Dealer e-Process News
6 Ways To More Dealer Website Traffic
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Every auto dealer website needs more traffic! This traffic needs to be as targeted (relevant) as possible to the website you are promoting.
This is the lifeline of your business in today's auto market.
No traffic - No business, More traffic - More sales
The question is - How do you get this type of highly targeted website traffic?
I will list some of the most popular methods that we at Dealer e Process have helped dealerships setup.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular. I strongly recommend Google over Yahoo & MSN because of price, exposure and results.
This method, when done correctly, will increase your exposure, and give fast results. A Dealer e Process setup pay per click campaign will keep up to date with Google's rules, which is very important in maximizing your returns. You will pay twice the price per click if a campaign is not set up properly. Dealer e Process will build your online auto dealer campaign around your franchise, area, and competitors maximizing your exposure and bringing the most customers possible to your website. You can have your campaign up and running in minutes after the setup is completed.
The nice part of Adwords is you can set a daily budget of how much the dealer is willing to spend.
Link Popularity
This is achieved when other relevant auto websites have links to your dealers website. If a high traffic site has links, the search engines perceive both sites must be popular. The important thing is to have quality (relevant) web sites linking back to your site.
Why should anyone want to link to your dealerships website? If you have quality content (cars for sale , specials), this adds perceived value and makes your website popular, so others will want to link to you.
The beauty of a Dealer e Process website is the fact that you have a links page that YOU control. You can create a links page on your website.
Article Submissions
Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and website visitors to your dealership website. A dealerships article, if written well can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information or guidance about vehicle product knowledge etc. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.
Two great places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.
Forum Posting
In order to be successful using forums there are some things that are required. Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums (car forums) that are in some way related to the auto market or car enthusiast. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow link tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them.
Social Bookmarking
In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.
Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Technorati, Digg, Reddit and Tailrank provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.
Search Engine Optimization, (SEO),
The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Dealer e Process can show you numerous examples of dealerships we have completely dominated the market with on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results. YOU HAVE TO BE THERE!
5 Rules To Dealer Website Design
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
When choosing an auto dealer website provider, keep in mind you only have one chance to keep the internet visitor from clicking the exit button once they visit your site.
More than ever (92% of car shoppers use the internet before purchasing) your dealer website design represents your business and the face of your dealership!
For years, we have been told that when going to an interview you have 10 seconds to make a lasting first impression. There is no difference when designing your dealership website than making the first impression in an interview. You are making a first impression with the prospective car buyer who has searched the vehicles you are offering in your website design. The first impression can make the difference between getting a lead from that potential buyer or just a visitor to your website.
Rule #1.
Make sure the website provider has an unblockable and dealer editable home page pop up to show promotions and urgency for a sale or offer. Dealers should be able to turn on and off this promotion. Dealer e Process websites give the dealership full control of home page pop ups. The software is built in a way that it cannot be blocked by internet browsers.
Rule #2.
Make sure your dealer website design makes it easy for the visitor to find the navigation buttons. If a customer has to search for a navigation button to find information about the vehicles of interest or the navigation buttons are not working, the visitor may get frustrated and leave you website costing you a lead.
As a rule of thumb, your navigation buttons should be on the top of your web page because the majority of people read from top to bottom on the internet. It is also important to allow customers to find different ways to find inventory from the top to the bottom of the page. Having searches such as MPG,Payment,Fuel Efficient,Specials,Budget Row, etc are very important. Having just a vehicle search may not spark the imagination of a customer. HAVE MORE!
Rule #3.
When visitors are browsing your dealership site, have a clear indication for the visitor of where they are on your website and how to get to other pages.
You may want to put a link on each page that the visitor clicks to take them to the home page or another page relating to the information currently viewing. In other words do not confuse your visitor or your visitor may just click off the website totally.
Rule #4.
When choosing your website provider pay close attention to loading time, the time it takes your web pages to load. You can reduce loading time by reducing graphics on each page. A good website design should load under two seconds. Dealer e Process websites load extremely fast through the use of proper coding and zero flash.
The longer it takes the pages to load the more frustrating it can be to the visitor. People want it yesterday not today and definitely not tomorrow.
Rule #5.
Make sure your dealership website works in all internet browsers(Internet Explorer,Firefox,Safari). Too many times I have seem website providers that have designed websites that work in Internet Explorer 5 and 6, but not 7. I have seem some applications not work in Firefox at all. This is important as a broken lead form or chopped off vehicle pictures can turn customers away immediately. Dealer e Process websites are tested across all browsers as they are released.
