Only 25% of your of your websites search engine presence is determined by your on site efforts.  The other 75% is determined by the number of votes it gets from other sites, back links.  However the 25% factor may make a huge difference on how effective the other 75% is and how long it takes to see results.

Key elements to be concerned with on site.

Meta Data

Meta tags tell the search engines what users will find when they arrive at your site.  Think of it as how your site is cataloged in their index.

1. Page title: This is the most important element.  The title is what describes what your page is all about very much like a book title.  It is also what people see in the search engines in the results pages and in the browser bar.  It gets more weight than anything from the search engines when they index your site
2. Page description: It is a summary of your page and is what shows for a description of your site under your title in some of the search engines.  It is very important to include your main “money terms” in your page description.
3. Keywords: It was once the most weighted of all meta data but as people discovered this it was the most abused.  People would stuff as many keywords as they could imagine to describe their site to the search engines many time even if they were not relevant.  Now they do not give them as much weight however most SEO experts will agree because the search engine spiders still scan them and if your content matches they do provide some weighting.  Having more than 8 keywords is a waste of energy and more than six is probably over kill and may even sandbox your site.

Website vendors should give you access to manipulate these items to help you build the relevance of your site.  No one can describe your business better than you.  Broiler plate fill in the blank title tags should be avoided at all cost.

Each page on your site should have unique meta data.  Each page delivers a different message let the search engines know what you are showing your visitors.

Heading Summaries:

Heading summaries are sub headings on your site.  These tags help people read your web page but also help the spiders understand more about your page is targeted too and what its the most important parts.  For example you will see different sections of this post show different headlines through out the post.  This is through the use of head tags.  <h2> is a second level title and <h3> a third level title.  Heading summaries above is an <h3> element.

Image summary:

The search engine spiders cannot see images like your website visitors can.  So you have to tell them what the image is or says especially if it is an image mostly comprised of text.  

Leave your suggestions or pointers below in the comments and if you are dealership personel make sure you rate your dealership website vendor while you are here.

Dealers are getting better marks in the service department than they did last year according to JD Powers and Associates Service Usage and Retention Study, distributed on September 17, 2008. It gives the highest attribution to the proportion of maintenance visits versus repair visits. Seven in ten brands of the thirty four included in the study since 2007 have improved over the last year. Customers satisfaction is better when dealership visits are for maintenance versus repair work per, JDP. "Improvements in automotive product quality have resulted in the reduced need for repairs over time, which ultimately helps improve customer satisfaction with service, since customers are able to avoid unexpected and potentially inconvenient service visits," said Tom Gauer, senior director of automotive retail research at J.D. Power and Associates. "In addition, dealers have also improved their efforts to provide knowledgeable and courteous staff and a comfortable service experience."

Well after a seemingly long wait, the highly anticipated vendor ratings are accessible to logged in members of the DrivingSales community. (Just a reminder the community is free to join for Auto Industry Professionals. If you haven't already, register here)

The idea behind the vendor rating system is to give dealers a complete catalog of the products and services that can help them run a more successful store. The catalog is wiki, meaning we allow any logged in member to add or edit company or product information. Its like wikipedia for industry vendors.

The ratings include feedback from the reviewer, a 1-5 star rating and an answer to the question, "Would you recommend this product to a friend?" The rules are that only dealers rate the vendors and you must be either a current or past customer of the client to leave a rating. We have safeguards in place to insure the integrity of the system, however communities like this thrive because participants act in an honorable way.

So far there are about 100 reviews into the system and if you are logged in you can read them and add your own. Some of the reviews are big eye openers! Can check them out here: http://www.drivingsales.com/productreview/

Want to know how your website stands up?  We have found a unique free tool that will allow you to see how it rates overall and against your competition. If you visit http://www.websitegrader.com they will give you an intensive report on how you stack up in many respects. You can use this tool to improve your site on the SEO and traffic front.  The provide you with very detailed reports that almost anyone can understand. Some interesting facts that we found when we checked out www.drivingsales.com. Our blogs are in the top .44% of all blogs according to www.technorati.com Our website traffic is in the top 1.92% of all websites according www.alexa.com We also discovered some things we are not very proud of too, but we are not going to bring them up here.  You can grade us yourself and grade your own website for free at http://websitegrader.com After you are done checking out how well your website is really doing you may want to Rate Your Website Vendor and give them kudos for a job well done.

Following the norm is easy. There is no downside in doing to sticking with the status quo, following the standard playbook, mimicking others successes and becoming perpetually good at achieving mediocrity. Its unlikely you would be responsible for failure if the system does not work, you can blame it, not your execution. Breaking the rules is about doing something that goes against the norm. It is about getting outside of what is comfortable and easy, daring to be different. It is about working inside of the current status quo to bring about innovation into our industry. Others may not agree with you and they wont be willing to take the risks to experiment with things that are different. You've got to have thick skin to be a successful innovator.

