I have some good news for you today. Car dealers can now respond positive and negative reviews on Google Maps! The feature that many dealers have been waiting for is finally here. If you have verified your Google Maps listing proving that you are the owner, you can now respond to any comments, positive or negative, when you are logged in to your account.

This is great news for dealers who have an Automotive Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process setup and who have been monitoring reviews on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, CitySearch, InsiderPages and Dealerrater. I also like the strategy of thanking people who place positive comments!

Here is the official notice from Google:

Whether you’re looking for a great lounge to hang out with your friends or a trusty shop to repair your bicycle, the web is a great place to discover and learn about local businesses and services. Some of the listings on Google Maps showcase reviews to help prospective customers make informed decisions and find the places that are just right for them. Reviews on Google Maps are assembled from a variety of sources on the web to give you the best possible overview of what people are saying about a specific place. We also encourage users to share their opinions by writing reviews directly on the Place Page of any place they’ve visited, be it a local business, tourist attraction or the like.

Starting today, if you’re a verified Google Places business owner, you can publicly respond to reviews written by Google Maps users on the Place Page for your business. Engaging with the people who have shared their thoughts about your business is a great way to get to know your customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear).

By responding, you can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers. For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, business owner responses give you the opportunity to learn what you do well, what you can do better, and show your customers that you’re listening.

This new feature will make some serious competition for Yelp...but for now, it's time for car dealers to take charge and come up with an review response policy and be careful how your comment on a negative review.

Example Of A Business Owner Comment

Here is an example of how it would look: 

What is your reaction to this news?

I'm very excited to see that negative comments or characterizations can be challenged by car dealers who have been unfairly judged.  This of course reminds me to say that dealers must have an IRM policy in place with guidelines on who should respond, if at all.  Responding the wrong way to an angry customer or a negative review could compound the problem.

I have some good news for you today. Car dealers can now respond positive and negative reviews on Google Maps! The feature that many dealers have been waiting for is finally here. If you have verified your Google Maps listing proving that you are the owner, you can now respond to any comments, positive or negative, when you are logged in to your account.

This is great news for dealers who have an Automotive Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process setup and who have been monitoring reviews on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, CitySearch, InsiderPages and Dealerrater. I also like the strategy of thanking people who place positive comments!

Here is the official notice from Google:

Whether you’re looking for a great lounge to hang out with your friends or a trusty shop to repair your bicycle, the web is a great place to discover and learn about local businesses and services. Some of the listings on Google Maps showcase reviews to help prospective customers make informed decisions and find the places that are just right for them. Reviews on Google Maps are assembled from a variety of sources on the web to give you the best possible overview of what people are saying about a specific place. We also encourage users to share their opinions by writing reviews directly on the Place Page of any place they’ve visited, be it a local business, tourist attraction or the like.

Starting today, if you’re a verified Google Places business owner, you can publicly respond to reviews written by Google Maps users on the Place Page for your business. Engaging with the people who have shared their thoughts about your business is a great way to get to know your customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear).

By responding, you can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers. For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, business owner responses give you the opportunity to learn what you do well, what you can do better, and show your customers that you’re listening.

This new feature will make some serious competition for Yelp...but for now, it's time for car dealers to take charge and come up with an review response policy and be careful how your comment on a negative review.

Example Of A Business Owner Comment

Here is an example of how it would look: 

What is your reaction to this news?

I'm very excited to see that negative comments or characterizations can be challenged by car dealers who have been unfairly judged.  This of course reminds me to say that dealers must have an IRM policy in place with guidelines on who should respond, if at all.  Responding the wrong way to an angry customer or a negative review could compound the problem.

Once you start playing with FlipBoard, one of the biggest revelations is how it transforms Twitter into a really powerful content presentation tool. 

I started to think about how companies could leverage FlipBoard technology for sales support and customer service.

My idea was that a salesperson or company could create a Twitter account for the sole purpose of creating an inventory of articles that assisted their sales process.

In effect, creating a Twitter account for the purpose of creating a digital media magazine. The company or salesperson would use this Twitter account to tweet out any articles that they found online to support the purpose of the social media magazine. 

FlipBoard for the Automotive Industry

Since I assist many car dealers with their digital marketing strategies, I would like to give an example of how FlipBoard could assist a salesperson in a dealership showroom.