Auto Dealer Website Page Rank
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What is our dealerships website Page Rank? How good is your Dealer Web site?
There are third party websites (tools) actually websites that will measure the ranking of your dealers website. For dealer personnel that don't know what Page Rank is; (it's a tool) put together by Google that determines the effectiveness or efficiency of your dealership and for that matter all websites.
The higher your page rank in combination with many other factors, the higher your dealers website is listed in the various search engines.(More traffic to your site) This means more people are looking at your new and used vehicles, service and parts departments, thus putting more money into circulation for the dealership.
If more people are going to your dealer website, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to know less traffic is going to your competitors' website. Unfortunately most people that work in a dealership don't even know what Google page rank is but those visitors that do will place your dealership website in a higher respect than your competitors and feel that your content is much more valuable and insightful leaving a better chance to get bookmarked.
The next question is, how is page rank determined? And more importantly how do you increase the page rank for your dealers website?. Let's look at the first part of that question.
One way to help determine your page is when another (relevant auto site) site links to your page with a back link. The more back links you receive from other pages that have content relevant to yours, the higher your page rank.
This process of building links can get quite involved and very confusing which is why we recommend a Dealer e process auto dealer website to sort through all back links, since they don't all carry the same weight or force. Leave that to our SEO team. The higher the page rank that a link is coming from, the more beneficial it is in terms of boosting your page rank of the dealers site. So if you get back links from a lot of websites with low page ranks (p1, p2) it will not have as strong an impact as a few pages with higher page ranks. Most dealership websites range in the realm of Page Rank 3 or 4.
There is complication to this process; If your dealers website has a page rank of 4 and it is already linked to 8 or 12 other pages then it will NOT be any more beneficial to you than a page that has a page rank of 2 or less.
Another way to improve your dealership page rank is through the use of web directories and no name search engines. Dealer e Process SEO PowerPage Rank technology takes care of all that on a monthly basis. Not only will the use of our SEO services increase your page rank, but it will also increase the traffic to your dealers website.
There are alot of other factors that will definitely help you to increase your ranking and the general traffic to your dealers website. If you are curious about the page ranking of your own dealer website after reading this article, you can see exactly where you stand by doing a Google search for "page rank". Once you find a site (or download the Google Toolbar to your desktop) all you have to do is put your dealership URL(s)in the web address field and you will have your answer.
SEO On Your Dealership Website
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
I have spoken to many dealership GM's, internet managers about marketing their dealership online and I am constantly asked "How do you get to #1 position on Google?" While this article is not specially about how to get your dealership to #1 status for various search terms - I will explain what the process is and what's involved for you to succed.
As much as dealerships have used the internet in increasing numbers the last couple years, I am always surprised by how many GM's and internet managers have no idea what SEO (search engine optimization) is about. Most people can tell you WHY they like to click on that first listing in the natural results (cause its at the top) but they don't have the first clue HOW it got there to begin with. A funnier way to look at is the fact that the internet world is largely unregulated and still being figured out which basically means that everyone has their own "secret practice" and definitions of SEO.
I always tell dealers that their gut feeling of WHY they trust the first listing is because its the best result for the phrase they typed in. In layman's terms, dealers seem to understand that. However most dealership personnel do not really understand why one dealer website would be better than another so here goes with a layman's explanation.
What is SEO, in layman's terms that is?
SEO is the process of configuring a website so that it has a chance to show up in a search result for a particular phrase as close to the first position as possible. In other words it is our way of telling Google, Yahoo, or MSN what we think our site is about and designing it in a way in a way it reads like a "table of contents". Many of the search engines have a slightly different formula (algorithm's for technical terms) for how they determine these results. But the short version is that they look at different factors and most importantly the constructions of each website page, rank them and then give those results to you. The whole idea is to have a "good search experience" for the person typing the phrase into the search engine.
So Why is SEO So Important?
Two words sum it up for me; competition & Free. There are as many as 20 billion web pages being indexed (listed on Google, Yahoo, MSN) at any given time. The major search engines do their best to go through these pages from dealer websites for example and catalog them so that they can tell you about it if you use their website to search. With so many dealership website pages out there competing for similar phrases (used cars in Chicago for example)it is absolutely critical to make sure you are using every tool at your disposal, make sure your dealer website is constructed correctly to make sure your customers can find you when they are looking.
So What Should I Be Doing for SEO On My Dealership Website?