Who are the Rule Breakers?

We want to hear about the rule breakers.  Innovation comes in many forms, products, ideas, processes.  Do you know somebody that has broken the norm, done something completely remarkable, despite appearing destined to fail they took the chance and made it happen.  It can be a product, service, idea or process.  We have already seen innovative ideas shared at www.drivingsales.com, we want to hear about the success stories and the trials that were faced implementing them and give those that broke the rules some free, deserved publicity.  We want to hear about how an organization was changed through thinking outside of the box.  If you have an idea that you could not get through to your organization we want to hear about that as well.  Submit it to our stradegy section and get in on current contest and have our community rate your idea. Use the form below to let us know about it. %%wpcontactform%%

Working on the Internet day in and day out forces you to remember different login URLS, passwords and usernames, and occasionally you find a site you want to revisit later because there was information or products that interested you that you may want to share with others. Bookmarking sites in your browser favorites is probably the easiest ways to find places you frequent on a regular basis while at your machine that you work from, but what do you do when you are at another machine?  Social bookmarking sites can help manage this process and let you organize places you frequent or wish to revisit.

How to use Social Bookmarking Sites:

Social bookmarking sites will allow you to store an unlimited number of URLS on the web for you to access later from any computer with an internet connection, most social bookmarking sites make them easy to use and organize places you frequent with a click of a mouse. The granddaddy of book marking sites is Delicious.com this is how they describe their service.

Things you can do with Delicious

Bookmark any site on the Internet, and get to it from anywhere

Instead of having different bookmarks on every computer, Delicious makes it easy to have a single set of bookmarks kept in sync between all of your computers. Even if you're not on a computer you own, you can still get to your bookmarks on the Delicious website.

Share your bookmarks, and get bookmarks in return

If your friends use Delicious, you can send them interesting bookmarks that they can check out the next time they log in. Of course, they can do the same for you. As you explore the site and find interesting users, you can use our Subscriptions and Network features to keep track of the Delicious tags and users you find most interesting.

Discover the most useful and interesting bookmarks on the web

See what's hot with Delicious users by checking out our popular tags. By looking at popular bookmarks for a tag, you'll be able to discover the most interesting bookmarks on the topics you're most interested in. Browse bookmarks on just about anything from the best programming tips to the most popular travel sites, all in an easy to read format.

Some tips on using delicious.com

Tagging - They give you the ability to "tag" webpages you wish to store with descriptive keywords such as: login banking favorites tools

Bundling tags will make your life easier when using delicious.com for example to manage logins you frequently use you may tag it as : logins dealership-logins cars.com-login  or logins personal-logins boa-login.  Don't over use tags they will create a mess in your account, also when tagging at delicious.com remember that tags are space separated and multi word tag should use a "-" or "."

Browser buttons - delicious.com has made it easy for you save pages by adding a button on your browser to automatically save pages on the fly.  They integrate with the most popular browsers internet explorer, firefox and safari.  (if you are using either of the last two this is probably old news to you)

Network - If you want to share your bookmarks with others they have a networking feature that will you to share sites that you have saved with others.  This feature is great when you bring a new person onto your team as it will give them a simple place to find the site logins that are rutinely used by people in your organization.

There are plenty of other bookmarking sites that you can use besides delicious.com.  You can find them here.  Stay tuned to our tips updates the next one will be about password management and tools you can use to make your life easier.

We showed you how to set up Google Alerts in a previous post, but this is not the only place to get notifications if you or your brand gets a negative or positive review in the blogosphere.  One of the largest blog aggregation services out there is Technorati.com almost every blog in the universe is spidered by them. Many times their entries will show in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) for keywords that are included in blog posts and blog tags.  And you can get instant notifications via RSS if your keywords appear on technorati.

How to set up Technorati Ego Searches:

• Visit technorati.com and do a search for terms that you wish to monitor.  If you are monitoring combination keywords such as "John Smith Ford" or "Automotive Website Vendor" you place those terms in "quotes" if you want targeted results.

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J.D. Power and Associates' Automotive Internet Round Table is scheduled for October 7th - 9th in Las Vegas at the Bellagio Resort. They will be covering a variety of topics as they relate to automotive Internet marketing across what many consider to be non traditional Internet marketing channels and increasing consumer engagement at many levels.

J.D. Powers Automotive Internet Round Table topics:

• Integrated Media Marketing
• User Generated Content
• Will Social Media Sell More Cars?
• Online Dealer Ratings and Reputation Management
• And a whole lot more - see the complete Agenda..

With a high concentration in adapting to the new forms of online communication with the buying public this event will bring many of these underutilized mediums to the forefront. I am looking forward to seeing experts from these fields discuss the adaptation of these technologies to our industry.