In this example, a fictitious salesperson called Annie Stone working for Classic Chevrolet could create a Twitter account called http://twitter.com/classicchevymag . This Twitter account would not be promoted as the primary account for the dealership and would not proactively seek followers. Consider this Twitter account as a means to create your custom social media magazine.

As Annie finds great articles or reviews about the new 2011 Chevrolet cars and trucks from third party websites like Edmunds.com, MotorTrend.com, or Consumer Reports she would tweet them from this targeted Twitter account. As her customers post reviews online about buying cars from Classic Chevrolet, she will tweet these review pages. As she adds customer testimonial videos on YouTube she will tweet these as well.

In essence, this special Twitter account is her social bookmarks for assisting her sales process. The FlipBoard App for her iPad in turn will create a beautiful presentation of all this data in a custom Classic Chevrolet Social Media Magazine.

Equipped with her iPad, whenever Annie needs sales support, she can turn on her iPad and stand "side by side" with her customer and show them the accolades about the cars they sell or the customer experience. Annie could also hand the customer her iPad to read while she speaks with her General Sales Manager or gets the keys for a test drive.

Since FlipBoard transforms a boring Twitter feed into a beautiful social media magazine, it save Annie the time to create digital sales tools on her own. It allows Annie to update her sales materials in real-time which means that the latest reviews, accolades are in her hand at all times. 

Creating a Custom Social Magazine

Business owners from all industries can follow the same model and actually have all sales professionals share a single Twitter account that is linked to their FlipBoard App on their iPad. The only logistics to work out is who can post new content on the Twitter feed. In this case, you could install FlipBoard on the sales team's iPads without revealing the password for the Twitter account.

Flipboard is a revolutionary application for social media and the possibilities to create social media magazines on the fly that can assist the sales process is just endless. If you have created a custom social media magazine for your dealership, please share your ideas.

If you need help creating a customized social media magazine for your business, feel free to give PCG Digital Marketing a call at 732.450.8200.

Once you start playing with FlipBoard, one of the biggest revelations is how it transforms Twitter into a really powerful content presentation tool. 

I started to think about how companies could leverage FlipBoard technology for sales support and customer service.

My idea was that a salesperson or company could create a Twitter account for the sole purpose of creating an inventory of articles that assisted their sales process.

In effect, creating a Twitter account for the purpose of creating a digital media magazine. The company or salesperson would use this Twitter account to tweet out any articles that they found online to support the purpose of the social media magazine. 

FlipBoard for the Automotive Industry

Since I assist many car dealers with their digital marketing strategies, I would like to give an example of how FlipBoard could assist a salesperson in a dealership showroom.

In this example, a fictitious salesperson called Annie Stone working for Classic Chevrolet could create a Twitter account called http://twitter.com/classicchevymag . This Twitter account would not be promoted as the primary account for the dealership and would not proactively seek followers. Consider this Twitter account as a means to create your custom social media magazine.

As Annie finds great articles or reviews about the new 2011 Chevrolet cars and trucks from third party websites like Edmunds.com, MotorTrend.com, or Consumer Reports she would tweet them from this targeted Twitter account. As her customers post reviews online about buying cars from Classic Chevrolet, she will tweet these review pages. As she adds customer testimonial videos on YouTube she will tweet these as well.

In essence, this special Twitter account is her social bookmarks for assisting her sales process. The FlipBoard App for her iPad in turn will create a beautiful presentation of all this data in a custom Classic Chevrolet Social Media Magazine.

Equipped with her iPad, whenever Annie needs sales support, she can turn on her iPad and stand "side by side" with her customer and show them the accolades about the cars they sell or the customer experience. Annie could also hand the customer her iPad to read while she speaks with her General Sales Manager or gets the keys for a test drive.

Since FlipBoard transforms a boring Twitter feed into a beautiful social media magazine, it save Annie the time to create digital sales tools on her own. It allows Annie to update her sales materials in real-time which means that the latest reviews, accolades are in her hand at all times. 

Creating a Custom Social Magazine

Business owners from all industries can follow the same model and actually have all sales professionals share a single Twitter account that is linked to their FlipBoard App on their iPad. The only logistics to work out is who can post new content on the Twitter feed. In this case, you could install FlipBoard on the sales team's iPads without revealing the password for the Twitter account.

Flipboard is a revolutionary application for social media and the possibilities to create social media magazines on the fly that can assist the sales process is just endless. If you have created a custom social media magazine for your dealership, please share your ideas.