The bad news is that doing SEO correctly for your dealership's website is very complicated and time consuming and requires regular attention in order to maintain results. My advice unless you plan on purchasing a Dealer e Process website (We do it for you) is to ethically follow these easy guidelines for best long-term results:
Correct Dealer Website Structure; as easy as this sounds many dealerships would not even think to look at this. Every day we see dealership websites with heavy flash animation (Dealerskins websites for example), dated frame designs (Ebiz & Cobalt websites for example), pages that don't work and broken links. The bottom line is; if you can' as a consumer easily navigate a dealerships website without problems, chances are the search engines can't either (technical terms "spider the website"). And if a search engine spider can't crawl your dealer website you have absolutely no chance of showing up for a key phrase - no matter how "pretty the flash".
Good Meta-Data; Most dealership GM's & Internet Managers often draw a blank stare when I talk about the next this one. Meta-data is tech-speak for the page titles, page descriptions and keywords that you enter for each page. Each page on your dealership website should have a unique title and description that summarizes what that page is about. (Reynolds & Reynolds websites for example)
We often see 2 problems with meta-data. The first is that it is simply overlooked (The Netlab does this for example). I am shocked at how many sites have "Dealership name" as the page title for every page! A complete waste of online real estate.
The 2nd problem is "spamming the search engines". Putting in a page title or description about the dealership website that does not accurately match what the page is about is considered "spamming" a search engine. Doing this on your dealership website will get your page thrown out of the index (thrown in the Google sandbox) and ruin any chance of showing up for a key phrase that you want a great listing for. Some dealer website providers do this to you and you have no clue.
Relevant Content; Dealer's seem to understand that good content about vehicles (like custom comments on used and new cars) is really what customers are looking for when they search for a vehicle. By "relevant" we mean that the content is specific to the vehicle in question and recently updated. More and more we are seeing dealers websites that have regular updates or a dealership blog showing up higher in the search results than websites which have larger quantities of content on them. The reason being is the content is fresh!
My personal recommendation is to add well written (maybe add a Google blogger addition), grammatically correct content to your dealerships website on a regular basis. This ensures that, over time, your dealer website will become a "resource" to those looking for phrases related to the automobile business in relation to selling new and used cars, service and parts.
Link building; This is the least understood part of SEO. Search engines consider a link from another website (a relevant link) to your website as a "popularity vote". Simply put, the more sites which link to yours, the more "votes" you have! The website with the "most votes" has a much better chance of getting a #1 ranking for a particular search term. Dealer e Process dealer built websites get free links to our network of "auto related" websites (7203 links that is)dramatically pushing you to the top of the search engines.
So there you go, SEO explained in layman's terms. Like most things in life, it's not really that hard but it requires discipline and focus which is where most people get sidetracked. If you would like help with SEO for your dealership website, or other internet related needs we would love to hear from you at Dealer e Process. There is nothing "internet related" that we don't understand when it comes to dealership websites online.
Search Strategy
Friday, October 10, 2008
Search engine marketing even when speaking in terms of car dealerships involves keeping your content and vehicles fresh, using keywords that put you at the top of the first page and obtaining as many links to your site from other "relevant" websites as possible (auto sites).
Take Care Of The Search Engines, They Take Care Of You
1. Search engines really like updated and fresh content. Pay attention to which sites show on the first page of a Google search and you will notice that among the sites in keyword competition. Its usually the dealer sites with the most updated content that win out in the long run. I would strongly suggest you either write your own reviews in cars or articles about the dealership and upload your own graphics and photos or outsource the job to freelancers.
There are many freelance writers for reasonable rates. Ever think of looking to a local college? With one good writer or writing team, you can improve your dealers site's rankings dramatically. Make sure the writer you choose understands SEO so the writing contain the keywords that make sense.
2. Keyword strategies include going for those people who instead of searching for 'used cars' search for 'used cars in Chicago' and other more specific terms. We have performed this SEO service for Freedom Auto Depot in Chicago and they dominate the search engines on Google for "used cars Chicago" or "used cars in Chicago" etc.
Do not stuff your pages with keywords? The recommended density of keywords is between 2 and 3 percent of the text on your page. I find it increasingly funny to view dealer websites pages that have words stuffed all onto the home page which includes all the location around the dealerships as well as all the model vehicles the dealership sells.
Excessive keyword phrases are not only recognizable to search engines as 'stuffing" they can ultimately affect the quality of the writing and the ranking of the dealers website. This is where LSI comes in. LSI involves using phrases that are synonymous with your original keyword phrase. Learn about LSI! Google it!
