and be brought to a used Civic webpage filled with relevant offers. Google likes when you do that, make Google happy and pay less.
How is this for conversion rates? This does NOT even take into account the phone calls this dealer received from the online marketing or pay per click campaign we performed for them.
automotive marketing conversion rates
There are many other tactics and techniques but let’s talk results. I challenge any automotive marketing expert or PPC specialist or so called automotive internet marketing company to beat these numbers:
Conversion Rates: Over 30% conversion rates on some keywords (you want more of these and less of the rest)
Bounce Rates: We have some clients receiving bounce rates in the single digits. What this means is that the shoppers are clicking around your website, microsite, or your ad. You want a low bounce rate. See graphic below for a real dealer from the past 30 days.
automotive marketing bounce rate
Continue Reading
Dealer.com Search Marketing Challenge Article
Posted on 12. Dec, 2008 by admin.
I recently followed an article written on a blog site by a popular blogger and SEO consultant regarding the merits of dealer.com and search marketing versus pay per click and search optimization. Many automotive marketing experts do not realize how quickly a blog post or search content can be picked up on the Internet.
The lesson that this blogger was teaching was to try to prove that dealer.com search engine marketing did not spend enough focus on search optimization and spent more efforts on pay per click or SEM. Pure Dealer.com agrees that good SEO can beat PPC any day of the week, and sometimes it takes a long time and some dedicated marketing efforts to win the search engine battle.
Then again, did dealer.com speak too soon when they opened up a public challenge to test the power of search marketing? Dealer.com is a very well respected company that has experience huge growth and obviously is well versed on how to market themselves so I guess that Google will decide who wins this battle.
If you google “dealer.com search marketing” or “dealer.com search engine marketing” we will all know the answers to that question.
Here is the full repost of the article, with recognition to the author and full post here:
Search engine marketing is a great way to generate immediate traffic. What is often overlooked by by car dealers is the real value of a well optimized site and an aggressive SEO campaign. A recent post I did about dealership web traffic I referenced another post from Dealer.com on Drivingsales.com and feel that it was misconstrued based on the replies by Dealer.com.
Pay Per Click advertising has it’s place like for special promotions or a fresh site. However at the end of the day there are so many studies out there that show that SEO provides better value than Seach Engine Marketing or PPC. One of the best explanations was from Hubspot.com.
Their simple study showed that ranking number nine generates the same amout of leads and traffic as the number two paid listing.
From the post at Hubspot:
Here are the key takeaways from the data and the images above:
1) Organic results get 75%+ of the attention. People don’t click on the ads nearly as much as the organic results.
2) The first organic result gets over 25% of all clicks. Within the organic results, the first result gets the most clicks by far - more than double the second result.
3) Within the ads, the first ad also gets the most clicks. But, since you pay per click for the ads, you should care less about volume and more about if the traffic will actually convert and what your cost per lead and cost per sale will be.
4) There are a good number of clicks on all top 10 organic results. Even the last result gets about 3% of people to click on it - this is about the same rate as the second pay per click ad, and unlike the ad, its free!
SEO wins day in and day out. Search engine marketing is an expensive way to drive traffic. Contrary to popular belief SEO can be almost instant and that is the real purpose of this post to show how fast I can get it to rank for certain terms. I bet it will be faster than the time it takes to set up a pay per click campaign. Should see results in minutes not in ages, the term used to denigrate SEO. I took it as a challenge from Dealer.com
I’ll report back with results.
- Published at : 12:45 pm Decemember 12, 2008
- Ranking #1 for : “Dealer.com Challenge - SEO vs Search Engine Marketing” 2:00 pm 12/12/08 < low value but indexed.
- Ranking Number #6 for “dealer.com seo vs search engine marketing” 3:45 pm 12/12/08
- Ranking #1 for “Dealer.com Search Engine Marketing” 7:00 pm 12/12/08
Continue Reading
Automotive Search Marketing or Advertising?
Posted on 25. Nov, 2008 by admin.
