This past week there was a buzz about a patent that was awarded to Google that is being referred to as the Reasonable Surfer Patent. The specifics of the patent reveal that it was filed 6 years ago and awarded in May 2010.

The first thing I questioned was the relevance of the patent since so much has changed in the past 6 years in search. The patent data include this text:

• Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data
• Invented by Jeffrey A. Dean, Corin Anderson and Alexis Battle
• Assigned to Google Inc.
• United States Patent 7,716,225
• Granted May 11, 2010
• Filed: June 17, 2004

SEO pundits have differing opinions on the specific value of this patent but to save you the internal banter, I will try to distill what I think is most important. This patent is focused on how Google will “weight” links on a web page.

The weighting may include predicting what a consumer would most likely click on a web page. So a text link in the first paragraph of a blog article, with interesting anchor text, could have more “weight” than a link in the bottom page footer.

Links are critical in the overall visibility of any website and this patent is part of that discussion. The discussion that has surfaced pertains to where is the best place for links on a page and how do different types of links “rate” with Google.

For example, a link from the home page of Automotive News to any dealer’s website is a great link to have since that site is a recognized authority in the automotive industry. This link would have more “weight” than a link from a brand new microsite or a friends landscaping website.

Building Inbound Links

Car dealers who have launched effective off-site SEO campaigns that produce high quality inbound links from well ranked websites normally have an edge over their competition with all other things considered equal. However, it is difficult for dealers to independently create hundreds or thousands of high quality links to their websites.

Dealers can obtain high quality links from press releases, social communities, car forums, article syndication, document publishing portals and business directories. Increasing links is like an annuity of good will and create a digital marketing foundation.

If you have been considering increasing the links to your website, you should understand some of the basics of link building. Some of the questions you may have are:

• How many links do I have directed to my website?
• What is a good link?
• Where can I find places to create links back to my site?
• Where should that link be located?
• Are image links better than text links?

To find the number of inbound links pointing to your website, and to make it easy for anyone to get a correct count, I recommend that you go to www.websitegrader.com . Type in your domain name and then click on the “Generate Report” button.

The free report and analysis includes the number of “inbound links”. While you have the report, take a look at the data and one thing to spot is when your domain is going to expire. If it's less than two years, renew it today. Also, if your score is under 70/100, it would be a good time to give an SEO advisor a call.

Dealers who want to be competitive in online search should seek to have a diverse set of high quality sites linking to their website. I bring this up because often I see hundreds of links coming from only one website and so the number of links masks the problem of low diversity.

The total recommended links will vary but I would like to see over 1,000 links to the dealer’s home page and hundreds of links to key inside web pages like service, parts, and used cars. A good link is one that comes from a reputable website that has real content, real visitor activity and relevance to your business. The site can also be unrelated to your business but one that has a high Google PageRank. There are many link building scams on the market, so be careful that you don’t waste your money.

The Reasonable Surfer Patent emphasizes what I have been recommending for years. Content based SEO strategies that include blogs, press releases, article publishing, posting articles on technical forums and social communities can deliver high quality links. The key is to place that link in such a way that enhances the page and that links to the right page on your dealer website.

An example would be posting an article, outside of your website, about the different types of Nissan extended warranty plans available to a consumer. In the article you would place links to the extended warranty page on your dealer website or even Nissan brochures on your website. Car dealers who have been blogging for years or participating in automotive forums already know this.

How Many Links Do You Have?

Do you know how many links are pointing to your website? How about your competitor’s website? You can see inbound links on any website by going to Yahoo and typing in your competitor’s domain name or your domain name with the “link” parameter.

For example, if you wanted to see where ABC Ford (www.abcford.com) was building links from you would go to Yahoo and type in the search box:

link:www.abcford.com

No spaces. This will bring up the Yahoo Site Explorer and it will show you the first 1,000 inbound links to any website. There is a debate whether a text link will not be as strong as an image that is linked because a “surfer” may be more likely to click on a photo or banner that is above the fold.