3. The more relevant sites that link to your page (auto dealer websites), the better your rankings will be. For example, if you sell new Chevy Cars in Chicago, try putting links about your dealership in an article that talks about the "new Chevy Traverse at Chicago Chevy Dealers". This is one way of 'piggy backing' on the keywords used by other sites.
Write your own articles and car reviews or have a freelance writer write some for you. Submit them to article directories or other social networks and allow other sites to use them. It is a 'take care of me and Ill take care of you" strategy and it works for both sides.
4. You can use your dealerships blog for more search engine marketing. Dont't tell me you don't have a dealer blog yet do you? If you update your blog daily and ping it with blog directories, you will see an increase in your dealership blog's search engine rankings. Link to your dealers site from your blog. This is another means of piggy backing.
5. Monitor your dealers site traffic on at least a weekly basis. I strongly recommend you use a Google analytics tag because I am extremely skeptical about third party website companies providing the analytics. Note how much of your traffic is coming from pay per click search engine marketing and how much from natural search. After a couple of weeks of tracking, make small changes to optimize your site's search engine rankings. Continue looking for ways to improve on your dealership site.
Gather all the information you can find on each of these strategies I mentioned above, and take it in. Its the wave of the future for auto dealerships so I suggest you start to learn it now. Search engine marketing, as with all other forms of marketing, is constantly changing. Stay up to date on everything there is to know about search engine marketing and you will see your sales increase considerably! The Game Is Changing, Are You?
Recession ? Should You Market?
Friday, October 03, 2008
Is today's economic market the right time to be cutting your dealers advertising budget?
Not if you want your dealerships business to survive the economic downturn and lay the foundation to thrive when the economy comes back around to stability! Tough economic times may actually provide the dealership the best opportunity to reach out to our customers with little or no competition because so many of our dealerships are going out of business or doing just the opposite of that in an attempt to save money and cutting budget.
During a strong economic market everyone has the money to find new clients, creating extreme competition where reaching the consumer to purchase your brand proves to be exceedingly difficult. NOW is the time to have faith in your band and service, to reach out to your customers and to secure your success now and into the future. There are easy and cost effective ways of doing so.
Everyone knows about the internet, but not everyone knows the free ways to get exposure to promote your brand on the internet. You can write an article about your dealership, or service department, and submit it to one of the many sites that accept them. At the end of your article, you mention your dealerships name and have a link to your dealers website. Each site has it's guidelines on how the articles are to be written, so make sure to follow them. This will help establish your dealership as a leader in the auto industry as long as the information you share is helpful and not self-promoting.
Guerilla marketing is great in slow times. Have some flyers or postcards made promoting the dealership or sale. One of your employees can design it or you can find an affordable place to do it for you. During your slow times, have your employees go to a busy area and hand them out (How about right in front of the dealership). Now you are putting your message directly into the hands of prospective customers. Make sure you have an attractive offer that will entice people to visit the dealership.
Guerilla marketing is done differently on the internet. With blogs and social networking sites, there are opportunities to market your dealership in a different setting. You can create blogs and check the responses you get from each entry which can help you check what the market is interested in at any given time. Respond to other blogs with your company information. You can set up an account with a social networking site (myspace, facebook etc), giving more information about your dealership and connecting to other businesses to network and exchanges leads.
Cross promote with other businesses, in other ways. You're not the only business feeling the pinch of the economy so its most likely effecting other businesses in your area/industry as well. Find other businesses that don't compete with yours and see about exchanging some flyers or a banner promoting each other's business. Or if your business is online, do a link exchange with other businesses do try and get prospective buyers to your dealers website. Do not over due the link exchange and make sure there is some relevancy or Google may lower your organic search results. Be selective in who you work with both online.
Press Releases can be a very effective way to bring attention to your dealership. If you have something that impacts the community like a special event (Safety Seat Day), then you can have someone write a press release for you. You don't need to hire someone to do it for you, Make this the responsibility of one person in the dealership and make sure they know how to write and distribute the article for circulation. Again, remember the topic must be something that impacts the community and not just a self-serving piece promoting your dealership.
These are just some of the ideas that will help your dealership grow in any economy. There are plenty of marketing options out there both online and off. You just need to find the ones that work for you and not lose hope.
Online Marketing
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The most important function of a car dealer website is to help a company to sell cars and service to new customers.
When potential new customers need to choose between two car dealers with whom they aren't familiar, they are most likely to compare the websites. This is because a website is almost the only method for a person to actually see beforehand what he/she pays for as far as service and quality is concerned. In general, more than 40% of these potential new and used car buyers decisions are decided upon the impression that is reflected from the car website, regardless of the competence of these companies. Even dealerships that are slow to respond to a lead will likely get walkin traffic from a well constructed website. The general truth is that most potential customers do not know how to technically compare dealers since they are selling the same brand for instance, and therefore trust that the dealers website's professionalism will reflect the expertise.