If you need help creating a customized social media magazine for your business, feel free to give PCG Digital Marketing a call at 732.450.8200.

I was speaking with Alex Snyder today and he reminded me of a statement I made in 2009 which was:

"The most important person a car dealer can hire in 2010 will be a content writer."

With half of 2010 now past, I thought I would revisit why this statement made in October of 2009 has never been so timely.  Regardless of which digital marketing strategy is your favorite at this moment, Content is Still King to develop relevance for your website.

If Content is King then Link Building is the Queen. 

So the question for today is:  Do you have the Royal Family as part of your automotive marketing team?

Choices For Content Writing

If you are a single rooftop dealership, it will be difficult to justify a full-time content writer to be on your payroll but there are options.  You should inquire at local county colleges for marketing interns that often will work for free as long as they have the opportunity to work with a live digital marketing project. 

Dealers can also look to hire recently “downsized” writers from local newspapers; most have been cutting staff over the past few years.  There is actually a glut of well trained writers on the market so you can negotiate prices by the piece for by the hour.  Some services charge $20 an article and for a small dealership, this could be an alternative to consider.

With a content writer working inside your dealership or as an outside consultant you now have the resources to be adding new pages to your website every week.  It is shocking to see how many dealer website pages have little to no content.  Areas of high profit like service and parts often have pages with less than 100 words.    How many dealer websites have you visited where their specials page is just blank?

Dealers should try to create well written content pages with at least 400 words and make sure they are well formatted for the consumer to read.  Of course you also have to consider SEO design criteria but there is a perfect balance that can achieve both goals.  It is hard to find that balance so be careful who you hire.
 

What is the ideal content creation pace for car dealers?  Dealers should be updating their blogs with 3-4 new posts a month.  Their primary dealership website should be updated at least 3 times a month with new sales, promotions, testimonials, etc. 

For my business, I create at least 10 new articles a week and post those articles on my blogs and sites like this one.  I spend very little money on advertising because my articles generate traffic and calls for those who need help implementing my suggestions.

There are a good number of dealers who take my advice and never call. I'm actually very happy to be an assistant to their success with the hope that they will pass my name along to anyone who needs help.   In the same way, your content will increase the relevance for the cars you sell in your market.  These efforts will be rewarded with increased traffic to your website and higher relative ranking to your competitors that don’t have a content strategy in place. 

Some of this traffic will result in sales but there are other reasons to create content.  Good content will

• increase the number of pages that show in Google search results
• push your competitors lower in search results
• protect your brand name from lead collectors and poachers
• increase Google ratings and relevance for your website

Good content is not just about sales. Content is the fuel to power up your website for a battle with competitors on all fronts.

What About The Queen?

Once you have a content writer on your team, they need to be trained on how to write content to achieve the maximum benefit of the content.  There is an art to creating content that is compelling to read as well as achieve important link building goals.

When writing content you should divide the placement of the content to distribute it to your main website and also to external sites.  The reason for this balance is that your website needs to grow in size with static content pages but it also needs to grow in external links.

For example, if you are a Nissan dealer you should have a few pages written about the 2011 Nissan Leaf.  If you want to see how much dealers need content writers, visit 10 Nissan dealers at random and tell me how many dealers have any pages on the Leaf with more than 300 words.  

Once a Nissan dealer adds a few content pages about the Leaf on their website, they should:

• post articles on their external blog on the Leaf
• issue a few press release on the Nissan Leaf and when it is coming
• include mentions on their social media sites with links to their dealer pages

Each one of these posts should have links back to the primary dealer's website and specifically the pages on the Leaf.  If you see the picture, the content pages on a dealer's website NEED links from external sources to increase the relative value compared to other local Nissan dealers.

There is another art form in finding places where you can post your articles for free that add valuable links to your website.  That could be a webinar in itself!

Time To Take Action

If you are just too busy or too intimated about starting a consistent content writing program for your dealership, you really cannot wait much longer.  I see a Tsunami coming for car dealers who ignore proven digital marketing strategies that are content based.

If you want to be completely blown off Google Page One in your own backyard, then ignore this warning.   Need more proof?

Test #1

Do a Google Search on your #1 keyword phrase that sells the MOST cars for your dealership.  You don't have to look at any reports since it's your dealership name.  So take a minute to search your business name in Google.

If you own ALL ten organic listings on Page One...you are doing well!  This would place you in the top 1% of car dealers nationwide.   If you don't own all of Page One you will most likely see lead collectors, review sites and parasites leaching equity from your brand.  You need immediate action.

