While most dealerships have a website, and some are mobile-enabled, many have not been optimized to provide the fastest delivery of content.  Whether it's a slow loading picture or a bad piece of flash animation, site speed is still an issue for a lot of automotive dealer websites.

Even a small delay in site speed with regards to load times will dramatically decrease customer satisfaction, page views and conversions.  Most people expect a site to load in just a couple of seconds, and many will abandon a site if it takes too long to load.  Businesses like Amazon and Walmart have taken steps to remedy slow site speed and have noticed lifts in conversions.

Some quick ways to improve site speed include reducing the number of elements on a page, using CSS instead of images when possible, combining several stylesheets into a single file, and reducing the amount of scripts running.  Similarly, cleaning up extra spaces, line breaks and indentation in the code can shave some load time.  Optimizing images for different page widths can help make site speed better by loading a smaller image on smaller devices.  Moving inline CSS to a stylesheet may also help improve site speed when practical.  Finally, plugins and redirects can make a website slower, so minimizing their use can give it a bit of a boost.

These aren't the only methods that can improve a website's speed, however they are typically the easiest to implement.  Are your sites as fast as they should be?  What are some things you all are doing to improve site speed?

There is an idea circulating in the digital marketing world that the benefits of digital marketing can be had essentially for free. Auto dealers in particular have fallen prey to rumored "SEO hacks" and think that all they need to do is a couple website fixes, some black hat techniques and their organic traffic will rise exponentially. There couldn't be an idea that is more wrong than this one. Digital marketing costs money, while SEO hacks generally will get you blacklisted from Google. Writing and publishing content is not free, and neither is social media management.

Many dealerships believe that they can just get one of their existing staff to handle the digital marketing. So, in addition to their regular duties, they are now in charge of PPC management, SEO content creation, reputation and social media management. Having someone do digital marketing as just "another task" in a list of responsibilities puts a dealership on the fast track towards having an unsuccessful campaign and potentially wasting lots of money in PPC and social media fees.

A successful digital marketing strategy will bring ROI, but auto dealers need to be prepared to pay for top-notch results. Rather than pawning the job off on an existing employee or doing some minimal black hat SEO techniques, dealerships should seek out a legitimate digital marketing partner with a professional staff that can take their campaigns to the next level of effectiveness.

It won't be cheap, but it can be worth it to spend money with a team that focuses on doing digital marketing the right way. How many of you all have tried to get by on low or no cost digital marketing?

There is an idea circulating in the digital marketing world that the benefits of digital marketing can be had essentially for free. Auto dealers in particular have fallen prey to rumored "SEO hacks" and think that all they need to do is a couple website fixes, some black hat techniques and their organic traffic will rise exponentially. There couldn't be an idea that is more wrong than this one. Digital marketing costs money, while SEO hacks generally will get you blacklisted from Google. Writing and publishing content is not free, and neither is social media management.

Many dealerships believe that they can just get one of their existing staff to handle the digital marketing. So, in addition to their regular duties, they are now in charge of PPC management, SEO content creation, reputation and social media management. Having someone do digital marketing as just "another task" in a list of responsibilities puts a dealership on the fast track towards having an unsuccessful campaign and potentially wasting lots of money in PPC and social media fees.

A successful digital marketing strategy will bring ROI, but auto dealers need to be prepared to pay for top-notch results. Rather than pawning the job off on an existing employee or doing some minimal black hat SEO techniques, dealerships should seek out a legitimate digital marketing partner with a professional staff that can take their campaigns to the next level of effectiveness.

It won't be cheap, but it can be worth it to spend money with a team that focuses on doing digital marketing the right way. How many of you all have tried to get by on low or no cost digital marketing?

Large amounts of money are often spent on digital marketing to get shoppers to click through to an automotive dealership website.  Often, however, the site is not prepared to further move those shoppers down a definite sales funnel.  The "everything but the kitchen sink" method of VDP design is thankfully starting to fade with more focus on a path for shoppers to take.

Traditionally, "sales funnel" has referred to the various stages of advertising such as "awareness/branding", “consideration” and “purchase”.  Here, "sales funnel" is used to describe the most efficient path that zero moment of truth customers can travel to get the product they are trying to purchase.

The main ingredient is to deliver what was promised in the marketing.  With zero moment advertising, a dealer will want to focus on putting the same offer on their website that was referenced in the advertising, along with one or possibly two paths to receiving the offer.  Those paths could include chat, phone, or form lead submission.  This creates a sales funnel as the dealership marketing and website are effectively funneling a customer towards purchase.

Delivering on the offer that the customer was promised with a clear method of continuing down the sales funnel towards purchase is key to a car dealership's digital survival.  How are you all guiding your customers towards the actions you want them to take?