Therefore large amounts are invested in dealers website development and many companies to choose form.
Unfortunately most dealer owners tend to overlook the importance of building a trusted web presence with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Without having a web presence with authority almost no new visitors will end up at your website because your rankings will be so low, no one will find you. And since every dealer wants to expand their presence online, they need to focus on improving their website in order to increase the chance of getting new customers.
The best and most effective long term solution to increase your web presence is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is a highly specialized field that focuses on improving the amount of trust the rest of the world will have in your website. The more trust you have with Google, Yahoo and MSN, the more potential new customers will visit your dealer website daily.
The amount of trust your website has, is most of the time determined by search engines (for example Google, Yahoo, etc.). This is because the search engines have the most advanced mathematical algorithms available today, hence the acronym, SEO. Of all these search engines, the world's most accepted benchmark of website trust is known as the Google page rank) of your website.
Therefore, if you could increase your Google page rank, your number of new visitors to your dealer website will most certainly increase.
Google Rank of well known organizations' home page:
4/10: Dealer Websites
5/10: Autonation
6/10: Chrysler, Kia
7/10: Ford, Coke
8/10: General Motors, AT&T
9/10: Microsoft
10/10: Google
Another reason why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is so important is because of the quality of the traffic (website visitors) you receive on your website. If somebody visits your dealer website due to a search engine query, as opposed to other reasons (such as typing in the web address/clicking on a link from another website, etc), the new visitor will most likely already be looking for your services and ready to buy.
For example, if someone types in the word "Pontiac Chicago" in Google, they are probably looking for a Pontiac vehicle in the Chicago area. So if your site comes up first on Google you can probably sell a Pontiac vehicle if your price and dealer website is good. The contrary is that the person accidentally lands on your dealer website, but has no immediate desire to purchase a vehicle or service.
Please note that it is possible to buy quality traffic, but this is expensive (depending on the source and competition) and only effective in the immediate short term i.e. while it is active. SEO has a long term effect and is relatively inexpensive (free) to maintain once a certain level of optimization is reached.
Tips when hiring SEO experts to manager your dealership website:
If have a Dealer e Process website we do it for you!
- Whenever using a company in order to improve your SEO, always check out the Google Rank of their website i relation to the auto industry. Since SEO is not that well known in management circles, there is a lot of companies that will try to sell SEO skills to a dealer but have no dealer results while there own SEO ia terrible. Have them give you examples of other dealerships that have high rankings in competitive area; For example (Chicago Pontiac).
- Also try to get some form of guarantee. It is very rare that SEO companies ever give guarantees about the effects of their efforts, but if they actually do, you know they are serious about their skills for your dealerships results.
- Try to get clear benchmarks to calculate the results of the SEO campaign for your dealership. For example monitor the number of visitors that your website receives that came from organic search engine queries before and after the time of your campaign. (We strongly recommend you use Google Analytics)
- Make sure your SEO company have a clean record. Sometimes SEO companies may get desperate in order to get results and might step over the moral line by trying to fool search engines with unnatural 'black hat' methods. When caught out, these websites are usually banned from search engines and will not show in any search result.
Good luck with your marketing campaign!
Explaining SEO At Dealerships
Friday, September 26, 2008
“SEO. It means: Search Engine Optimization.
Explaining SEO to dealership owners and general managers is, not surprisingly, a difficult prospect at best. The real problem, though, is that even describing it to a dealership owner which can prove to be a bit challenging in itself. And since these are the people who really should understand how SEO can benefit their dealership, this can prove to be a big hurdle to climb.
Where do you start? How do you show a dealer owner or GM that SEO processes do have relevance to their dealership? Is there a simple way to distinguish SEO from other forms of Internet advertising that they may be more familiar with – such as banners and Pay-Per-Click advertising?
Try this: ask any dealer personnel to find their own website through a search engine, but put a couple rules on the exercise. First, they cannot use their dealers name, or the the unique brand name of the product they are offering. Second, they only have a certain amount of time to locate their dealers website.
Recently, Dealer E Process attended an Expo in San Francisco and was able to try this exercise with many different car dealers, with interesting results.