There is no uniform agreement on this matter. Should you bold the text anchor? Should you use larger fonts for the anchor text? That is where the art of link building and testing comes into play. What is most uniformly agreed is that a list of links in a sidebar or footer will not be as strong as links inside an article.

Of course I am talking about a well written article with links on anchor text that point to relevant pages on a dealer’s website.

If you want to target high value keywords that you want your website to appear on Google Page One, then a combination of good on-site content and a few hundred links from external sites may be just what you need. The strategy for off-site links will be to use the keyword in content and hyperlink that keyword to an appropriate page on your website. It’s a two part strategy that must be in place to win.

If your keyword goal is very competitive you will most likely need thousands of links. The point is that over time, you can compete and win against your local competitors if you have a strong content writing and off-site link building strategy..

Google Places, formerly called Google Maps, has a new feature that allows to you add customized, time sensitive text on your business detail page. For the average car dealer, consumers will view your detail page on Google Maps over 500 times a month.

If that is the case, then why not add a personalized "post" that you change each month to match your current sales promotions and incentives. You can only type in 160 characters but the placement of the text is locate perfectly for a consumer to see.

Login to Google Places

To see where you make these posts, login to Google Places and click on your store listing. The page will look something like this:

 

In the upper right hand corner, you will see a new area to add a post to your comments that will appear on your Google Maps page for up to 30 days. Here is a close-up:

Once you create the call to action message and click on the Post button, it will go live on your Google Maps listing. You can get creative here but keep in mind that your competition probably is unaware of this feature so use it to your advantage.

You can add a message about being the highest rated dealer in the area or that you have the best incentives to purchase at your dealership. You don't have alot of room so use it wisely.

Do you have some examples of what you plan to add with a post on your maps page?

Share them here and add a comment below.

I am still amazed how many dealers have less than 20 reviews on their Google Maps listings. Even worse are dealers who have Google Maps listings with incorrect information and/or missing their website link. Dealers with low review counts often will find that they are mostly negative posts which creates an unfair picture of any dealership.

I was thinking why some dealers have ignored Google Maps and the reviews that show on their listing. I have come to the conclusion that they don't realize how many times each month their Maps listing is shown to consumers.

For a dealer in an active metro area, their Google Maps listing is shown over 15,000 times. Normally at these number of impressions, dealers will get over 300-500 visitors clicking to their website and dozens of phone calls.  As a reminder, put a tracking number on your Google Maps listing.

Poor Reviews Decrease Leads

When a consumer clicks on the Reviews link on a dealer's maps listing and sees very negative ratings, it is no surprise why consumers may end their consideration of that dealer. I'm writing today to encourage  Internet Sales Managers and General Sales Managers to implement a 4x4 IRM strategy for the next few months. 

By starting with realistic goals, dealers can take small steps to increase their consumer direct leads.  With all the competition on Google Page One for your brand name, your Google Maps reviews are one of your most powerful defensive tools.  As your reviews increase, so will the leads and calls.

Starting A Internet Reputation Management Process

Every month, dealers sell cars to family, friends or long-time customers. I am encouraging all dealers to identify these loyal brand advocates and contact them to achieve 4 reviews on Google Maps each week for one month. This 4x4 strategy will produce 16 positive reviews spread out over the month.

This investment will be one of the best uses of your time in the next 30 days.

If you feel that posting 16 reviews on Google Maps in one month is too many, split it with one other review site that shows on Google Page One or Page Two when you do a search on your exact business name.

The reason why I am encouraging this initial measure to be done with loyal customers is because many dealers have only bad reviews "front and center" on Google Maps. I don't want a new customer to see just the "ugly" posts.   Keep in mind that Google is rolling up reviews from Edmunds, DealerRater, Yelp, CitySearch, so posting directly on Google is key for visibility.