Large amounts of money are often spent on digital marketing to get shoppers to click through to an automotive dealership website.  Often, however, the site is not prepared to further move those shoppers down a definite sales funnel.  The "everything but the kitchen sink" method of VDP design is thankfully starting to fade with more focus on a path for shoppers to take.

Traditionally, "sales funnel" has referred to the various stages of advertising such as "awareness/branding", “consideration” and “purchase”.  Here, "sales funnel" is used to describe the most efficient path that zero moment of truth customers can travel to get the product they are trying to purchase.

The main ingredient is to deliver what was promised in the marketing.  With zero moment advertising, a dealer will want to focus on putting the same offer on their website that was referenced in the advertising, along with one or possibly two paths to receiving the offer.  Those paths could include chat, phone, or form lead submission.  This creates a sales funnel as the dealership marketing and website are effectively funneling a customer towards purchase.

Delivering on the offer that the customer was promised with a clear method of continuing down the sales funnel towards purchase is key to a car dealership's digital survival.  How are you all guiding your customers towards the actions you want them to take?

In the broadest sense of the term, landing pages refer to whatever pages on a website you are sending a potential shopper.  Typically, the traffic to landing pages comes from some form of marketing such as blogs or social media.  For landing pages that drive direct actions (conversions), a few key differences separate these pages from other pages on a dealership site.

Conversion-driving landing pages tend to be a bit stripped down in comparison to a normal website page.  The goal with most marketing is to create a path or funnel for the customer to follow.  Having lots of other options on the page such as social media share buttons, or even site menus, can distract a user from that path.

Landing page text tends to be simplistic, with a headline displaying a key benefit of whatever product or service is being sold along with some bullet points for details.  This is usually followed by a call to action.  Attention-getting call to action buttons help push shoppers in the right direction, so landing pages tend to feature one (two at most), with language that matches whatever marketing sent the potential client to the page in the first place.  Consistency and simplicity are the keys to getting clients to do what is required to continue down the desired funnel.

Lastly, pictures, videos and trust-building items such as certifications, awards and reviews help to round out landing pages and make them seem like less of a dry sales piece.  If the page is overly simplistic, it might turn off potential shoppers.  One of the most difficult challenges of landing page design is the balance between too much and too little information on the page.

Landing pages can help take shoppers to the end of the sales cycle.  What are some standards you all abide by when creating landing pages?

In the broadest sense of the term, landing pages refer to whatever pages on a website you are sending a potential shopper.  Typically, the traffic to landing pages comes from some form of marketing such as blogs or social media.  For landing pages that drive direct actions (conversions), a few key differences separate these pages from other pages on a dealership site.

Conversion-driving landing pages tend to be a bit stripped down in comparison to a normal website page.  The goal with most marketing is to create a path or funnel for the customer to follow.  Having lots of other options on the page such as social media share buttons, or even site menus, can distract a user from that path.

Landing page text tends to be simplistic, with a headline displaying a key benefit of whatever product or service is being sold along with some bullet points for details.  This is usually followed by a call to action.  Attention-getting call to action buttons help push shoppers in the right direction, so landing pages tend to feature one (two at most), with language that matches whatever marketing sent the potential client to the page in the first place.  Consistency and simplicity are the keys to getting clients to do what is required to continue down the desired funnel.

Lastly, pictures, videos and trust-building items such as certifications, awards and reviews help to round out landing pages and make them seem like less of a dry sales piece.  If the page is overly simplistic, it might turn off potential shoppers.  One of the most difficult challenges of landing page design is the balance between too much and too little information on the page.

Landing pages can help take shoppers to the end of the sales cycle.  What are some standards you all abide by when creating landing pages?

Jack Loechner wrote a great article for Borrell Associates about the shift towards digital marketing for automotive dealers.  He postulates that automotive as an ad category is responsible for changing the local media landscape with regards to the growing digital marketing spends and lessening of newspaper, radio and TV advertising.  Now that newspapers and radio have given up their ad revenue to digital solutions, traditional TV is thought to follow suit.

Automotive is the largest ad category behind general merchandise.  According to the article, overall car sales are up 5% and ad budgets up 17%.  Digital marketing accounts for 95% of this budget increase.  With less dealerships overall, a lower cost-per-vehicle with regards to digital advertising, and a surge in used car purchases, dealerships are quickly taking advantage of the high quality traffic that digital marketing can deliver.  Since more than 90% of car purchases start with online research, dealerships are becoming more like fulfillment locations than full-fledged stores.  This means that every walk-in is more likely to buy.

Despite the online landscape becoming crowded with every dealer devoting budget to getting zero moment of truth customers, digital marketing definitely presents an efficient and affordable way to advertise a dealership's vehicles.  As marketers, do you still run into dealerships that are decidedly "old school"?  Any that still run print and radio ads?