Test #2

Now do a Google search for your OEM brand and your city name; like Oxnard Toyota.  If there are competitors and lead collectors on a search of your own city and OEM brand, you are allowing people to drain equity, leads and sales from your multi-million dollar investment.

So you can decide to Hire a King and a Queen or you can lease them. 

(I know a few great companies!)

 If you ignore this warning, you will soon be a slave to others.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://www.dealer-seo.com

732.450.8200

P.S.  Regardless of how well your content strategy becomes, these efforts must be partnered with Google Adwords (SEM) campaigns to capture the broad search phrases that consumers type.  Your content writing needs to be focused on the search phrases that will yield sales and are feasible to acheive rankings on Google Page One.    Digital Marketing is an inclusive game:  SEO + SEM + Social Media + (some secrets) = winning strategy!  :)

I was speaking with Alex Snyder today and he reminded me of a statement I made in 2009 which was:

"The most important person a car dealer can hire in 2010 will be a content writer."

With half of 2010 now past, I thought I would revisit why this statement made in October of 2009 has never been so timely.  Regardless of which digital marketing strategy is your favorite at this moment, Content is Still King to develop relevance for your website.

If Content is King then Link Building is the Queen. 

So the question for today is:  Do you have the Royal Family as part of your automotive marketing team?

Choices For Content Writing

If you are a single rooftop dealership, it will be difficult to justify a full-time content writer to be on your payroll but there are options.  You should inquire at local county colleges for marketing interns that often will work for free as long as they have the opportunity to work with a live digital marketing project. 

Dealers can also look to hire recently “downsized” writers from local newspapers; most have been cutting staff over the past few years.  There is actually a glut of well trained writers on the market so you can negotiate prices by the piece for by the hour.  Some services charge $20 an article and for a small dealership, this could be an alternative to consider.

With a content writer working inside your dealership or as an outside consultant you now have the resources to be adding new pages to your website every week.  It is shocking to see how many dealer website pages have little to no content.  Areas of high profit like service and parts often have pages with less than 100 words.    How many dealer websites have you visited where their specials page is just blank?

Dealers should try to create well written content pages with at least 400 words and make sure they are well formatted for the consumer to read.  Of course you also have to consider SEO design criteria but there is a perfect balance that can achieve both goals.  It is hard to find that balance so be careful who you hire.
 

What is the ideal content creation pace for car dealers?  Dealers should be updating their blogs with 3-4 new posts a month.  Their primary dealership website should be updated at least 3 times a month with new sales, promotions, testimonials, etc. 

For my business, I create at least 10 new articles a week and post those articles on my blogs and sites like this one.  I spend very little money on advertising because my articles generate traffic and calls for those who need help implementing my suggestions.

There are a good number of dealers who take my advice and never call. I'm actually very happy to be an assistant to their success with the hope that they will pass my name along to anyone who needs help.   In the same way, your content will increase the relevance for the cars you sell in your market.  These efforts will be rewarded with increased traffic to your website and higher relative ranking to your competitors that don’t have a content strategy in place. 

Some of this traffic will result in sales but there are other reasons to create content.  Good content will

• increase the number of pages that show in Google search results
• push your competitors lower in search results
• protect your brand name from lead collectors and poachers
• increase Google ratings and relevance for your website

Good content is not just about sales. Content is the fuel to power up your website for a battle with competitors on all fronts.

What About The Queen?

Once you have a content writer on your team, they need to be trained on how to write content to achieve the maximum benefit of the content.  There is an art to creating content that is compelling to read as well as achieve important link building goals.

When writing content you should divide the placement of the content to distribute it to your main website and also to external sites.  The reason for this balance is that your website needs to grow in size with static content pages but it also needs to grow in external links.

For example, if you are a Nissan dealer you should have a few pages written about the 2011 Nissan Leaf.  If you want to see how much dealers need content writers, visit 10 Nissan dealers at random and tell me how many dealers have any pages on the Leaf with more than 300 words.  

Once a Nissan dealer adds a few content pages about the Leaf on their website, they should:

• post articles on their external blog on the Leaf
• issue a few press release on the Nissan Leaf and when it is coming
• include mentions on their social media sites with links to their dealer pages

Each one of these posts should have links back to the primary dealer's website and specifically the pages on the Leaf.  If you see the picture, the content pages on a dealer's website NEED links from external sources to increase the relative value compared to other local Nissan dealers.

