At the Automotive Boot Camp last week, I had the pleasure of going over analytics with a dealer who was at a loss for why they weren't getting more traffic to their website. One of the first things I noticed was that the website looked good on Internet Explorer and Firefox but had errors in Google Chrome and failed to display properly at all in Opera and Safari. "As long as it works in Internet Explorer, we're fine," the dealer told me. "Our area is not tech-savvy and almost everyone we know uses Internet Explorer." I was aghast. I literally didn't know what to say. I thought these days were behind us. I was wrong. It doesn't matter where your dealership is. People are using the internet. They know how to use the internet. Even if they don't, someone in their family does and has helped them know the basics. Internet Explorer is still big, but check your stats before thinking that "everyone is using it." Last week, Chrome ...

In April, 2012, Google began rolling out major changes to their search algorithm. The update, known as "Penguin", had dramatic effects on many of the searches that people do on a regular basis. In the automotive industry, the effects were felt by thousands of dealers. Some moved up if they had quality SEO practices being employed on their sites. As a result, others moved down. This graphic goes into a little detail about the philosophies that dealers and their search partners should employ to take advantage of the changes. Penguin is a good thing. It helps to level the playing field for those who want to do better and gives those willing to be exceptional the ability to fly to the top. Click to enlarge. ...

From time to time, storms collide to form a "perfect storm", a convergence of forces that creates something more powerful than the sum of its parts. This is not one of those times, but it certainly was a blast doing an "ask the experts" webinar about search engine optimization with Gary May and Eric Miltsch. When you get an hour to spare, a good way to spend it would be to listen to this webinar. ...

I was having a discussion with our founder over the best ways to separate the good from the bad SEO providers in the automotive industry when I realized that very few (VERY few) vendors presented all three components to help dealers make a decision about who to choose. There are three major components that a savvy dealer will want to look at when comparing vendors. The first one is arguably the most common but still very important. Requisites are "Things that are necessary for the achievement of a specified end." In the field of search engine optimization, knowing what it takes to achieve the goal of higher rankings for the right keywords is essential to success. SEO is both a science and an art. While there are definitely techniques that can be used and repeated to help towards that end, it's necessary to apply creative thinking during nearly every aspect of the SEO process. It's not simply a robotic experience. Here are the four primary requisites that ever...

Over the next couple of weeks I will be going into more detail about how social media is utilized as an SEO tool for car dealers. We will go over some of the various components that we've been "playing with" over the last couple of years (and ramping up tremendously in the last few months) that have yielded some incredible results. This will be a Driving Sales exclusive. Google and Bing have both acknowledged their use of social signals in their search algorithms. This is different than the sheer link-building aspect of social media. Social links are viewed very differently than standard website links. Twitter, for example, uses the "nofollow" attribute on their links and shrinks them. Two years ago, this made them relatively-worthless from an SEO perspective. Today, there are ways to use Twitter to push your pages over the threshold and achieve better rankings for individual pages and the entire domain in general. That's just Twitter, and it's not...

This is a topic that has been covered many times before. Often I see blogs get started but eventually abandoned or automated with scraped content from other sites. I'm going to take another stab at this, only this time I'm making my plea in video format. Below you'll see the first video in the series, "Driving the Point Home" where I go "off the cuff" on various topics pertaining to automotive internet marketing. We already have several videos recorded and will be posting them from time to time on Driving Sales. There are 4 primary reasons but be sure to pay closest attention to the last one. I don't know how else to convey how important it is to have a humanized component in the dealership's marketing strategy. Hopefully, this will be enough to spark some creative juices and the gumption necessary to stay consistent with blogging.   ...

Google takes a lot of heat in the tech world for being too powerful, potentially evil, and undoubtably ambitious. It comes with the territory; rarely can a company attain the level of complete domination within an industry the way that Google has owned search for years. Bing is still valid as is Yahoo by default, but the reality is that the general population trusts Google results as an authority. Everyone has had seemingly-impossible-to-answer questions that have been instantly, almost magically answered by the Big G. It's for this reason that ranking near the top for competitor cities is one of the highest value SEO goals a dealer and their SEO vendor can have. It's a core to KPA SEO. Here's why: Let's say you have a competitor in Jaredville 30 miles to the north. The city is medium sized but the Miltsch Auto Group has the market cornered and they have the only Ford point in Jaredville. Just about everyone in town knows about Miltsch Ford. When people want t...