Automotive Advertising or Marketing
You will find many automotive dealers confuse marketing with advertising or vice versa. While both are important they are vastly different. If you do your homework, you can help your dealership grow through some great advertising and marketing strategies.
Here are the main differences when it pertains to the automotive sector:
Automotive Advertising: Paid announcements with a message or offer from an dealer; the presentation or promotion by an automotive dealership of its products to its existing and potential customers.
Automotive Marketing: The planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.
Looking at the above definitions, with some slight modifications to fit the dealership market, you can quickly see where you fit. Some dealers are straight advertisers, but think they are marketers. Other’s take a more systematic approach that involve a semblance of some marketing plan and variety of activities. (Planning a weekend sale does not really fall into this category, although you want it to)
It is easy to see the confusion to the point that automotive dealers think of them as one-in-the same, so let’s drill it down.
Automotive Advertising is just one single part of the marketing process. It involves spreading the word about your special car sale, weekend event, clearance, or the services you are offering such as oil changes, extended warranties, and the like. This often includes strategies such as ad placement, medium, frequency, automotive budget, etc. Automotive Advertising also includes the ad placement whether through traditional means or through Automotive Internet advertsing methods.
Automotive marketing is a large painting, and within that painting you have a variety of images which may include advertising, research, planning, ePR, sales, pricing, distribution, support, strategy, service, development or production, website hosting, community involvement and much more.
Advertising is just one section of the overall painting. The entire picture should take the form of something that works as both individual images and towards the bigger goal of a work of art.
Dealership Marketing is often mistakenly identified as advertising, and often confused when you throw in additional terms like search engine marketing (sem) and search engine optimization (seo). Both are really forms of advertising since they are not necessarily part of an overlying strategy.
The best automotive strategies contain solid dealership marketing plans that address the needs of the entire dealership. If you only look at it as “advertising” then you are truly, missing the picture.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
Continue Reading
Firing On All Cylinders With Your Automotive marketing
Posted on 09. Oct, 2008 by admin.
There are a number of available channels to market your dealership online. The question is which one will work the best. Is it better to go deep into one area or synergize using several? First let’s look at some of the available automotive internet marketing channels to consider:
Automotive marketing
- Low-maintenance, fully customizable, dealer web sites
- Multi-franchise automotive portals
- Automotive Microsites promoting specific makes and models tied into your dealership(s)
- Automotive Landing pages to catch your PPC and organic traffic and direct customers to immediate sales and incentives
- Sponsored Automotive Blog sites to drive consumers from information resources back to conversion points
- electronic Press Releases for your dealership and RSS feeds to get fresh information into online channels that get picked up by sites and search engines looking for your news
- Automotive Squeeze pages to direct consumers towards custom, private sale opportunities
- Automotive Search engine marketing (SEM) to serve your ads to consumers searching by relevant phrases with needs your dealership can satisfy
- Proxy sites to serve up pages with different text and images and direct prospects to call services and information resources that can be tracked
- Data broadcasting of dealer inventory to multiple lead services as well as other information sites
- Audio/Video broadcasting any promotional materials you have through channels such as YouTube which will drive up impressions and potential site visitations
- Social Network sites to connect with consumers where they meet online
Now the question is how to utilize these channels and get the most out of them. To begin with, particularly in today’s economy, the goal is always to minimize overhead and maximize ROI. Therefore you should consider the advertising investment in each of these carefully. Then you must also consider the metrics by which you determine whether you are actually achieving results. However something that is often overlooked is the importance of building effective link relationships. If you don’t know how to do it then you need to find someone who does before you wind up at the bottom of the search list beneath your competitors who have figured this out already.
Dealer Web sites
Every dealer has a web site and if they don’t then they are clearly missing the boat. The value of an online presence goes well beyond the leads that the dealership takes in if you consider the long-term value of a marketing presence. What isn’t always considered is the usability and the flexibility afforded to the dealership to sculpt something to meet their specific needs.
