Our Vendor Rating system is receiving some great attention even though they're not fully live yet.  We have received positive feedback from dealers, vendors and the media.  Here’s an update for everyone about the progress of the program and a review of how the DrivingSales Vendor Ratings system works.

We are currently allowing dealers to rate the vendors in four categories: Website Companies, Search Marketing Companies, 3rd Party Lead Providers (new cars) and Inventory Publishers (used cars).  Dealers can go to the Vendor Ratings section of DrivingSales.com and rate the products with which they have experience.

Each review includes a 1-5 star rating, a written review, and information on whether or not they recommend the product to others.  The ratings are semi-anonymous, meaning they only display the reviewer’s title (GSM, ISM, dealer, etc.)  We request reviewers to truthful and straightforward in your ratings and feedback.  We have been monitoring the participation levels and following the ratings and reviews behind the scenes and the results are groundbreaking.  As a dealer, I would have loved to have this level of information the last time I selected a third party lead provider or a website company.  It’s extremely valuable to know whom to talk to and what each company’s strengths and weaknesses are according to actual users, not just the vendors’ own messaging.

The "curtain" is planned to come down at the end of August, when the full reviews will be live. Until then - now is the time to get your ratings in. The catalog of companies and products is wiki, meaning any logged in member (dealer, vendor, OEM or other) can add new companies or products and edit their descriptions. But only dealers can rate and review products.  The Vendor Ratings system will help keep everyone up to date on the newest products and features that vendors bring to market.  These reviews will serve to give dealers additional, valuable information to make important purchasing and partnering decisions, while the vendors will get great feedback and insight to spur innovation and better meet dealers’ needs. We will continue to add more categories in the coming months.

I welcome members’ questions and feedback on the Vendor Ratings system. Please post comments below, and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. Let me know what you think, what questions you have, and other product and service categories you would you like to see next - trainers, inventory analysis tools, CRM – the field is wide open and we look forward to seeing this program evolve for the community!

Please start giving your feedback to vendors that are currently on our system at our Vendor Ratings Section.

One of our staff, Kristen Stanton, pointed out an article about an issue that most people do not take into consideration when we make changes to our site(s).  "One of the most common SEO mistakes website owners make"

The article deals with how to deal with traffic that comes from the SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) if we change an URL and keeping any link juice we already have.

Since automotive dealer websites are fairly static how does this really effect us?  If your site's architecture remains constantly static and you do not build internal landing pages that are optimized SEO wise it may be a moot point, but even if you make a simple change of an url from http://anyoldsite.com/specials.php to http://anyoldsite.com/hot-specials.php to coincide with other marketing efforts you need to consider what happens to the traffic for first url and any link juice it already has.

More often than not it is redirected to the home page of your site or it finds the dreaded 404 Error - Not Found.  What is the surfer thinking when they hit that instead of your specials page?  Have you maximized your opportunity based on the trust that the surfer gave you when they clicked on your link?

Apparently the search engine is thinking this is the most relevant page to show surfers based on their query.  More often than not this is due to other links to your first specials page coming in from other sites.  This is what search engines use to determine what is the most relevant  results. 

The good news is you can change a url and all of the effective link juice passed to it from other websites if you set up a 301 redirect which tells the search engine your content has moved and pushes your conversion, yes a click through is a conversion, to the right place.

Remember if you change an URL makes sure your website provider sets up a valid 301 redirect or shows you how to do it.

How do you monitor what others are saying about you online?

Here we are going to show you a very simple FREE way to show you how to find out exactly what others are saying about you and your brand online. There is no real need to pay for this service, unless you already have a severe Search Engine Reputation issue.

Setting up Google alerts for for important keywords is really a simple process. You can find out instantly if your name, your dealership name or any other important search engine term is showing up in the Google index.

Setting up Google alerts is a simple process just visit Google Alerts to get started.  http://www.google.com/alerts

You can specify to receive alerts on any search term you desire.  At a minimum you should set one up for your name, the name of your store and any variations.  However you can use this tool to keep an eye on your competitors or even your children who use social networking sites like facebook or myspace. 

We recomend that yous set up to receive these alerts at a minimum of once per day the best practice would be to set them up as they happen especially for the terms that mean the most to you, your name and brand(s) that you are building.

Your reputation is important to you keep a close eye on it.  That way if someone is talking about you online or anything else, online you have an opportunity to jump into the conversation and save some grief.  Bad experiences and customer dissatisfaction can go viral if not addressed promptly.

 It's also nice to find out when you have done something right when customers or colleagues are giving you props on a job well done.  Google will sends you a notice when anyone is publishing anything online regarding the terms you are monitoring.  They don't know if it is good or bad, they are just the messenger.

If you have any questions or are having trouble setting up your ego searches please feel free to drop a note below and one of the staff at drivingsales.com will promptly reply.