Car dealers need to achieve balance by getting loyal customers to post from their home computers that will not lose faith when they see some negative reviews posted. Once balance is established,  any customer should be encouraged to post a valid, truthful review. If you don't ask yourhappy customers, then your positive counts will never go up.

If dealers implement a 4x4 strategy on Google for one month, then they can expand that strategy to Edmunds, DealerRater, Yelp or InsiderPages. The goal is to achieve a natural set of posts that are not all posted on the same day or to put up 20 reviews in one week.

4x4 Reputation Management Rules

Always play by the rules; don't cheat. Have the reviews posted from actual customers from their own PC at home. Never post reviews from inside your dealership.

Ask your customers to be specific about the car they purchased, who they dealt with and where they live. By including where they live, you demonstrate that people are willing to drive a distance to shop at your dealership.

Get started...Google Maps is your #1 free advertising source on the Internet. Don't waste the opportunity.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Automotive Reputation Management Specialists

Imagine negotiating with a consumer and when you get to talking about the price of the car, your customer tells you that you need to take $370 off your price because CarFax said so. The consumer tells you that ON YOUR OWN website, they clicked the CarFax report and it told them that the car was worth $370 less.

The question that begs to be answered is: Less than What???

This is not a fantasy. Check out this CarFax link to a car that is offered at Checkered Flag in Virginia. The Checkered Flag Group was unaware of this great "NEW" feature offered and implemented by CarFax. Every car has an icon to print a free CarFax report.

Ouch.

When you look at the CarFax report, there is NO explanation to where this deduction in value comes from. There are no accidents or damage according to this screen.

The backlash has started.  Dealers have emailed me to say that their CarFax representative did not have any solid answers to their questions.

Were you aware that CarFax was adding this number? Do you want CarFax into your pricing equation?  Share your thoughs.

Dealers spend thousands of dollars a year on designing a good website. Then they spend thousands of dollars a year to add video, chat, vAuto, SEO and SEM to their websites. They invest in branding on radio, TV and newspaper as well.

Then dealers unknowingly make decisions to make sure consumers DO NOT GET to their website for popular search phrases on the search engines.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

One day, dealers were told it was a "good" idea to send their inventory to 3, 5, 8 or 10 "free" inventory listing websites that promised to create significant leads and relevance to their business.

Inventory feed providers, website providers all bought the sales pitch. Funny, not many dealers have gone back to look just how many leads are coming in from these "free" sites? Even less have decided to take any action once they saw that these free sites were NOT producing meaningful results.

Dealers concluded, what can it hurt me to send my inventory....it's free. Guess what. It's NOT free. It has a real Cost.

So, I wrote a post this week that I though would elicit more responses, but it didn't. I think I just gave too much information, so I'll say it one more time, using graphics. Dealers are allowing their inventory to be used against them.
 

They are allowing free websites to push their own websites off of Google Page One.

I did a simple search on Yahoo, which was: " Indianapolis Silverado for sale" and I documented Page 1 and Page 2 of the search results. You should test a few local phrases and see who comes up on Page One.

Take a look at the screen shots at the bottom of this page and take note that:
 

1. There are NO car dealers in organic search results on Page One or Two.
2. Go back and read point #1.
3. Free listing websites that sell your leads or show competitor listings are on Page 1 and 2 and NO car dealer websites are one Page 1 or 2.
4. KBB is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
   
   1. Cars.com
   2. FundingWay.com
   3. Presenting competing dealer banner ads
   4. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
5. Oodle is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
   1. Your competitors using Google Adsense
   2. Presenting banner ads that go to OEM websites
6. LemonFree is using your inventory feed to create car detail pages with lead generation links to:
   1. Your competitors comparable listings in their network
   2. Competitors using Google Adsense

Do I have to keep going?

Many dealers are PAYING Autotrader.com to advertise their cars and even AT is being pushed down in the ranking by free and pseudo-free websites that are NOT dealer centric models. The irony is that dealers are sending their inventory to free sites that are pushing even AutoTrader.com down in the rankings.