Every dealership needs to differentiate itself and the days of cookie-cutter sites are gone because its dog eat dog and personalization is what both consumers and businesses need to separate themselves. That means flexibility to do something unique and not conform to someone else’s standards because it’s more profitable to do so. That said consider what you are spending to wear someone else’s vision of your business. If your site doesn’t reflect your vision rather than someone else’s then consider the impact that may have on a consumer’s perspective about your dealership.
If you’re going to buy tools then learn to use them. Why spend thousands of dollars for top notch technology and then not use it? Why does it require so much technology to sell something anyway? Sales were good before they were online so it stands to reason that what’s important is the impression you make on the consumer. If they feel you have a unique presence, trust in the reliability of your business, and recognize that you understand their needs by putting some very fundamental things in front of them when they first show up then they are going to feel better about buying from you. That doesn’t require technology it requires people. Don’t be fooled into believing that your web site is doing all the work and make sure your people are trained and understand their roles in using even the simplest of solutions and you will see big results.
Multi-franchise automotive Portals
If you work as part of a franchise or a dealer group here is an opportunity to put all your inventory together and offer more choices to consumers. Even better however is the opportunity to introduce offerings online at a variety of levels. Consumers understand search and they want simplicity. They don’t want too many choices and complexity, they want logical choices that get them to a solution quickly. Then they want all their available options right in front of them and to know they have one or more places to compare those options. If those options are within the same dealer group is presents an opportunity to keep those leads in-network.
Is it difficult to create a portal? Not really. You could do it within your own web site if you really wanted to by sharing inventory. You could however consider the opportunity of offering personalization features to consumers so they can connect with friends and family through social network channels which can boost your viral marketing efforts.
Automotive Microsites
Microsites offering consumers a scaled-back look at key areas of your business. Instead of overwhelming them with options a microsite can offer them the opportunity to see something that is focused on specific sales and incentives and when tied in with your search engine marketing efforts can be a useful way to boost organic listings over time.
Break your existing site into critical areas and simplify what is there and you have a microsite. Now concentrate it on something specific such as specials or specific models and now you have content that reaches people with a very specific need. In the age of search engine marketing and consider that some feel search engine marketing is dying it’s still benefits consumers to get them to the best opportunities you have to offer as quickly as possible and simpler can definitely be better.
Automotive Landing Pages
What is a landing page? Some might say it’s clutter and others might say it’s a clever promotional tool devised to help someone looking for very specific keywords to be driven to very specific opportunities with the least amount of decision making required. The goal is to reward consumers who are searching for opportunities with your best offers and take them right down the sales funnel. No messing around, just straight to the sale.
So is it clutter? Perhaps to some, but it doesn’t have to be and the message you sculpt is your own and don’t let someone else decide that message for you because your business has a unique quality and that should be communicated simply and effectively.
Additional multi-media is an effective way to also keep the attention of consumers who might otherwise shy from static content. Smart shoppers however are not looking for glitz, they are looking for bargains and the goal is to give them a reason to fill out that test drive or quote request. The rest then is up to your sales people, assuming they know how to close those leads.
Automotive Blogs
By now there isn’t anyone that doesn’t know about blogging, but have you considered the value of getting your message or sponsored message into circulation? If you want to reach people go where the people are. People communicate within large blog networks and that’s a perfect opportunity to reach them. It’s also another opportunity to build effective link relationships and get your keyword phrases picked up by major search engines. You can even embed them into your own site.
Electronic Press Releases & RSS feeds
One thing that is guaranteed to get your message into circulation is press releases and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. Why because the sole purpose of these sources is to get news into circulation which other sites and search engines will pick up on. One release can drive your message right to the top of the search engine rankings with the right keyword phrases. If that release or feed starts getting linked to by other people (this is where social networking has some value) you will start to see your ranking go through the roof. Regular scheduled distributions can keep your message in front of people for a long time and you will definitely start to notice your organic traffic growing which will lower your PPC costs over time.