Most dealers gave up on the search before too long. Others were clearly disappointed that they didn’t turn up on the search engine results pages for keywords that they had basically just assumed they would automatically rank well. After all, why wouldn’t the largest car dealer in San Francisco rank well for “cars in San Francisco.” The idea that it might take a little work to make that happen had never occurred to them, and we could see that a little more understanding of the benefits of SEO began to creep into their minds.
Of course, most car dealer owners or internet managers will still need a more thorough explanation than this, and that shouldn’t be surprising either. But a physical example like this could possibly be one of the best ways to open the doors of understanding. This is where Dealer e Process excels.
Once you’re there, that’s when you can start to delve the depths of natural vs. paid rankings, and search engine algorithms, and link recruiting tactics… all the real deep stuff of SEO that we at Dealer e Process love so much. But the first step has got to be a basic education on a level that dealer is more likely to understand.
Dealership Website Traffic
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Where does dealership traffic come from? Dealer website traffic is essential to your success online. If you have no traffic to your dealer website you are not going to get anyone buying your vehicles or read your testimonials, visit your service departments or parts departments to purchase products and services. Traffic is one of the key components of your dealers website and is available in these three forms.
1. Pay For It (Pay Per Click).
You can buy traffic typically using what is known as Pay Per Click advertising. The major names in this market are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are many smaller companies around also but they all follow the same premise. I recommend sticking with the "Big Three".
You create your account, grab a bunch of keywords using their backend tool and create your adwords. You can define the amount you want to spend per click or per day, what geographical areas you want your ads to appear in and even what time they should appear. You can also set daily cap amounts.
When someone types one of your keywords into for example Google, (Chicago car dealers) your ad will be displayed down the right hand side or top of the page of the natural search results. If the searcher then chooses to click on your pay per click ad and gets forwarded to your website you will get charged for that click.
The price you pay for each individual click depends on a number of conditions such as how many other people are paying on that keyword as the relevancy of the word or phrases you are going after. The more competition the more it costs to be higher up the ranks. The position you want to occupy. The percentage of people who click on your ad, etc. etc..
Pay Per Click advertising can be very successful but has a steep learning curve and be quite expensive with a lack of knowledge. It is essential that you do lots of research into your chosen Pay Per Click vender.
2. Borrow It.
This option is not for everyone, but in certain situations it can be effective. The first method of borrowing traffic is what is called link exchange. This is where you put links to another website on your site and they put links back to you on theirs.In the auto business I would only recommend doing this with directories and not other dealerships. This can be beneficial as you can get traffic from a more successful website for free if your link request is accepted. However this traffic is not always targeted.
The key things to remember about borrowing traffic is that you have to give something in return like a quality link from your dealers website. This can make it tricky when targeting very successful websites. They will likely not respond to our offer.
3. Create It.
Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your dealers website. There are literally thousands of ways to start generating your traffic but I'm just going to tell you about two of the most popular.
Articles are a great way to generate traffic. You can write your articles about your dealership, new vehicle models,offer advice on service, explanations, dealership news, just to name a few. Once you have created your articles you can put them on your dealers website or blog as content. You can also upload these articles to directories or even assemble a few of them into a white paper or ebook to give away to visitors at the dealership.
Video is currently the big thing on the internet world and growing daily on dealer websites. Everywhere you look there are videos for everything. 50% of all web traffic is video and YouTube alone receives 12.5% of all the traffic out there. YouTube has made it possible for anyone to upload their videos for evrything you can imagine. Just as you can create an article about anything you can do the same thing with video. The best option is to do both: Create it in print and create it in video and GET IT ON YOUR DEALER WEBSITE.
The Mystery in SEO
Thursday, September 04, 2008
SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) is the most one important element in building a successful dealer website. Most dealership internet managers have heard the term SEO and have some idea of what is involved, yet it remains a mysterious process the rest of the dealership personnel. One of the reasons SEO is so mysterious is that it is very complicated and search engines are constantly changing the way they rank sites (algorithms) and the way the recognize the many tools of SEO.
Leading the SEO algorithm system is the leading search engine Google. They have pretty much set the standard for technology in search engine algorithms that can track the relevancy of a website to its content and SEO efforts thus resulting in your placement for various keywords online. Googles ranking system remains one of the most popular methods of determining a dealerships website quality because of their diligent efforts of weeding out the bad sites that have little to offer a consumer other than manipulation and the ability to 'work the system' to their advantage.
Of course working the system makes perfect sense from a business standpoint so the dealership can benefit from rankings. From the "search engine" outlook of wanting to provide the best quality sites on their results from a search, the viewer it can become difficult to differentiate the site that is good quality from the site that is good because it has a very manipulative operator (SEO Expert) running the show.