Anyone looking for a reason WHY Autotrader.com leads may be down in your market? It just may be your own actions!

How many leads a month are you getting from these FREE sites?

Driving Sales Members..please listen.

STOP SENDING YOUR INVENTORY to "free" sites that are using your inventory to create landing pages by car model that: 

• sell your competitors cars
• create leads that are sold to your competitors
• generate ad revenue for someone else
• that push your own website pages off Google Page One

Call your inventory management service like HomeNet, Dealer Specialties, etc. and tell them to ONLY send your inventory advertising services that DELIVER results like Autotrader.com, Cars.com or any site THAT YOU HAVE PROVEN is not hurting you and is delivering real sales each month.

Get it in writing and then search for VIN numbers that you have in stock the following month. Need proof? See the images below.

Does ANYONE think that at least ONE Chevrolet Dealer should be showing up on Yahoo Page One or Page Two???
 

 

What is your response?

 

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://facebook.com/pcgdigitalmarketing

 

 

 

 

 

“What is your opinion on the effectiveness of sending a dealer’s inventory to be published on free listing websites”.

• 457         Everycarlisted.Com
• 21          Vast.Com
• 15          Lemonfree.Com

• Car detail pages are free from competitors’ banner ads.
• Car detail pages are free from Google text ads
• Car detail pages have live links back to the dealership website
• Car detail pages that clearly show dealer name, address and phone number
• Car detail pages are optimized for organic search in the dealer’s primary PMA

“What will I have to cut in order to spend more on digital marketing? My General Managers will freak out if I reduce their traditional advertising budget!”

Is the reason why the average automotive retailer spends less than 15% of the advertising budget on digital marketing because of the fear or because they have carefully measures the ROI of all digital marketing strategies and have chosen wisely?

Write your post here

As part of Reputation Management program for our clients we encourage them to film satisfied customers at the dealership so that we can leverage that good press on the Internet. We created the concept of a Reputation Management Portal (RMP) which consolidates the top place where consumers can post a review to make it easier for your clients to post their comments.

As part of the process, we will also take customer testimonial videos and load them in a custom YouTube Testimonial Channel for the RMP home page; see www.iloveprestigevolvo.com. We also load their testimonial videos on their Facebook Fan Page. (If you haven't purchased a FlipCam yet, do it immediately!)

As we were checking the Google Page One Management for a new client, Prestige Volvo we were surprised to see how many things are starting to appear in the Google stream for social media websites. Take a look at the screen shot below:

Facebook Videos in Google SERP

In this case an actual customer testimonial video was indexed by Google from inside of Facebook. You will also notice that it ranked well, page two for now, for a search on their business name. As we have discussed in previous article, Google Page One Management (GPOM) is key to protect your brand and push lead collectors off page one and two.

This observation indicates the growing relevance that Facebook is having in search results. I wonder if the custom TABS in Facebook will be indexing that include our new CarPort App which posts cars inside of Facebook. You can see an example of CarPort in action on Marlboro Nissan's Fan Page.

Four Square Tips Indexing

Facebook is not the only social media website that is indexing in Google. From the screen shot below you can see that our "Tip" that was posted at Newark Airport is showing up in search results.

If you have any doubts on the potential of social media for additional benefits for IRM and Automotive SEO strategies, the proof is shown above. The rules of digital marketing seem to be changing every week and new strategies need to be tested all the time.

It keeps me busy!

GPS enabled mobile apps are changing the way in which consumers leverage social media and one fast growing application that has been discussed on DrivingSales.com is FourSquare.com. This week FourSquare.com announced that it will be offering business owners business intelligence tools which would show them who is "checking in" to their business and how to market to their local visitors.  The data set will be very interesting to analyze. A sample screen shot below is a teaser of what is to come.  Think of it as Google Analytics for location based digital marketing.