Automotive Squeeze Pages
Consider that consumers like bargains and others like to feel exclusive. The squeeze page can satisfy both because it says, “This is for you and you’re special”. It says this is a unique opportunity that not everyone knows about and it says this is limited time offer and you might want to take advantage of it before it goes away.
The squeeze page is simple, affordable, and can be tracked and measured. It shouldn’t be complicated because by it’s very nature it’s about simplicity. It’s very cost-effective and it will ultimately lead consumers right to the carrot and they will be glad you did if you reward them with satisfying offers.
Automotive Search Marketing
This subject is far too vast so let’s cut to the chase. PPC is a cost and like traditional automotive advertising it’s a necessary cost but it’s a whole lot cheaper than traditional and as far-reaching as you are willing to take it. What’s good about it however is when you tie it in with other forms of content. Building effective link relationships with your other forms of online media is ultimate how you will develop strong relationships with your content and drive your visibility up.
Understand the power of the right keyword phrases and be sure use appropriate geo-targeting to ensure you are reaching the right people at the right time. Don’t buy in to false promises of results. Read your own analytics and stats and if you’re not seeing good referrals then you need to question that. Look at the keywords and also make sure you have a say in that as well. You may not always know the best phrases, but you should learn what they are so you can tell if you’re being snowed by someone buying up bad keywords on your dime and wasting money on fruitless conversions. If you’re looking to throw money away then click here to learn how to do it.
Proxy Sites
If you’re online you’re probably using 800 numbers too so you can track every area of your business. With proxy sites you can serve up pages and swap out numbers and other forms of media on-the-fly. Perhaps even offer different options to different consumers with different needs. This also offers the opportunity for multivariate testing so you can learn how consumers respond to your offers. Remember Marketing is about testing. Testing is a cost, but also a necessary cost in order to learn what works and what doesn’t. Otherwise you’re just throwing away money on ideas like pennies in a sea of possibilities. Chances are if you’re wasting money you’re spending someone else’s and if they catch wind of it you may need a “B” plan.
Data Broadcasting
If you’re not doing it you’re missing the boat again. You can deliver inventory to more sites than you can shake a stick at and most services support ADF format which is the industry XML standard. If you don’t know about this then read up. Your inventory can be everywhere including your site maps which search engines like Google will smile upon.
Audio/Video
You can turn your traffic around in a day by simply uploading your promotions to YouTube and embedding them on your site and other online resources. Tied to Google YouTube will get more eyes on your ad than you can, again…shake a stick at. You can literally watch the traffic views grow quickly and with proper analytics and stats in your sites you can begin to measure the referrers from it if you embed links in your content as well.
Social Networking Sites
No doubt you know about Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. But do you know that they appeal to different demographics based on some studies performed by independent sources. Facebook for example appeals to a more upscale, educated audience so perhaps if you’re selling exotics that’s a consideration. If you’re selling domestics and reaching a younger crowd perhaps MySpace is the better place to be.
Every page of your site should offer users the ability to bookmark their pages in the favorite social networking sites. If you’re not offering that then you missing another viral opportunity and the ability to benefit from strategic link placement that could ultimately compliment your overall search engine strategy.
So with all that said, how do you fire on all cylinders? To begin with, create a budget. Compare costs and then consider that to be seen you must understand how to build relationships with your online content. Just throwing it up there isn’t enough. Seek resources to understand how to tie those channels. What I have outlined are but a few and it’s the ability to understand how to connect the dots that will allow you to leverage the potential of each area better.
For more information please contact:
Michael Sweigart, President PureDealer, Inc. http://automotiveseoblog.com/
Continue Reading
Blog Marketing
Posted on 29. Sep, 2008 by admin.
Blog blog blog, you hear all about them but what are they and how can they help my dealership acheive a top placing in Google? Blog is short for web-log. Sort of an online diary of Internet postings.