There is another art form in finding places where you can post your articles for free that add valuable links to your website.  That could be a webinar in itself!

Time To Take Action

If you are just too busy or too intimated about starting a consistent content writing program for your dealership, you really cannot wait much longer.  I see a Tsunami coming for car dealers who ignore proven digital marketing strategies that are content based.

If you want to be completely blown off Google Page One in your own backyard, then ignore this warning.   Need more proof?

Test #1

Do a Google Search on your #1 keyword phrase that sells the MOST cars for your dealership.  You don't have to look at any reports since it's your dealership name.  So take a minute to search your business name in Google.

If you own ALL ten organic listings on Page One...you are doing well!  This would place you in the top 1% of car dealers nationwide.   If you don't own all of Page One you will most likely see lead collectors, review sites and parasites leaching equity from your brand.  You need immediate action.

Test #2

Now do a Google search for your OEM brand and your city name; like Oxnard Toyota.  If there are competitors and lead collectors on a search of your own city and OEM brand, you are allowing people to drain equity, leads and sales from your multi-million dollar investment.

So you can decide to Hire a King and a Queen or you can lease them. 

(I know a few great companies!)

 If you ignore this warning, you will soon be a slave to others.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://www.dealer-seo.com

732.450.8200

P.S.  Regardless of how well your content strategy becomes, these efforts must be partnered with Google Adwords (SEM) campaigns to capture the broad search phrases that consumers type.  Your content writing needs to be focused on the search phrases that will yield sales and are feasible to acheive rankings on Google Page One.    Digital Marketing is an inclusive game:  SEO + SEM + Social Media + (some secrets) = winning strategy!  :)

Robert Scoble on his blog Scobleizer.com broke a story about some new technology called Flipboard and it included the video included below which I was drawn to watch to completion.  The Flipboard software running on an iPad is a perfect example of how many innovations will be coming for the iPad in the coming year.

Flipboard is very exciting for me since I use social media regularly and have many people I want to stay in touch with; personally and for business.  The Flipboard software is a social media aggregator and presents the social media streams in a magazine format. 

It is mind-blowing how cool this application take an ugly stream of data and turns it into something very easy to read and with full content; a social media magazine.  For example, Flipboard takes a 140 character tweet and follows the link and finds the related story and presents it in an attractive format.

Take a moment to view the video and tell me if you agree that Flipboard is a really cool way to get rich data and stories from your social media streams.

Flipboard Video

Flipboard Setup

It tool two minutes to setup Flipboard on my iPad and look how cool my Twitter feed looks with articles shown from Eric Miltsch, Cobalt and also from my own posts.

When you setup Flipboard in your iPad make sure you add two important data streams:

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://facebook.com/pcgdigitalmarketing.com

Then the application will truly have "richer" data. :)

Robert Scoble on his blog Scobleizer.com broke a story about some new technology called Flipboard and it included the video included below which I was drawn to watch to completion.  The Flipboard software running on an iPad is a perfect example of how many innovations will be coming for the iPad in the coming year.

Flipboard is very exciting for me since I use social media regularly and have many people I want to stay in touch with; personally and for business.  The Flipboard software is a social media aggregator and presents the social media streams in a magazine format. 

It is mind-blowing how cool this application take an ugly stream of data and turns it into something very easy to read and with full content; a social media magazine.  For example, Flipboard takes a 140 character tweet and follows the link and finds the related story and presents it in an attractive format.

Take a moment to view the video and tell me if you agree that Flipboard is a really cool way to get rich data and stories from your social media streams.

Flipboard Video

Flipboard Setup

It tool two minutes to setup Flipboard on my iPad and look how cool my Twitter feed looks with articles shown from Eric Miltsch, Cobalt and also from my own posts.

When you setup Flipboard in your iPad make sure you add two important data streams:

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://facebook.com/pcgdigitalmarketing.com

Then the application will truly have "richer" data. :)

As car dealers look to increase profits and revenue, their marketing agenda lately has focused on social media and how this communication channel can grow their business.

Social media of course is important but a proven money maker for car dealers is being ignored by many dealers as part of their digital advertising strategy.

When I am called into dealership meetings to review their online marketing strategy, rarely does a dealership ask about increasing service revenue through SEO and SEM.

Dealers seem to be content with service direct mail and email campaigns which work very well in most markets. Over the past few months I have been working on an SEO strategy to increase the visibility of car dealers for common service searches in Google.