I'm Addicted to FourSquare.com

I've been actively using FourSquare and I have to admit I'm becoming an addict.  I don't mind that my trail of places I visit are recorded for my followers to see.  This trail can also be automatically posted to Twitter and Facebook. Here is an example of how FourSquare.com recorded my path over the past two days: However, I have been trying to figure out how this can be leveraged to assist business owners grow their brand awareness and sales.  The opportunities got a bit clearer in the past week with the FourSquare business toolkit announcement and something that caught my eye last week in regards to FourSquare advertising. I was checking into a local eatery in Red Bank New Jersey when a message appeared on FourSquare telling me that a business around the corner had a special offer if I checked in there.  I stared at the iPhone because I never saw FourSquare up-selling me, like a PayPerClick ad does on a Google SERP. FourSquare knew my exact location and told me that some business nearby wanted me to take advantage of a special offer.  Now, the lights started to go off in my head.  If businesses can target consumers that are close to their store, can ads draw them in due to their close proximity? If a 2 for 1 dinner ad popped up when I was shopping at a store in Red Bank at 6 pm, would I be more inclined to dine at the restaurant that knew I was nearby and created a compelling offer?

FourSquare.com For Car Dealers

So how does this relate to the automotive industry?  The answer is that its too early to tell but the possibilities are endless. Would a discount oil change offer draw in customers to a dealership that was located near an active mall?  Since car dealers are often grouped in an "Automotive Mile", could you cross sell a consumer who checks into a competing dealer with an advertisement that says that you'll beat any local dealer price by $200?  Would that savings make them drive a few blocks away and save? And on the guerrilla warfare angle, will dealers "Check-in" to competing dealers FourSquare pages and add cross-selling messages? So, keep an eye out for the evolution of GPS enable, Location Based Marketing applications for mobile phones that can be leveraged to expand your online brand awareness. Next time you check in to Newark Airport, you may be reminded who is the best Digital Marketing Company in New Jersey. :)

I was out in Southern California last week and had the pleasure of visiting a premier BMW dealer on the West Coast; Irvine BMW. I was given the opportunity to drive a 2008 BMW M6 Convertible as well as a 2010 BMW 550 GT, also known as a Grand Turismo.   Both cars were a dream to drive and each had their distinct personality. The M6 Convertible had an MSRP over $110,000 and the MSRP of the 2010 BMW 550 GT was around $80,000.  I was a bit nervous driving these cars on the freeways of California. The M6 Convertible's automatic shifting technology allowed me to adjust the feel of the transmission and the associated engine roar.  The car was as fun to drive as it sounded.  The Grand Turismo is a cross between the 5 Series and  7 Series with 550 horsepower.  It was simply a moon rocket in the disguise of a luxury performance sedan.

First Year Without a BMW

I've owned BMW cars since 1994 but this month will be the first time we passed on having at least one BMW in the household car pool.  We decided that $700 - $900 a month lease payments were not in the budget this round of car buying. As I was visiting Irvine BMW I asked what was the average lease payment for an entry level 3-Series car with decent equipment.  To lease a new BMW 3-Series the lease payments without any additional money down would run over $500 a month. A fully equipped 3-Series over $600 per month as a lease payment. It was then I started to worry about the BMW brand. Maybe it was touched off by the tough economic conditions most American's find themselves in or the thoughts that February was a brutal sales month in Southern California for many dealers. In this economy, will the young car buyers be able to touch a new BMW car? I am not comparing apples to apples but I drove a 2010 Hyundai Genesis at Preston Hyundai and it was a great looking car and the performance was fantastic. I recently purchased an Infiniti G37 AWD Sedan a from Circle Infiniti and for someone who loves a BMW 5 Series Sedan,  my new G37 Sedan is a rock star and $300 a month cheaper.  The electronics on the car are just mind blowing cool. So, with some many new choices on the marketplace, does anyone else feel that BMW needs to produce a vehicle that can get young buyers connected with their brand? Does it matter?  What are your thoughts.