Last week at SXSW, we had the privilege of seeing some of the latest and greatest in search and social that was, quite frankly, a whirlwind of knowledge that we rarely experience at conferences. There's normally a good amount of information at conferences but the sheer bulk of usable data pertinent to the automotive industry made me wish at times that we brought more than 4 KPA people down to Austin. With that said, there were tons of tidbits of data that I will be sharing over the coming weeks, but one of the most important came during Danny Sullivan's talk with Google's Matt Cutts and Bing's Duane Forrester. They covered so many points that it will require multiple blog posts to bring to light, but one reinforcement piece that struck me was the passion behind all three of these search giants when discussing 301 redirects. In the automotive industry, it's hard to get vendors to create 301 redirects especially when converting from one website platform to anoth...

One of my favorite activities when searching for quality content on the internet is to go to Pinterest to find videos, images, and infographics worth sharing. One in particular stood out this morning and I explored this infographic heartily. Once done, I went back to see who to attribute; lo and behold, it was Driving Sales' new Director of Product Strategy Eric Miltsch who popped it up on my Pinterest stream! In this graphic, the timeline, trends, terms, and tidbits come to life and show us where the industry has been. Knowing where we came from can help guide our future and as the automotive SEO world continues to grow and advance, having this historical understanding can be an amazing reference. Click to enlarge. (Via: Killer Infographics) ...

It's easy to take it for granted. When we want to look for a car or answer any of life's mundane questions, we go to Google and get our answers. It happens every day (a billion times a day, actually). Most of us get our answer without paying a penny and we move on with our daily lives. Still, Google is making money. The service might be free and something that brings us to the site or to an app on our mobile devices on a semi-regular basis, but the advertising they sell for the service is the most profitable advertising platform in history by far. With all that said, this latest infographic breaks down the story and technical background behind the most used research tool the world has ever known.  Click to enlarge. ...

Website marketing, lead conversion, and sales should be in a constant state of improvement. No design is perfect. No strategy is complete. The truly successful internet dealers of the world must be willing to put the time in to make sure they're best-positioned against their competition and offer a positive face that their customers can see. The internet is now the first and last place most people go when buying a vehicle. They start their research there, and while there is still a good portion of people who refer to other venues, they normally end up on the internet before heading out to see vehicles. Sometimes, they're on the internet while they're out seeing vehicles. The only way to maintain a state of constant improvement is through testing. This isn't Star Wars - "The Force" does not apply here. One does simply know that their website is perfect. They have to test it. With thousands of websites under our belt, we are still constantly testing, t...

The art and science of link-building has been growing in the consiousness of dealers for the last several months. The trumpet that a few of us have been blowing has started to make an impact in the industry as dealers and vendors realize the SEO benefits of quality inbound links to their sites. It's starting to be a craze which is a good thing. As with any craze, there needs to be a word or two of caution attached. In this case, the words of caution were best illustrated by Google itself. It is against the rules to purchase links for the sake of increased page rank or rankings. Google has made this clear for years, and recently slapped its own wrist to make sure nobody thinks they're above their own rules. It's not against the rules to purchase link placement. They've been very clear that sponsored links and advertisements are perfectly acceptible as long as they apply the "nofollow" attribute to the links. A company that the Google Chrome team hired ...

If there's one thing that's constant in the technology world, it's change. We see it every day - what was once hot goes cold, what was once dying is reborn. I had a bad-prediction moment the other day when I had to backtrack on my opinion of the Windows Phone. The TK Carsites founder had purchased one a few months back and at the time I was (inwardly) laughing at him. I was wrong. Microsoft will be a player in the phone wars in the near future. That's what happens in automotive marketing as well. It's my job to analyze the latest and greatest products and trends in online automotive marketing and make a decision as to how effective they'll be, what the ROI will look like, and how long it will be able to sustain. We did this in 2007 when we first started exploring social media, for example. At the time, Facebook was 1/5th the size of MySpace, but we made the decision to bet on Facebook making a push and forcing MySpace to the side. The infographic below sho...

