One critical best practice that helps drive more traffic to your website is to continuously create new content. Google crawls websites to find relevant content to provide more accurate results to searchers. However, it is sometimes hard to come up with content ideas that will be of interest to your audience.

Pounding your head against a desk, trying to think of good content ideas simply makes it more frustrating. Ever heard of writer’s block? It’s the same thing. Even bestselling authors experience it.

But the best thing about providing new content on the dealership side is that there are so many possibilities. The trick is to ensure that it is content your consumers want to read or watch.

Sure, you can create all of the “Why is a radiator flush important?” or new model reviews and all sorts of other information. Don’t get me wrong, these topics are a great start. However, you want your website to stand out. The problem is that many of these topics are already employed by your competition. At least those dealers who are actually trying.

So, how do you know what type of content will set your dealership apart from your competition?

Listen to your customers and prospects!

Your prospective and existing customers will give you a roadmap showing you all the relevant topics you should create content around. And the way to discover the information they want to know is to listen to the questions your customers most frequently ask.

Your customers are your most valuable source of content inspiration that you have. And in many cases, the questions you are receiving are also questions that other consumers are searching for.

An article in Search Engine Journal shared a couple of good ways to identify the best questions to ask.

1. Call Tracking: Many dealerships employ a vendor for call tracking. These services also record conversations which management and employees can access and listen to. These recording can provide a wealth of content ideas. And they are easy to identify. You know, the ones where you roll your eyes and cry out, “Not this question again!” These are the EXACT topics which make the best content ideas!

2. Your CRM: Your dealership likely gets a constant stream of questions from consumers that are in contact with you. Whether those communications are via website leads, chat conversations or some other source, they should all go into your CRM.

Take a look at your CRM conversations, and you should be able to find some handy repetitive questions.

3. Your Employees: If you have a BDC, Internet Manager, or someone in your dealership responsible for handling customer communications, ask them for the top 5 questions they continuously have to answer. If they created a template because they are so tired of answering them, that’s an even better indicator that content on that topic is needed.

Providing fresh, new, relevant content consistently, helps you answer those questions consumers most want answered. It also helps you attract more eyeballs to your website through relevant search results. Your website becomes an information source to your existing customers. And, prospective customers are more likely to find you simply because you have answered the questions they want to be answered.

Also, that is what search engines will recognize. It is also why they will deliver your content to searchers first and how you will get more people on your website. This can only result in more sales and service revenue.

Stop banging your head against the wall in search of content ideas and start listening to the questions people ask. As a result, you should attract more customers, increase your organic search page rank, convert more site visitors into customers, and increase customer retention.

Se Habla español?

Many dealerships reap the benefits of employing staff that speak fluent Spanish for the simple reason that an increasing number of Spanish speakers frequent today’s dealerships for both sales and service. Language barriers can be a problem when it comes to service recommendation upsells or relaying the value of a vehicle, its features and, ultimately, a deal the customer can understand.

If you cannot communicate fluently with a significant demographic portion of your market area, your dealership could be losing a considerable amount of money in revenue from service declines and lost sales.

It’s one thing to have a Spanish speaking employee who can converse with customers in a way they understand. But what about engaging them when they aren’t at the dealership? How do you do that? Via your website!

According to the 2016 Census, Hispanics comprised 17 percent of the population of the United States; that is around 55 million people. The Census Bureau estimates that by 2060, Hispanics will make up 28 percent of the population. As a result, there will soon be 119 million U.S. residents of Hispanic descent, some of whom will speak English as a second language and perhaps need assistance from a Spanish-speaking employee. 

Today’s car buyers conduct a majority of their research online, and that is sure to increase. If Hispanic-speaking customers cannot understand the messages on your website, it’s the same as if they are standing in your showroom unable to comprehend your salesperson. However, in this case, you may never have the opportunity to correct that situation.   

If you have a large Hispanic market and do not already have one, it is time to consider a website built from the ground up dedicated solely to the Spanish language.

There are plenty of website providers that offer Spanish language websites to their dealer clients. However, be careful who you chose, as many just rely on Google’s translation tool when the customer has their browser set to Spanish. If you’ve ever tried to translate anything with this tool, you will have probably found that it does the job to some degree, but it's not perfect. Also, if you chose to use Google-translated websites, the content isn’t indexed, so you essentially gain no benefit.