Because the rules (algorithms) for SEO evolve and change rapidly, search engine optimization continues to confuse website owners in all industry's. Many dealers have companies build their websites thinking the only SEO tool they need to worry about is key word density. While key words are an important aspect in SEO they are not the only means to an end, they are simply a part of big picture. There is another tried and true method of SEO that is as relevant today as it was at the start of the concept that is back linking. While back linking remains one of the most successful ways to get your site to rank high on the search engines it also has seen some changes making the types of links important so that search engines do not penalize a site for bad incoming links. For example, getting a link from a shoe store will not help a car dealership because they are irrelevant.
The term "back link" refers to an outside link on another site that points to your dealers site. In the past any link from another site would have a positive impact on your site by the search engines. Because there were so many gimmicks and spammers developed in the last few years to employ massive back links to websites such as link farms, Google began to develop a way to weed out links that were purchased, or had little meaning or relevancy.
Even though back linking is used to manipulate search engines, there are many very legitimate reasons for using the system of back linking for your dealers website. Finding web sites that have a common interest(car sales)to your own who are willing to place your dealers link on their site can get you extra exposure. When their visitors come to their site they will see your link and likely visit your site as well.
The fact that website links like that have such a perceived relevance to the visitor (looking for a car to buy) makes them a valuable marketing tool, but that perception of quality is also why Google works so hard to be sure they are real quality links. You will get higher ranking on a search engine for a number of truly relevant appropriate back linking partnerships. If the sites linking to you do not share any common information or products (vehicles for sale) Google will penalize you for the link. There are new things in the works with Google where your site could even be penalized further if the site that links to you is determined to be bad quality so it is important who you choose to link to, and also who links to you.
In the past many web site owners (not auto industry) would open up multiple websites with the sole purpose of promoting one principle site. They would use the extra websites as a means of placing back links to the main site. Google now watches for sites that are created with the same IP address. Creating a large number of websites on the same IP address and putting back links on them to quickly develop a number of links is known as "link bombing". That is not to say that you cannot ever link to your own website from a site you own. If there is a reason to show your visitors some additional information(different makes and models sites) a few well placed back links are fine. It is when there are many links from each site all pointing to a single 'main' site that the search engines look at them as a spam type effort.
The best way to obtain a back link to your site is through anchor text. That is when you have another website with content that is relevant (Car Sites) to your own (relevancy is ALWAYS important) including your site in the actual content of their site with a hyperlink inside the text. These back links are valued much higher than a simple sidebar link (like a banner) as long as they appear in the text in a way that has a fluid and meaningful association with the content of the article. There are several ways to get such back links and it takes alot of hard work and is very time consuming.
Providing articles to content sites with your dealerships link built into the article is one method. If you write very informative article on your dealers website is another as someone else with a similar site may wish to place it out on their own. You may not even realize they are doing it unless they tell you about it. This is one of the main reasons it is important to keep an eye on who is back linking to you. While the majority of those types of links are wonderful and you should thank the site owner for their inclusion,be careful that poor websites linking back to you will cause a drop in rankings. If the content is not relevant to your site you should definitely ask them to remove your link.
Back linking is an extremely important aspect of SEO development for your dealerships website success and it is something you need to understand well in order to implement and control it properly. There are many secrets and mysteries in the SEO world that study and hours of reading can clear up. Keeping your dealers website in good standing with the search engines and popular with your customers is the best way to ensure a vital and profitable future for your dealerships business online.
Build Customer Confidence with Testimonials
Friday, August 29, 2008
Build Customer Confidence with Testimonials
Every person in America has bought something that either broke or stopped working after a few days. Because of this, today's customers want to feel reassured that you are selling quality products and services. Customers do not want to lose money or feel like they've made a bad decision. The best way to do assure customers is to have good, strong testimonials.
If a business has happy customers and a lot of return clients, it should have testimonials. You wouldn't hire a contractor to remodel your house without checking references. Therefore be proud of the work you do and get some testimonials. Customer testimonials will help increase sales as well as boost the confidence of potential customers.
The Difference Between Good and Better
In order to have testimonials work for you and increase clientele, you must be careful how you phrase them. Testimonials are a marketing effort, which means that they need to be geared toward making your company look spectacular. For example, instead of writing "I love their vitamins", write "Taking these vitamins everyday gives me lots of energy and keeps me feeling great all day long." The latter testimonial is a lot more eye-catching and will be more effective in gaining a customer's confidence than the former. Ask customers who are willing to write testimonials to be specific.