Gilbert Chavez, one of the most respected automotive Internet experts in the country, traveled to Salt Lake City in May to spend the afternoon with Jared Hamilton, founder and CEO of DrivingSales, Inc., to discuss dealership Internet strategy, the evolution of online automotive retailing, and the newly launched - DrivingSales.com. Chavez spoke with Hamilton about how dealers like him will benefit from DrivingSales and participating in its social network and online community. Chavez: Thanks for taking the time to discuss DrivingSales with me, Jared. I'm glad we got to continue our discussion from the Digital Dealer conference this spring. In a nutshell, how would you describe DrivingSales? What's your elevator pitch for dealers? Hamilton: DrivingSales.com is an online community and social network for auto industry professionals. We interact on a platform that was custom built for our industry in order to create the most efficient and user-friendly environment for people like us to network, share best practices, and get objective reviews on vendors from other dealers - plus any other information we need to maximize our success. Chavez: Everyone I talk to agrees there's a need for this. Our business is changing more rapidly than any time in history, and it requires keeping up with a lot of information and new technologies just to stay in the game. When you say "online community" and "social network," the first things that come to my mind are MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. What does DrivingSales offer that's different? Hamilton: There are definitely some similar functionalities in these platforms, and all of them have sprung from the next evolution of the Internet otherwise known as Web 2.0 which embodies a very efficient way for people to connect and share user-generated content. However, MySpace and Facebook are known for having more of a social focus, while DrivingSales is tailored to the professional networking, strategies, and helping them be more successful in their businesses. Though that doesn't mean you won't see a lot of fun and entertaining content on the site! The way it works is our community members create a profile and in doing so, they tap into dozens of valuable resources. The most notable are our dealership strategy sharing, vendor ratings, blogs, the networking utility, where you can search and connect with old friends, colleagues, and industry experts you'd like to meet and share ideas with. So, we are more like a LinkedIn, but there are key differences there too. Chavez: Yeah, when I hear about a "network utility" it sounds more like a "let's get down to business here" kind of experience. LinkedIn is pretty huge at this point. Why would someone come to DrivingSales vs. LinkedIn. Hamilton: I liken the difference to a suit you buy of the rack vs. one that is custom made for you by the best Italian tailor. DrivingSales is tailored specifically for the auto industry, and dealers in particular, with the core goal of helping dealership professionals connect and get the specific information they need to be more successful. Chavez: It's interesting how that works with automotive. For instance, there are many companies out there that build websites, but the best sites in the industry are the ones that are developed by the providers who specialize in automotive. Same with CRM, leads, search. We're a rare breed, I guess. We demand customization! Hamilton: Definitely. DrivingSales profiles, groups, content, and other information on the site are all centered on the car business, including vendor profiles, job descriptions, strategies, blogs, etc. Everyone on our network is in our industry, so it's a network of peers collaborating on relevant ideas and content. You don't have to weed through a bunch of junk to get what you're looking for. Here's another example. In LinkedIn, all of your contacts become public information. This is not the case with DrivingSales. Our members can easily make connections with others, but they can also maintain private addresses books, if they want. Meanwhile their address books will be updated automatically when their associates change their information. In an industry where people move around a whole lot, that's very important. We are working with different affinity groups to create niches within the big niche. Chavez: What inspired you to create this type of community? Hamilton: It came, simply, from an immediate necessity. In 2003, I was attending NADA's Dealer Candidate Academy. There were 30 of us dealers in one place, sharing ideas and pushing each other to solve problems, develop better processes, and essentially push the envelope. It was amazingly helpful for everyone. But then when we all returned to our stores, it was difficult to keep the positive communication going. One of our assignments was about using a personal computer to run out stores better. DrivingSales resulted from that assignment and that need, and my classmates were all over it when I presented it to them. Chavez: Have you gone through some revisions since your original creation? Hamilton: Let's just say we'vecome a long way since V1! The first version was actually a problem solving Wiki. My classmates could create a membership and then post problems and edit solutions directly on the web pages themselves. Honestly, when I created this there wasn't even such a thing as Web 2.0. As it turned out, the Wiki functionality for this was a head of its time. To date, we'vehad a very select group of users, but happily, by popular demand, it's starting to take off, so we'veopened it up to the whole automotive community. You know, two heads are always better than one, well, we're going to have thousands upon thousands of heads sharing best practices and getting a whole lot smarter at the same time. Chavez: Ok, that all sounds cool. But the golden question: how the heck is this going to help me sell more cars?! Hamilton: Yeah, I knew you were going to get to that. First, we're continuing to build out the blogging community with some of the best minds in the business one of which is you! But seriously, we wanted the more successful people in the business blogging on DrivingSales and sharing best practices with our members. And we're continuing to attract the best like Rafi Hamid, Dean Evans, Allan Cooper. The blog postings range from the theoretical to the very tactical, all filled with great information to help our members sell more cars for less money. Second, you create your profile and build a strong network. The associates around you are some of your biggest assets. You never know when you will need to hire someone, get a product recommendation, a reference check, or advise on an issue. We have many tools to help you leverage your network to do these things more efficiently, and to keep you better connected with others in our industry. You can even manage "to-dos" and share them with coworkers in a collaborative setting. All this is geared towards maximizing your success, and that of your dealership or company. Plus, we're going to have a lot of fun stuff too. For instance, we'vejust launched a "spiff" sharing, or strategies, contest. We want to give our members a live, robust resource full of spiff ideas to use when their creativity is hurting before a sales meeting. We are inviting members to post their favorite spiff programs to be rated. The highest rating by mid-July will win a very sleek MacBook Air. Chavez: Very cool. I plan on pulling some from up my sleeve. I see how this will grow as the community grows more people involved and contributing, more value for every member. Hamilton: Yeah, it's all about the community. It's been fun to see this grow from a homework assignment for one class to something hundreds of dealers, and growing into the thousands, are using. We're continuing to enhance our features and we're getting great feedback from our members, which makes it better for everyone. Our objective is to build out a custom community exactly as dealers want it. So if there is something you want, let me know and I'll do what I can to build it. Chavez: Thanks, Jared. Ok, I gotta go and submit a couple killer spiffs and get my buddies to rate them so I can take home that trinket. Hamilton: Adios, and see you in the network!