The event will be an excellent opportunity to discover new online channels for carrying your message to automotive consumers and propel your business to the next level. Catch on versus catching up by learning to engage consumers at every level from research to initiating a deal online.

Many from the DrivingSales.com staff will be an attendance to meet and network and we hope to put faces to and handshakes to as many of the community members who can attend. We hope to to gather feedback and to provide play by play coverage of the event. You can count on us to provide you with relevant commentary on the strategies discussed at the J.D. Powers Automotive Internet Roundtable as we network with our dealer community.

If you are going to be in attendance or have more questions about the event drop us a comment here. You can also contact Valerie Cienega at (714) 621-6270 for more information from J.D. Powers and Associates.

See You in Vegas Baby...

As digital marketing specialist email is probably the largest forms of communication that we use next to the phone. Getting black listed by an ISP may not just be from just over utilizing bulk email features, your message can be the culprit even if it is a personal one.

Email clients and web based email in-boxes have ways to designate a message as spam. If enough recipients designate you as a spammer the ISP's will assume every message sent from your domain or IP address is a spam and they will auto filter them as such.

Here is a short list of ways to not get you message deemed as spam by the recipients.

• Use Good Design and Format - Weak designs and improper format frustrates users. They can’t navigate your email easily or find the information they want. So, they opt out. Or, they delete you every time. Or, they hit the “Report Spam” button and hope that makes you go away. That’s why you test sample messages, to make sure they perform across many email programs and Web services.
• TURN THE CAPS LOCK KEY OFF - Many people leave the caps lock on in their daily activities. Probably from laziness or lack of knowing. Sending a message in ALL CAPS is the equivilent of Y-E-L-L-I-N-G
• Differentiate or Delete - Your email has to stand out in a crowded inbox. Put your company name in the “from” line for fast recognition. Add a “grabber” subject line. Design the top of your email to be preview pane and "disabled images" friendly. Use teaser text and HTML colors and layout rather than an image so readers can get an immediate "preview" of your email even if images are disabled. Finally, put the important content – the offer, the call to action, newsletter contents – up at the top for immediate viewing. You have just a couple of seconds to make your case, so don’t waste them.
• Give the recipient what they asked for - If you are actively working a customer do not include them in a broadcast email. Nothing say more to them that are dollar signs in the eyes of the dealership if they get the latest greatest sale announcement while involved in an email discussion with you. Not only may they mark you as a spammer you may lose them as a customer as well.
• Get Whitelisted - Encourage your subscribers to add your email address to their address book.
• Messages should have a high text to html ratio - Messages should not consist of large images with very little text.

Send a plain text version as well - Use the Multi MIME format by delivering messages in text and html then the recipients client choses which one to display. If you do not have this ability go text only

Give us some of your tips. The community will appreciate it.

Generating traffic to your site from you local area can be as simple as letting other know you exisit.  One thing you should do is make sure you are listed in the "local" index of the three major search engines.  This does two thing for your as far as generating traffic for you one it places you in the directory for targeted searches such as brand and location and it gives you valuable back links to your site for SEO.

Here is an example of Google Search Results for "Phoenix Toyota Dealers" notice that many, not all, Toyota Dealers are listed above the fold in Search Engine Results Page.  One dealership has also done a very good job of maximizing thier listings, they listed each department with a seperate physical address.  If you used this techicnique you must have a verified address for each location and seperate .  To submit your site to visit Google Local Listings to submit your store.

You will see the same type of results when you search Yahoo and MSN.  Here are the links to Submit to Yahoo and to Submit to MSN.  All of these local listing also allow you to advertise via their their pay per click and or enhance your listing in the results.  They will allow you to give hours of operation, your address, web url, pictures and description of services.  Google will even allow you to add coupons and specials to their listings.

Free Customer Review Sites included at no charge -

All of the search partners discussed here will allow customers to reiew their experience with your dealership either with review aggregators like yelp.com or judysbook.com and on their own platform.  The nice thing about the reviews is each review page will provide a new back link to your site from very trusted sources, which allow you to get your customers to help build your back links if you direct them to these resources to review your service.

Other places to get local links -

Many times there are local directorries in addtion to people you partner with for other services.  If your traditional advertising sources have a website you should be able to get free one way links from them if you spend any volume of money with them.  Such as radio stations, newspapers, and outdoor advertising firms.  To find local directories it is as simple as using google to search for "your city directory". 

You also have other yellow page style directories such as YellowBook.com, YellowPages.com, DexKnows, and Superpages.  However most of these sources do require payment to be listed.

 

Leveraging other resources -

Items such as blogs, user generated content sites, craigslist and social media can also provide valuable one way links to your dealership website and help in SEO and generating referral traffic.  That is a topic for another day I have given you a lot to work with already. 

 

Please add any other free resources for building links and getting noticed in the local search markets in the comment section below.  Your Automotive Network will really appreciate your input as well...