It is an eye opener to see just how I have been able to increase visibility for car dealers by targeting popular service keywords. A good way to test the service visibility for any car dealer is to type in a common service for a brand that they sell in their own town.

So a BMW dealer in Virginia Beach would test their service SEO by searching Google for:

• BMW Oil Change Virginia Beach  (see Google Search)
• BMW Brakes Virginia Beach
• BMW Tires Virginia Beach

In the first case, PCG's new Fixed Operations Microsite appears on Google Page One for Checkered Flag Auto Group ahead of all business offering a BMW Oil Change. 

The service microsite is www.virginiabeachcarrepairs.com . This added visibility for car dealers over time, will increase service leads, calls and service revenue.  The site is about 45 days old and it appears in Google search for a number of OEM brands and services in their market.

If you search Google Videos or YouTube videos for the Phrase "Virginia Beach Oil Change", their service video is ranked #1. Christine at Checkered Flag does an amazing job with their service videos.

Dealers who want to gain an edge in their markets should leverage service microsites and videos to communicate an effective message.  Service videos, when they are done so well like this example, can be placed in many places to increase conversion.

Dealers Becoming Price Competitive

In this challenging economy, many dealers have decided to become more price competitive for common automotive services like oil changes, tires, brakes and coolant flushes. I wholeheartedly agree with this strategy.

If dealers have good service advisers, they can extend the dealership brand and customer service experience to owners of cars that dealers do not sell. The service channel can be a more effective sales and lead strategy than any other channel because of the number of car owners they touch each month.

Busy dealer groups service thousands of cars a week and if they were also marketing to all car owners in their market, these numbers could grow significantly. So I would like to cast a vote that Fixed Operations SEO and microsites be on dealership agendas for digital marketing spending.

Dealers should also create a budget to create videos for popular services that they offer which can light-up content pages. Google rewards first responders so before your competitors take the lead for service microsites in your area, make the move.

As car dealers look to increase profits and revenue, their marketing agenda lately has focused on social media and how this communication channel can grow their business.

Social media of course is important but a proven money maker for car dealers is being ignored by many dealers as part of their digital advertising strategy.

When I am called into dealership meetings to review their online marketing strategy, rarely does a dealership ask about increasing service revenue through SEO and SEM.

Dealers seem to be content with service direct mail and email campaigns which work very well in most markets. Over the past few months I have been working on an SEO strategy to increase the visibility of car dealers for common service searches in Google.

It is an eye opener to see just how I have been able to increase visibility for car dealers by targeting popular service keywords. A good way to test the service visibility for any car dealer is to type in a common service for a brand that they sell in their own town.

So a BMW dealer in Virginia Beach would test their service SEO by searching Google for:

• BMW Oil Change Virginia Beach  (see Google Search)
• BMW Brakes Virginia Beach
• BMW Tires Virginia Beach

In the first case, PCG's new Fixed Operations Microsite appears on Google Page One for Checkered Flag Auto Group ahead of all business offering a BMW Oil Change. 

The service microsite is www.virginiabeachcarrepairs.com . This added visibility for car dealers over time, will increase service leads, calls and service revenue.  The site is about 45 days old and it appears in Google search for a number of OEM brands and services in their market.

If you search Google Videos or YouTube videos for the Phrase "Virginia Beach Oil Change", their service video is ranked #1. Christine at Checkered Flag does an amazing job with their service videos.

Dealers who want to gain an edge in their markets should leverage service microsites and videos to communicate an effective message.  Service videos, when they are done so well like this example, can be placed in many places to increase conversion.

Dealers Becoming Price Competitive

In this challenging economy, many dealers have decided to become more price competitive for common automotive services like oil changes, tires, brakes and coolant flushes. I wholeheartedly agree with this strategy.

If dealers have good service advisers, they can extend the dealership brand and customer service experience to owners of cars that dealers do not sell. The service channel can be a more effective sales and lead strategy than any other channel because of the number of car owners they touch each month.

Busy dealer groups service thousands of cars a week and if they were also marketing to all car owners in their market, these numbers could grow significantly. So I would like to cast a vote that Fixed Operations SEO and microsites be on dealership agendas for digital marketing spending.

Dealers should also create a budget to create videos for popular services that they offer which can light-up content pages. Google rewards first responders so before your competitors take the lead for service microsites in your area, make the move.