Many dealerships focus their search engine optimization reporting on how well they are ranking for certain terms. As long as they show up on Page 1 of Google's search results, they are happy. While search engine page ranking is an important part of every dealership's online marketing efforts, what happens if your auto dealer website is showing up on page 1 for every keyword, but you aren't seeing any traffic? If you are seeing this happening at your dealership, here are some potential causes:

DealerOn Inc. is the recipient of a “Top Rated” Websites award in the third annual DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards, presented in conjunction with the 2012 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo. "What makes this award so meaningful is that it literally comes from our customers—our partners," said Ali Amirrezvani, CEO and Co-Founder of DealerOn. "At DealerOn, every single employee knows that our goal is to make our dealers truly happy in every way we can. We work with them to improve our platform, our support processes, our products, and their results because that’s what makes our dealers happy. We’re not building a customer base; we’re building partnerships with dealers. Winning this award is further proof that we're on the right track." DealerOn has become noted for documenting (through Google Analytics and 3rd party CRM reports) an average increase of over 200% in lead volume for their auto dealer clients. They have recently announced a Lead Volume Increase, Money-back GUARANTEE for new customers.

While (I hope) most dealership websites won’t be affected by this, Google has recently announced they will begin penalizing websites that have too many ads at the top.  It's being called the "page layout algorithm" and affects sites that "don't have much content 'above-the-fold'", according to Google's Inside Search blog.

 

We've all clicked onto a site only to have to scroll down through the ads to actually find the content we are looking for.  This algorithm change will penalize sites with little or no “non-ad” content visible above the scroll line, so that they appear less frequently and with less prominence in Google’s search results.

 

So how does Google tell what is an ad and what isn't?  They have a "variety of signals that algorithmically determine what type of ad or content appears above the fold, but no further details to share.  It is completely algorithmic in

iPads and iPhones make up over 90% of online purchases that don't happen on a desktop device. That means that 9 out of 10 mobile purchases come from an Apple product, a device that can't read anything in Flash. This is up from 88% when RichRelevance conducted the same study just last April. If your dealership mobile website uses Flash technology, the majority of those coming to your site from a mobile device won’t be able to see it. In fact, DealerOn customers typically see 2/3 of the traffic to their mobile website come from iPads and iPhones. Can you imagine if only 1/3 of your website visitors could actually see the content on your site?

I've written multiple pieces on how to properly set up and maintain your Google Places listing and account, but haven't touched on the mistakes you could be making, hurting your car dealership online marketing strategy.

Here are the places where you could really screw up your listing if you aren't careful:

Don't use a post office box. Even if this is where you get mail, make sure you use the actual address of your business.

Only enter the address into the address field.  That means no directions, no landmarks (turn left at the yellow building), and no descriptions.

Don't hide your address.  Google gives you the option of hiding your physical address--don't do it!  Google Places wants to be able to show users where you are located on a map, so let them.

Using a tracking number?  Stop.  Google has officially stated "Types of phone numbers that should not be included are: call tracking numbers and phone numbers that are not

 

Now that Google+ is open to businesses, many are trying to figure out the best way to utilize this new social media portal (including DealerOn).  I’ve gathered some of the more common mistakes that businesses are making to shorten the learning curve for auto dealerships.

Like all other social media sites, not posting on a regular basis can hurt your marketing efforts.  Consistently providing visitors with quality, worthwhile content is the best way to attract (and keep) potential dealership customers engaged in your social sharing.

Google+ really lends itself to sharing photos, so make sure you take full advantage.  Switch up your text posts with photos of your vehicles, dealership, and staff.  Make sure your profile photo identifies your dealership to help ensure your visitors know they’ve found the right Google+ page.

To further help identify your profile, make sure your tagline is clear and descriptive.  Use it as a way to stand

DealerOn.com, the premier auto dealer website provider is expanding its executive team to further accelerate the steady growth trajectory of its business.  DealerOn, Inc., a leading online marketing company serving the retail automotive industry – today announces the appointment of Gerard J. (Jerry) Petrotto to the newly-created position of Chief Sales Officer.