We have developed some very successful blogs for our clients. By successful, we mean they rank well in Google and get a ton of traffic. In some cases, the blog sites get 3x as much traffic as the dealer site. To have a good blog site, we recommend Wordpress, and also recommend some specific “plugins” which will help optimize the site for organic search engine results. The purpose of the blog is to be informative for your clients, but a properly tagged and developed blog can gain top Google placement and automotive SEO and Google page rank results. An example of a good “general” blog is one we did for Honda Certified vehicles which currently ranks top 3 positions on Google organic for phrases such as
certified honda delaware
and many other top phrases.
For tips and tricks on using blogs, feel free to contact us to help you get started.
Continue Reading
Automotive SEO - get top Google listing in less than 3 hours
Posted on 26. Sep, 2008 by admin.
The Ultimate automotive marketing Test
Can you “win” an automotive keyword on Google in just a few hours. The answer is yes.
Automotive SEO is what all dealers want to know about.
Not being known for beating around the bush, we are going to give away a little dealer SEO secret. OK, it’s not a secret but a useful tool to help get both listed and linked to from some major sites on the Internet. These links turn into visits, visits turn into leads, and then your sales staff doesn’t call the client (kidding on the last part, we all know you call every lead within 15 mintes)
Automotive SEO and electronic Press Releases
Google likes fresh info. Write a press release, focus on a specific key phrase, and you can end up with a number 1 spot in Google. Better yet, add some clickable links on the press release (not all services allow this) and you can track the traffic. We recently had a dealer get over 300 visits on a very relevant phrase in Google using this automotive search optimization technique.
Optimize your automotive press release for search engines and humans
What? But isn’t a press release about press? Shouldn’t it be a 3 page story that builds the brand in the customers mind? Sure, if you don’t want to rank in Google. We aren’t suggesting you post a bunch of junk or keyword spam Google. But with the right release, sent to the right places, you can end up #1 in just a few hours. Don’t stick a release out there that says “Nissan dealer, Nissan Dealer, get your Nissan dealer info here”. It just won’t work, and even if it did, it would not last long. SEO isn’t just a quick trick. Write for both Google and your customers.
Just like this article has a specific purpose, to inform you about a great dealership search optimization technique, it does not mean you should over do it by repeating automotive seo over and over.
We run ePR campaigns for dealers 5 days a week. If you want to try one, let us know and you can do one at a low introductory rate.
Try this search for an example: automotive seo specialist
or this one Mazda6 Dealer (it’s nice when you beat the manufacturer)
or Certified Honda Quote (several Google listings if you count the blog)
Continue Reading
ePress Releases
Posted on 26. Sep, 2008 by admin.
Automotive pay per click Google marketing
“Win” an automotive keyword on Google in just a few hours. Use search engine optimization and marketing to it’s fullest extent. PureDealer can show you how. Simply email us the phrase you want to “win” on Google and we can give you a sample of how this works. What have you got to lose?
Automotive marketing and electronic Press Releases
Google likes fresh info from car dealers. We write fresh content-enriched automotive press releases, focus on a specific key phrases, and can get you top placement in Google. This is not a hat trick but a piece of a large automotive e-marketing strategy that will get you more traffic, more links, and a better customer.
Some of our automotive press releases have received over 3,000 clicks in less than 6 months. This is an automotive search optimization technique that cannot be ignored.
Optimize for search engines using your dealerships top selected phrases
With the right release, sent to the right places, you can end up #1 in just a few hours.
We run ePR campaigns for dealers 5 days a week. If you want to try one, email us a key phrase you would really like to win in Google.
Mazda6 Dealer (it’s nice when you beat the manufacturer)
certified honda PA has nearly half of the entire from page of Google search results
Certified Honda Delaware has nearly half of the entire from page of Google search results.
Continue Reading
-
harry web: I came across your website on google and after rea...
-
HILARY SAVELL: http://www.acorncreative.com/blog/2007/03/31/the-f...
-
emrinho: You made some good points there. I did a search on...
-
News Online: I was planning to write about this issue but you a...
-
Cape Town Accommodation: Great post, while i as searching for blogs, i foun...