There is a better way: a SECOND website built organically from the ground up in Spanish. You can then deliver your messages directly to your customers in their native language with proper syntax and grammar. These customers will better understand you and, as a bonus, feel that your dealership cares about them and their ethnicity, and can genuinely assist them for all their sales and service needs.

Aside from those benefits, which are huge and can earn more sales and service business, there are considerable SEO benefits as well. First, as a second site, Google will fully index it. Whereas it does not index a site that is simply translated by the Google translation tool. How big of a deal is this? I’ve seen instances where a dealer’s SPANISH website outranks their primary ENGLISH website in search results! As an additional bonus, Spanish language websites aren’t under the scrutiny and policies of the manufacturer when they are true secondary websites, so you do not have to worry about compliance issues with your OEM.

It’s well worth looking into. A secondary website dedicated to the Spanish language produces extra website traffic, more leads and, ultimately, more sales.

fusionZONE Founder Brett Sutherlin discusses quality over quantity when it comes to their website’s calls-to-action.

In this modern age of transparency, dealers can get somewhat confused on the subject of pricing. Should they provide upfront pricing on their website, or ask customers to engage with their site first before receiving the dealership’s best price?

The industry is pretty divided on this topic, with consultants, trainers and others on both sides of the fence. On one side are those who feel that providing the best price on the dealer’s website without asking the customer for any engagement (no call-to-action), will cause the consumer to appreciate the transparency and choose that dealer. On the other side are those who feel that providing pricing without first requiring some form of engagement can, in fact, hurt sales.

First Theory: Provide Price Upfront – Those who have this opinion believe that today’s consumers are accustomed to fast information access. Consumers want immediate gratification and results, the same as they get from Google searches or browsing most other retailer’s websites. They can then take that information and make buying decisions. Those dealers perceived as the most helpful and transparent will win the business – especially with a significant purchase such as a new vehicle.

Second Theory: Get the consumer to engage before you show price, such as with an automated pricing tool on the site. Those in the industry who subscribe to this opinion feel that if you provide pricing upfront, shoppers will merely use it to price shop other dealers until they find the lowest price. By giving pricing information up front, without some form of engagement first, the dealer risks consumers price shopping without having a chance to first consider that dealer’s unique selling propositions including customer experience, amenities and other benefits such as free loaner cars, car washes, etc. Getting a consumer to engage first, perhaps with a quick price tool on the site, can increase leads and provide more opportunity to sell the vehicle than full pricing transparency.

Depending on the dealership's thought processes either could work. But, is there a "right" way that all dealers should follow to convert the most consumers and/or sell the most cars via their website?

What do you think is the best theory? Let me know with your comments below. I think this will prove to be a lively discussion!

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calf., December 20, 2018 — In response to the rapidly growing number of consumers currently using the internet via mobile devices, fusionZONE Automotive, LLC., today announced a new tool for auto dealers, Mobile Text Coupons. With Mobile Text Coupons, customers no longer have to use their desktop to print them off. Instead, they can choose a coupon, enter their phone number and store this coupon in their smartphone’s wallet. The customer can then present their smartphone to the dealership’s sales or service department and redeem their desired discount or deal.

“Dealers on their game regularly add prominent specials to their website. However, we discovered a big problem – in most cases, those specials only offer a “click to print” option and aren’t optimized for mobile devices. As 60-70% of consumers use the internet via mobile devices, we saw a need for change and created Mobile Text Coupons for both sales and service,” said Brett Sutherlin, FusionZONE Founder.

fusionZONE tested Mobile Text Coupons at several large volume dealers with excellent results. According to William Finsilver, General Manager at BMW of Bloomfield, his dealership enjoyed a 200+% increase in service leads. “In the past, if the service customer printed a sheet of coupons, we were not capturing a lead. Now our service team proactively reaches out to the customer and books the appointment,” Finsilver said.

Through the use of Mobile Text Coupons, Sun Toyota increased tire sales by 60%. “Using Mobile Text Coupons with paid search to increase awareness that we are in the tire business has been huge for Sun Toyota. It allows us to contact the customer and book the appointment,” said John Marazzi, Managing Partner.