In announcing his appointment, Ali Amirrezvani, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are delighted that Jerry is joining the DealerOn family.  Jerry brings a wealth of industry experience from his tenure at Black Book as Vice President of Retail Sales at the Online Division.  In his five years with Black Book, Petrotto was an integral member of an executive team that drove the meteoric growth of Black Book Online in the retail automotive sector.  His expertise with online sales distribution strategy, sales management, and product merchandising will be indispensible to DealerOn’

HTML5 has been in the tech news lately, especially since Adobe announced that they are going to stop developing Flash in favor of HTML5 on mobile browsers. This doesn’t mean the company is abandoning the technology on desktops, but according to Mike Chambers, the lead in Adobe developer relations, “a lot of the things that you have done via Flash in the past will increasingly be done via HTML5 and CSS3…”.

Google recently announced a new update to their search engine algorithm that puts a greater emphasis on recently published, fresh content. "This change...promotes fresher results...so that we provide users the most relevant answers to their queries," according to a Google spokesperson. Regularly updated content has always been a positive ranking factor in SEO, but this announcement from Google makes it that much more important. So how can your dealership use this change to help your dealer site rank better?

DealerOn, the premier auto dealer website provider, announces that two of their auto dealership customers have been awarded Dataium Website Performance Awards for October 2011. Dataium uses various performance metrics collected from participating dealership websites to recognize auto dealerships and their website providers for their online performance. Volkswagen of Lithia Springs was awarded the Auto Shopper Intensity (ASI) Award and Joe Cecconi’s Chrysler Complex received the Best Performance: Leads per Auto Shopper Award.

Google, in an effort to help small business ensure they have an effective mobile website, has launched "GoMo". This website (http://www.howtogomo.com) lets users learn about why having a quality mobile site is important, test how your site looks in its mobile version, and find resources to help if your mobile site isn't quite up to par. I really like the option to see how your current site looks in mobile. From the homepage, click "See How Your Current Site Looks in Mobile", then "Test Your Site". Enter the URL of your dealership website to see how mobile users will see it. After answering a couple of questions about what you see, you'll get a report card of sorts that focuses on four potential mobile website hangups: Loading Speed, Images, Text, and Navigation.

For the most part, search engine optimization (SEO) is a recognized necessity of running a successful auto dealer website. Not just in the auto industry, but there are still some hold-outs that think building websites and content to be found by search engines is a little spammy. According to Matt Cutts, the head of Google's web spam fighting team, his company does not consider SEO to be spam. "We don't consider SEO to be spam," and SEO is a "valid way to help people find what they're looking for via search engines". While he does denounce black hat SEO tactics, Cutts emphasizes that Google's goal is to return the best possible search results they can, and sites with quality SEO help them achieve that goal.

The amount of "best practices" and "tips" involved with social media marketing can be overwhelming to say the least (and yes, I'm guilty of sharing my own).  In the spirit of KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid), here is a short list of Must-Do's for dealerships using social media as a part of their online marketing efforts:

Have a Plan: Before starting any marketing campaign, your dealership should have a plan.  When it comes to social media, make sure you consider (and answer) things like:


What is your goal?

Why are we investing time and resources into this particular social media site?

Who are we trying to reach with this campaign?


Optimize: As with your auto dealer website, your social media efforts should have search engine optimization as a focus.  This not only means the content you post, but also your profiles.  Use keywords that your customers are using to search for your dealership online in your summary, backlink t

Having videos on your auto dealer website has been shown to increase website leads, and when done with video search engine optimization (VSEO), helping your site climb the search engine result pages.  If your dealership has videos on your website, you should have those videos uploaded to your own dealership YouTube channel.

Here's why:

Popularity: YouTube is the world's largest video search engine (and the second largest search engine) and growing every single day.  People all over the world use it to find videos, so if someone searches for a vehicle that your dealership sells, don't you want a video from your dealership to show up?

Timing: Like most search engines, YouTube tends to give older entries a little extra edge when returning search results.  The sooner you create your channel and upload videos, the better.

Cost: YouTube is free.  Aside from the time cost of uploading (though it's possible your auto dealer website or video provide

While many dealers see press releases as a marketing strategy for larger companies, it can be (and is) a valuable and worthwhile strategy for auto dealerships as well. It’s a great way to get news about your company out both locally and nationally. Press releases can make their way into both local and national news sources, helping your dealership brand itself within the community, as well as show up more often and higher on the search engine result pages. Here are some ways your dealership can get the most out of each press release you create:

It is so frustrating when trying to send a legitimate, valuable email to a customer (future or current), and have it be blocked by a spam filter. While there are some auto dealers that do send emails that might be properly classified as spam, most dealers who have spam issues are sending real emails to real customers. Their email campaigns are being inappropriately blocked by various spam filters. Here are some tips to avoid the dreaded spam filter in your customer's email inbox:

 

The verdict on Google+ for personal use still seems to be out for many (myself included).  But according to Christian Oestlien, group product manager for social advertising at Google has said that they are “close to unveiling Google+ business profiles”.