Those who have been on the internet side of the business for a while might remember some email marketing fads that came and went. They were sleak, sexy, interactive, and got blocked by 90% of the spam filters by 2008. Alas, the days of "fun emails" were behind us. Or were they? Video emails are making a comeback and frankly, I'm not sure what to think about it. There are several products out there in the market today that allow dealers to make quick videos of them talking directly to customers, doing short video walkarounds, or simply giving the personal attention that customers want to receive. I'm interested in hearing from the Driving Sales about the effectiveness of these. Call it a personal research project. It's not something that KPA/TK Carsites offers, but if it's effective I'd love to look into it. What are your thoughts? What's your experience? This question was sparked by one of the infographics that we promote through Hasai that hit...

We are very pleased to have the best dressed man in the automotive industry shedding light and sharing wisdom with dealers across the country on Wednesday at 9am Pacific, noon Eastern. "Marketing is constantly evolving and new innovative ways of reaching your prospects are emerging, most recently with the rise of marketing via smart phones and tablets. Join Paul to learn about how to most effectively market your services and connect with your customers in the world of Mobile Marketing. Walk away from this webinar knowing how to develop a mobile “mailing” list, innovative ways to make your message stand out, as well as key components of a successful mobile marketing strategy." Come see Paul in the morning on the TK Carsites Webinar. It's free!   ...

Most who are active participants of the Driving Sales community are well aware of the importance of having a Facebook page, getting local people to like it, and posting engaging content to keep our feeds present for people to see when they visit Facebook. Let's take it a step further and discuss some advanced marketing techniques that have been proven to be effective on Facebook. One easy technique is the use of sharable photos. Many of us are posting pictures of our customers on our Facebook wall, but I cannot stress enough how important it is for these pictures to go beyond our own walls. We need them to be on other people's walls. We need them shared, getting comments, and getting exposure for our brands to as many locals as possible on Facebook. Take a look at this update: It has many of the attributes of a very strong update. It has real people doing real things. It highlights the personality of the dealership and the fact that they didn't something extra...

What started off as a debate turned into one of the most eye-opening discussions of my career. A friend of mine who run marketing at an online corporate giant was interviewing me about my recent decision to purchase several of their products. The topic of conversions came up and the fireworks started: what was considered a conversion in the automotive industry? His contention was that conversions can only be sales, that leads by themselves weren't enough to qualify as a web conversion. He went so far as to say that a good dealer website should be able to SELL cars directly and that people should just be coming in to finalize paperwork and pick up their vehicle (or even better, have it all delivered to their house or work). I won that part of the debate - leads are conversions in today's world because so few people will buy cars without driving them first. I explained the necessity of building excitement and taking ownership during the drive, that people might be willing t...

In the competitive world of automotive internet marketing, it's hard sometimes to know what's really working and what's a waste of time. Too often, dealers and their vendors are led down a path to some new form of "marketing gold" that will help their search and/or social gain an upperhand on the competition. It's for this reason that I've avoided pushing too hard about Tumblr. After using it for 3 years internally here at TK Carsites, I'm finally confident that it has 3 attributes that are important for anything that we are willing to recommend: - It's got to have sticking power. Despite ups and downs, Tumblr has emerged as a real player in social media and shows no signs of slowing in the future. - It has to be relatively easy. One of the reasons we don't recommend that dealers should build a unique class-C IP-driven, relevant-content-based blog network is because it is hard. It requires manpower, dedication, and several hours a ...