Commenting further on the successful use of the coupons in dealerships Sutherlin stated, “Mobile Text Coupons are for both sales and service, but we have found that they finally give an identity to the service department. While most dealers concentrate solely on sales, this product provides fusionZONE dealers with an upper hand by generating leads for the service department, something dealerships have struggled with forever.”

Mobile Text Coupons will be demonstrated at the 2019 NADA show, January 25-27, 2019, at booth 7935W. To schedule a booth visit or demo visit: https://www.fzautomotive.com/nada/

About fusionZONE Automotive, LLC

fusionZONE Automotive offers automotive dealers the nation’s fastest, most cutting-edge customized and responsive websites. fusionZONE Automotive websites help dealers sell more cars with the sole objective of driving website conversions and leads. fusionZONE also offers complete, progressive digital marketing solutions, streamlining the digital process for dealerships of all sizes.

fusionZONE Automotive websites are designed to not only garner as much traffic as possible for dealer clients but also to actively convert that traffic into leads and sales.

fusionZONE is based in Pacific Palisades, CA Lakeland, FL and Seattle, WA.

It's critical that you stay abreast of what people are saying about your dealership and the car-buying experience you provide. Do you have a reputation management strategy? 

Earlier this week, we talked about the benefits of having a dedicated YouTube channel for your dealership. So, now that you’ve decided to create one, the question remains: What types of videos should you post? Use this list to help you get started.

If your dealership doesn’t already have a dedicated YouTube channel, it’s time to get one. You may think that since you post videos on your website, there’s no need to post them on YouTube, but the opposite is true: If you post videos on your dealership’s website, you should absolutely have a corresponding YouTube channel where you post those same videos. Why? Three simple words: reach, visibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Reach

Many of us don’t think of YouTube as a search engine, but that’s exactly what it is. In fact, it’s the second-largest search engine in the world — second only, of course, to Google. Moreover, YouTube is the world’s third-most-visited website after Google and Facebook. It gets more than 30 million visitors per day, adding up to around 1.5 billion visitors each month. That’s a massive potential audience that dealers cannot afford to miss out on. And if you think people aren’t interested in watching car dealership videos, think again. According to David Mogensen, Head of YouTube Ads Products Marketing at Google, “views [on the platform] of test drives, features, options, and walk-throughs have doubled in the last year.” Even more telling is that 70% of people who watched YouTube during their car-buying journey say that it influenced their ultimate purchase decision. These are powerful statistics that illustrate a huge opportunity for dealers to grow their marketing reach and thereby expand their customer base.

Visibility

Not only does having a YouTube channel expand your reach in a huge way, but it can drastically improve your dealership’s online visibility, as well. The three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) have now started blending their search engine results pages (SERPs) to include mixed media like news, images, and video. This, in turn, has created yet another great SEO opportunity: When a user searches for a brand or model that you carry, a properly-optimized channel can create an additional link on SERPs, increasing your potential visibility to that user. Having a dedicated dealership YouTube channel can also increase your SEO authority. According to Launch Digital Marketing, “Google’s job is to give searchers the best answer to any question, and their algorithm has started to rank YouTube results and web pages with video as the best (most helpful, useful, engaging) answer for many search queries — particularly tutorial-, how-to-, review-, and test drive-related queries.”

Cost Effectiveness

As a marketer, your job is to gain maximum exposure, traffic, and conversions while spending as little of your budget as possible. And let’s face it: this can be a tough feat in today’s ultra-competitive digital marketing world, especially for car dealerships. But not all marketing efforts require a massive chunk of ad spend. Take, for example (you guessed it!), YouTube. Creating a YouTube channel for your dealership is completely free! And considering the reach and visibility it offers, the wildly popular video platform can be one of the most cost-effective ways of advertising and promoting your inventory and dealership.

What to Post

Now that you’ve decided to create a YouTube channel for your store or dealer group, the question remains: Where do you start? What types of videos should you post, and how often? Stay tuned for the answers to these questions later this week.

Click here for original article and related posts.

Continuing on with our theme this week of local mobile SEO for dealerships, you can use this  handy checklist to ensure your store is properly optimized for local queries on mobile devices. #optimization #mobiledevices #checklists #seo #inthezone

If your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, your bounce rate is increasing by up to 150% per second!