 

Only Ford and GM have official profiles right now (interesting that they are both automotive brands).  Some businesses have created profiles, even though most sit blank; just so you know, there isn’t a limit to how many times a name can be used, so no need to claim your dealership’s name ahead of time.  I see this being a problem in the future.  Google+ will need a way to verify business accounts, much like Twitter and Google Places have, or I think they will lose out on some trust.

 

Will your dealership take another look at using Google+ once businesses are allowed?  What if Google+ ends up integrating with Google Places?

For those out that use Google AdWords for your auto dealer website, this is big news.  After some testing in foreign markets, Google has announced that they are changing the algorithm used to determine the Quality Score of PPC ads to give landing page quality more weight.

According to Jonathan Alferness, director of product management on Google’s ad quality team, Google wants their advertisers to focus on relevance and “choose a landing page…that is both relevant to the keywords that you’re targeting and also a good experience for end users.”

This algorithm change will “result in better quality experience for the users” and those ads with a high quality, relevant landing page will get a “strong boost” upward in the auction.

Now more than ever, your dealership can’t afford to ignore where you’re sending your PPC traffic.  Having a webpage that uses relevant keywords and gives users the content and exper

I recently wrote about how important it is to keep the NAP (name, address, phone number) the same across all local listing sites.  Typically this isn't a problem, but if your dealership wants to use tracking numbers for auto dealer website, you usually won't be able to keep your NAP the same across the board.

Luckily, a call measurement firm, Telmetrics, has a solution that can help with that, especially for mobile users.  Their product, m.Call, uses an icon or button to track the call, instead of a separate phone number.  Essentially, users will click or touch the icon or button which initiates the tracking process and calls your dealership.

Since m.Call doesn't involve adding/buying/renting additional phone numbers, the cost for this type of call tracking is less expensive than most.  Also, the company uses a pay for performance pricing model, so instead of a fixed fee, your dealership only pays each time someone clicks the icon.

While this pro

Most people tend to focus a lot of their local search engine marketing for their auto dealer website on Google Places.  While it's true that a lot, if not most, of your search traffic comes from Google, it's still important to make sure your dealership is properly optimized for the other major players as well.

Here are directions to set up a free local business presence on both Yahoo and Bing:

Yahoo

Create a Yahoo account for your auto dealership.  While signed in, go to Yahoo Search Marketing and click "sign up".  Make sure you enter all of your business information including name, address, phone number, and hours.  The preview page lets you edit or submit; click submit once all the information is accurate.

Bing

Click "get started now" in the Bing Business Portal.  You'll have to check to make sure your business isn't already listed, so enter your dealership's information when asked.  If not already ther

What is designed to be a way for users to let Google know when a business has been closed is, in some cases, being abused by local competitors. Since it is so easy to mark a business closed in Google Places, some business are being tagged as closed when they aren't. When enough people mark a business as closed, Google will review whether or not this is true, though their review process isn't public. Google seems to be doing what they can to address the issue. In the past, an interim notification would appear on the Google Places page, "Reported to Be Closed", which users could mark as "Not True". However, imagine if someone came looking for your dealership online and was greeted with that message. The chances of them investigating whether or not that was actually true are slim--they would just head to the next dealership. Luckily, Google no longer shows this interim message, and will only show a business as closed once reviewed. To help protect your business from having this happen, make sure your dealership follows Google Local Places best practices like:

If you aren't happy with the way your dealership website is performing in terms of search engine results (and you aren't violating Google's webmaster guidelines), you can ask Google to "reconsider" your site. Essentially, you can ask Google to take a look at your site to see if it was manually marked as spam. Over the years, Google has improved this process to make it more transparent. After submitting a site, Google will let the webmaster know that they received the request and when the request is processed.

I try to spend at least a little time each day reading forums and blogs from outside the auto industry because I think there is a lot to learn from other business communities.  Today, I found an interesting question up for discussion, and would like to pose the same to you.

What would it take for you to leave the auto industry?