There is a distinct taste of irony to this post. I made my feelings known about cross-posting on all of the social networks earlier this month. Now I must break my own personal rule. This time, I have good reason. We're trying to compile a complete list of automotive social networks. We've put together a good list but I'm sure I'm missing some, so with a heavy heart I must do the thing I prefer to avoid: post this article across all of the social networks I know. Over the past 5 years, the automotive industry has managed an amazing transition. We were behind the times half a decade ago as an industry with many dealerships still using old technology or leaning on traditional advertising as their primary method of pushing out their message. In the short amount of time since, we've gone as an industry from being behind other industries in internet marketing practices to setting the trend and embracing the internet as the primary method through which we mar...

If anything, 5-minutes is overkill. It shouldn't take that long. Using the network, learning the ins and outs, consolidating the philosophy and strategy to combine nicely with search and other social sites - all may take longer. Here, let's start with the basics. Get your page built. There are a few things to keep in mind, but first and foremost is that you want it attached to your Google Places account. Eventually there will be some vetting that happens, but unfortunately anybody can make a page for any business. This won't last - they're just getting adoption rates up for now. Once they have the accounts active and working, they'll get into attaching them officially. That will be a cluster, but we're not there yet. First, let's just get the page built.   ...

Nobody. If you check your analytics, you'll find that an extremely small portion of your website videos are pushing the buttons you worked so hard to position on your website's homepage. A recent batch of data that I saw (that I, unfortunately, cannot reference yet) shows that those Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social buttons are being completely overlooked by most of your visitors. By most, you might as well call it "all" of your visitors because it's an activity that occurs normally after someone has already submitted a lead. Moreover, it's a sign of the "kiss of death" -- once they click away, the chances of them visiting your site again drop dramatically. Logic, not Alarms Before anyone freaks out and starts removing those dreaded buttons, think about why this is happening and what it means. People who have purchased a product or submitted a lead are more likely to push those buttons than those who have not filled out a form ...

Twitter is an absolute treasure chest of information about people. If there's one thing Twitter knows well, it's what people are doing and thinking at any given moment. Users often Tweet everything that's happening to them - what they're eating, where they're going, what they plan on doing tomorrow, even what car they intend to buy soon. Sounds like a longshot, right? No. In reality, Twitter can be harnessed for valuable information about people who are in the market right this very moment in your local area. You just have to know how to find them.. Luckily, Twitter Advanced Search does the trick. We have put together 7 tutorial videos on how to use specific areas of Twitter and posted them on 7 different sites. Watch the video below, then go to the next video in the series over at Automotive Social Network. Or, you can see the complete list of videos and where they're posted on the TK Carsites blog. Enjoy!   ...

There are always questions that surround social media. For many (those who aren't using TK automotive social media products - shameless plug), it has never delivered the tremendous results that they were promised. Social media was supposed to replace search. It was supposed to replace television. It was supposed to save the industry. Thankfully, the industry survived and is now thriving, but social media did not have a huge impact for most dealers. It didn't deliver the leads as promised. It's hard to track. It is, for many, something that just doesn't deliver, period. It doesn't have to be. We were extremely happy to have Kathi Kruse do our weekly automotive marketing webinar last week. She rocked the house! Listen to her as she demonstrates how getting more leads through social media is not only an achievable goal, but a necessary activity moving forward. ...

Over the last several months, really since speaking at the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Napa Valley earlier this year, one of the themes that we've been focused on is this: "What happens on your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media pages is not nearly as important as what happens on other people's Facebook, Twitter, and social media pages." Every few months I need to remind myself to continue to preach this point. Dealers and businesses in general always migrate towards focusing on their own pages and profiles when working social media. While it's important to maintain a strong presence through our own pages, the real bang for the buck is what happens off of our pages. Think about two scenarios: 1) A happy customer buys a new car. They're pumped, young, tech-savvy, and you ask them if you can take their picture for Facebook. They agree. You line up the car with your dealership's sign in the background. They stand next to the...