Cherry Pick Your Testimonials
If you don't have any testimonials, check your company's email inbox for customers who sent compliments. If you can't find any ones you like, look at your client list and find out who is buying your products and at what frequency. Call or email a handful of your best customers and ask them to write a specific testimonial. Have them send a picture as well. This will give potential customers further reassurance of the validity of the testimonial.
Testimonials will not only improve your business, but will also improve your company's image as one that values customer satisfaction. So make the effort to get some strong testimonials.
Four Tips for Effective and Eye-Catching Locations
1. Once you have the testimonials, you need to figure out where to put them on your site. Placement is key, particularly when using flash. You want your testimonials to give maximum impact. The most common place on a website is for them to have their own navigation button titled either "Testimonials" or "Rave Reviews". This way more testimonials can be viewed on their own page.
2. Another option is to use flash testimonials on a sidebar on the homepage along with the customer's name, job title and company or logo. If you are using the testimonials in the masthead, they should rotate every 7-10 seconds then stop after all testimonials are shown. You don't want a testimonial to be so distracting that it takes the emphasis off of the content and what you are selling or offering. By having the flash cycle stop, you are allowing viewers to see the testimonials and then freely look at the content without the excess flash.
3. An alternative way to present testimonials is to sprinkle them throughout the site, highlighting them within the content using graphics, such as a color block background, upper and lower bar, etc. These visual stops are equally effective in reinforcing your credibility and can act as an additional selling point for specific products or services.
4. If you have the option for audio or video testimonials, this can be very effective in boosting your company's credibility. Audio is easy to record using Audio Acrobat. Video, on the other hand, requires more thought to positioning and angles. If you are at a trade show or with a client, you may want to pre-plan these testimonials for more impact.
Remember that in order for a testimonial to be effective, it needs to be specific, believable and placed in a credible location. With these three tips in mind, your testimonials will build customer confidence and web success
SEO Tips
Friday, August 29, 2008
It requires a lot of effort in designing and building a dealerships site, but it can be all worthless if you can't attract enough traffic to the dealers site. You put all your efforts in an attractive flashy design of your dealership website and the next step you do is to put it in front of the online world to start selling cars and service.
You can't get success only by submitting your website on the Internet; the target is to attract relevant visitors towards your website, which can't be done unless you put your site in the eyes of the search engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Today, all of the internet users use search engines to find the site relevant to their interest. For example, if a person is interested in finding information about used cars for sale , he/she can easily do so by typing in the keywords in Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other search engine. The search engine, as a result, will present a list of most relevant used car websites on the basis of their keyword query.
How to optimize your dealership website for search engines?
There are two ways of doing it.
* On Page Search Engine Optimization.
Following are some of the most common tips for better On Page Search Engine Optimization:
The Keyword: it is always suggested that before you submit your website to the Search Engines. Put all your efforts into the keywords and phrases since users will be using keywords to find websites of their interest. Each page of your website should be treated as a separate entity having its own title and targeted keywords (A major mistake among most dealership web providers).
Always try to name your webpage files starting with your targeted keyword like Chicagopontiac.htm etc. For instance, if your website is about used cars then the title of each of your webpage should always start with the word used cars and name each webpage file starting with word used cars like usedcarsreview.htm because the search engine robots look at filenames.
Always remember that you have to make your dealers website attractive for the human visitors as well as for search engine bots. Attractiveness for both of them can be achieved through better keyword optimization on the website.
You should keep in mind the keyword density and never over-optimize your web page. You will see many dealers repeat the same phrase over and over on their website which raises the keyword density and penalizes the dealers site. It is not necessary that the greater the optimization level of your web page the better it will be.
Title Tags are considered to be one of the most important factors of website Optimization. You can say in other words that it is mandatory for you to include the main keyword as part of your title.
You should always use Header tags with lots of care. Most of the SEO experts recommend having a single H1 header tag that should contain the main Keyword in order to attract human visitors as well as the search engine robots. Other H2 tags can contain secondary keywords.
Putting the main keyword (Used Cars Chicago) in the URL is always beneficial in the eyes of the search engines. Most of the users are usually not bothered with that but it will help in better SEO. If it is not possible to include the complete keywords or a phrase in the URL then try at least to include the most important keyword in the URL or some portion of the phrase.
There are many more SEO tips that are incorporated in having a Dealer e Process website, but the above mentioned tips are the most common and recommended by experts. You can add additional features on your website to make it more Search Engine Optimized, for instance, adding customer testimonials, blog sections, vehicle comment sections etc.