More money? More interesting work? Better benefits, or hours?

And reversely (and I think I'll get more responses to this question than the previous),

What are the reasons you wouldn't leave the auto industry?

The community?  Your love of cars?  The thrill of the sale?

Regardless of how you initially got into the industry, I would argue that those that stay do so because they truly love something about their job.  Working in a car dealership isn’t for just anyone, so what is it about the auto industry that you wouldn't give up for the world, and what could a different industry offer you that you just wouldn'

Google has just bought Zagat, a company that provides ratings and reviews of restaurants, entertainment venues, and travel locations. Known primarily for their yearly restaurant book guides, they have been doing quite well with their online subscription based site and community. Google plans for Zagat to be the "cornerstone of our local offering", helping them to compete directly with Yelp and other online review sites. Think it was a coincidence that Google recently removed these other review sites from their Google Local pages and search results?

According to the Google Operating System Blog, an unofficial source of news and tips about Google, the search engine giant will soon be launching Google Trusted Stores. This new service is designed to make it "easy for online shoppers to identify stores that provide an excellent online shopping experience." What do you think? Is this another way to force business' to focus on Google Reviews, or could this be a valuable way to differentiate your auto dealership from those around you?

DealerOn, the premier car dealer website provider, has been named to 2011 Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies. "DealerOn is thrilled to be a part of such an elite group of companies," said DealerOn co-founder and CEO, Ali Amirrezvani. "This recognition means so much to the DealerOn family. It is confirmation of, and a testament to, our employees’ hard work, dedication, and willingness to go above and beyond for our customers." The Inc. 5000 List ranks the fastest growing private American companies by the percentage of revenue growth over a three year period. To be considered, a company must have generated at least $100,000 in revenue by March 31, 2007, have $2 million in revenue in 2010, and be an independent, privately held U.S. for-profit company.

Within the past year, Maryland has been hit by an earthquake and a hurricane (in the same week!), as well as a huge snowstorm, all fairly uncommon occurrences in our state.  While DealerOn, both the office and our employees, were lucky enough to dodge any real damage, it definitely made us all think about how prepared we are for these kinds of emergencies.

DealerOn had enough warning before Hurricane Irene (and dodged damage from the earthquake) to ensure our account managers were set up to work remotely if necessary.  That way we knew that all of our customers’ dealership websites wouldn’t be affected, and we could continue to provide the exceptional customer service on which we pride ourselves.  And while we were lucky to avoid damage, many in our area were not, and are still without power.

After a natural disaster, your first priority will obviously be to ensure your friends, family, and co-workers are safe.  But after that?  Here are some

After writing my post on QR Codes Best Practices, I wanted to make sure those dealerships interested in starting a QR code marketing campaign knew to create QR codes in a way that will allow your dealership to track them through the Google Analytics on your car dealership website.

Here's how to create a QR code that is trackable by Google Analytics:

First, make sure you are signed into Google (in the account that houses your dealership’s analytics).

Next, go to the Google URL Builder.  Enter the URL that you would like the QR Code to link to.  Choose "QR Code" for campaign source, and then choose your campaign medium and name.  For example, if you're going to put the QR Code on window stickers for a Chevy Cruze, your Campaign Medium could be “Window Stickers” and the Campaign Name could be “2011 Chevy Cruze”.  Once you’ve entered these fields, click Generate URL.

Copy the URL you've just created and

Some of DealerOn's car dealer website customers are incorporating QR codes on their sites, though it remains a technology that’s still maturing.  While others in the industry have debated the benefits of using QR codes as a part of your dealership’s marketing strategy, I wanted to share some tips for running a QR Code campaign if your dealership is going to test this technology.

 

Before you start any marketing campaign, including one using QR codes, it is essential that your dealership lays out your goals.  What are the business or marketing objectives you hope to accomplish with the QR code campaign?  For example, are you looking to increase your email list or increase traffic on your mobile website?  If you don't determine what you're hoping to accomplish, you won't be able to tell whether or not the campaign is successful.

 

Make sure you test your QR code extensively.  If someone tries to use your code and it

One of the difficult parts of maintaining a successful social media marketing campaign is attracting the "right" people and getting your customers and prospects to interact with your dealership online. While this won't solve all of these problems, being able to find your dealership contacts in social media accounts is a start. You can import your dealership contacts into your social media accounts by following these instructions.