There's only one regret I have about delivering a keynote at this weekend's Driving Sales Executive Summit: how can I discuss the future of search and social in 30 minutes? It's a topic that would need 2 hours to scratch the surface because the changes that are coming up shortly are both exciting and terrifying at the same time. They're exciting because innovative, forward-thinking dealers (such as those who normally select TK Carsites as their marketing partner) will have an advantage over the competition by being "in the know" about the things that are soon to come. The terrifying aspect is that it's a huge responsibility that falls onto the shoulders of marketing decision-makers at dealerships and the vendors that they use. The good ol' days of "throw up a pretty website and try to get the people into the dealership" are behind us. 2012 will mark the tipping point of something that has been coming for the last 3 years, namely the ...

Many people have asked me over the last couple of days why I wasn't at Digital Dealer. I have had to remain aloof about it... until now. Today, KPA announces that it has acquired TK Carsites Inc. TK Carsites has over 650 automobile dealership clients throughout the country. The combination of the TK Carsites product line and current KPA product lines establishes KPA as a leading dealer services and Internet marketing provider for over 4,000 automotive, truck, and equipment dealerships and service companies. The united company offers an exciting prospect for dealers in ways that we've never been able to offer in the past. “I am impressed by KPA’s 95% year-over-year client retention. There is no automotive Internet marketing company that comes close,” says Richard Valenta, CEO and co-founder of TK Carsites. “For our clients, this means that they can continue to expect high levels of support, as well as a renewed commitment to the evolution of th...

Many dealerships have found email campaigns to be very successful and deliver a strong ROI. Those dealerships who have, over the years, accumulated a strong database of past customers as well as prospects have had some successes through newsletters, sales event marketing, and buzz-building particularly around new vehicle releases. Things are starting to change that dealers who use email should remember. The percentage of people who are checking their email primarily on mobile devices has more than doubled in the last year alone. Are your campaigns "mobile-friendly" enough to keep up, or are you missing out on reaching 15% of your database? For tips and a better understanding of the direction that email marketing is going, we turn to our friends at Litmus: "Email remains the strongest online activity around the globe. In fact, email users are expected to reach 3.8 billion by 2014; that is nearly half of the earth's current population, and a significant climb f...

It's a topic that has been covered ad nauseam here and on every business website on the internet. We can all see that social media is big, but how is it translating to the bottom line? Is it directly increasing sales? Are people realy in "buying mode" when they're looking at pictures of their friends at the bar last night? Is it worth the investment. The answer to the question really comes down to three things: the industry, the personality of the business, and the strategy. Many in the automotive industry have clearly demonstrated that social media can be very effective in generating business. Just read the automotive social media white paper as a single shining example from Jeff Cryder (who will be speaking at Driving Sale Executive Summit in Vegas). As far as personality at the dealerships, that's, well, personal. Is your dealership aggressive with its marketing to the point of being public and open about the people and happenings at the store? Are your...

It's not really a question that everyone can answer. For many, the decision has been made for us. Some manufacturers are forcing their dealerships to use specific website providers that consolidate the look, feel, and functionality of the website in order to maintain corporate consistency. Other OEMs allow their dealers to go wild. They have very few standards or compliance guidelines that their franchises are supposed to follow. Most OEMs are somewhere in the middle with specific compliance measures that must be met but no limits on which marketing company the dealers can use. Should a dealership website be consistent, looking mostly like every other of the same brand? Should dealers be allowed to express their personality and focus on their own strengths? Are dealers better off as individuals competing against others in their market of the same brand, or is the corporate line of keeping it simple and consistent while focusing on conquest sales from other brands the right ...

I remember sitting down for Thanksgiving in and listening to my uncle tell my father about his car-buying experience the week before. He described in great detail about how he played coy for a while, letting the salesperson lead the conversation up until the point when it came down to money. The back and forth, the getting up and trying to walk out, the manager chasing him into the parking lot, the cut price, the regretful looks of the manager and his salesperson, culminating in the glorious and triumphant results at the end of the sale when he drove off with what he considered a steal. The two discussed every nuance, every scowl and head shake. They made it sound... fun. My first car-buying experience didn't go as well. By that time, there was already information available on this new thing called "the internet" that gave me insight into the numbers. I was instantly despised and practically tossed out of two dealerships before finally buying a car. I was lectured b...