Here's my follow up recap for the rest of the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit held last week in Las Vegas. 

Dylan Swift, National Director of Marketing at Yelp, opened up Monday morning with an overview of the online review landscape. He raised some eyebrows with his initial recommendation to the crowd: "Don't ask your customers for reviews on Yelp!" Dylan said that reviews should simply be an organic extension of your dealership's experience. Bad experiences will yield negative reviews. So, make sure your experiences are as positive as possible. Sure, obvious stuff - but it does helps to hear directly from Yelp about their processes and admitting the possibility of reviews being stripped away. (I've had legitimate, positive reviews for my dealership removed - and with no explanation) 

Some dealers may have taken this guidance as a sign that Yelp doesn't necessarily understand the dealership review landscape (much like Google struggled a couple of years ago) Others may have interpreted this as a subtle hint that if you participate in Yelp's paid advertising programs, then maybe your reviews won't disappear. I don't believe this is a conspiracy of sorts, but the question does still remain about why so many positive reviews go missing. 

One simple take away: If you're using specific call to actions in your CRM follow up emails, you may want to remove Yelp as an option. Showroom iPad kiosk solutions that include Yelp should also be considered for removal. 

Next up on the agenda was the DrivingSales Best Idea Contest. This has always been one of my favorite portions of the entire event. Creative and progressive dealers compete against each other by sharing their best ideas to help improve their dealerships performance. There is never a shortage of great efforts and ideas. Another reason why I like this contest is that it helps the audience get a wonderful view of the enthusiasm these dealers posses - that's refreshing to see and should act as an inspiration to everyone in the audience for them to bring back to their dealerships as well. All of the contestants did an excellent job with their ideas; their presentations were also top notch this year. 

Congratulations to Robert Karbaum, eCommerce Director for Weins Canada Inc. as he took home the top prize of $3000 with his Appointment Boarding Pass idea. (A strong signal that the Canadians are serious about upping their game!) Cheers to the other contestants who eagerly shared their efforts with the attendees - that alone is an awesome gesture and something that everyone respects tremendously. (There was some online chatter about this portion not being about the dealer's individual ideas vs. them showing of variations of vendor products - the main point here is that the dealers are trying to personalize these efforts and make them their own.) The others dealers competing were: 

• “Picture Perfect Reputation Management” – Megan Barto, Marketing Director, Ciocca Honda

• “True Internet ROI” – Mark Brady, CTO/CMO, Fisher Honda-Kia

• “Sell My Car” – Zack Freed, E Commerce Director, McCombs Automotive Team

• “How to Visualize Big Data in the Dealership” – Jason Stum, Digital Marketing Manager, LaFontaine Automotive Group

And for those in attendance, please don't be lazy and simply copy their idea. add your dealership's flair and personality to the concepts is you'e so inclined and make it fit your brand's personality. That's how you stand out among this crowded space. 

The next keynote to speak was Dr. Joeseph Weintraub, Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Babson College. Dr. Weintraub is an expert authority on leadership concepts and strategy - he's also one of those people that makes it extremely difficult to fit all of his experiences and knowledge into a 30 minute presentation. This is the type of guy you listen to all day long and then sit around a nice meal and simply soak up his wisdom. His emphasis on coaching content and leadership initiatives should speak volumes to dealers. He struck a chord with me with his message about creating learning through relationships to help improve the method and the processes. It needs to work on both ends and can't just be a one way street. His concept of allowing an organization's leaders to help grow future leaders make complete sense; the future of any dealership lies within the abilities of tomorrow's leaders, yet many simply ignore this path or don't recognize it at all. Dr. Weintraub's key elements of innovative companies is also something that dealers should consider adopting to help maintain a fresh stance in today's stagnant culture. Some examples include: 

• “Avoid analysis paralysis when we identify new opportunities by exhibiting a bias towards action; we are constantly experimenting"

• "We are not afraid to fail, we treat failure as a learning opportunity"

• "We have the right recruiting and hiring systems in place to support a culture of innovation" 

• "We are consistent in actually doing the things that we say we value"

• "We have a deliberate, comprehensive and disciplined approach to innovation" 

The next portion of the event I experienced was the breakout sessions. This year's DSES had a stellar lineup to choose from depending on your own personal needs and situation. I made it a point to visit as many dealer breakout sessions as possible because I was most interested in seeing what these dealers are doing. And I was not disappointed with the content I experienced. While they were all filled with timely, relevant information, two sessions that stood out for me were given by Aaron Wirtz (Subaru of Wichita) and Grant Gooley (Boyer Automotive Group). These two sessions were both highly polished and you could tell they had months of preparation and rehearsal put into them. Both presenters created an infectious enthusiasm among the audience and shared great concepts. The actual tools and tips shared almost seemed secondary; I enjoyed the way Aaron and Grant made their successes seem effortless - and fun. You could tell they simply love what they do. If your dealership doesn't have someone with that type of passion in that role, then you need to find one, quickly.  

After the breakout sessions, everyone rushed back to catch Bruce Kimbrall, Disney Institute, talk about their favorite brand - Disney. Always so much you can learn from top brands such as Disney and it was a treat to hear their perspective. The message is also so powerful when you hear from such a historical brand and you begin to piece together how a company can become such a part of our lives. Bruce shared Disney's six stage of branding: 

• Unbranded Goods

• Unbranded References

• Brand as a personality

• Brand as an icon

• Brand as a company

• Brand as a policy

He shared their philosophy on brand loyalty - always a hot topic for dealers. He insisted it boiled down to brand integrity. It doesn't matter what your product or service is, it will always come down to creating a positive experience for the guest. This philosophy transfers nicely into the concept of valuing all consumers to create the lifetime value effect. It does your organization no good to only create a portion of consumer value during their lifetime - it must be ongoing. He also described the steps involved in this process:

1. Create internal service quality (How you treat employees) 

2.  Employee satisfaction

3. Employee retention

4. External service quality (How you treat your customers) 

5. Customer satisfaction

6. Customer value

7. Customer loyalty

8. Profit/Growth/Revenue

Leadership was another key theme during his keynote. Everyone is empowered to lead - and create magical moments for every guest at Disney. He also indicated there was a direct correlation between those who created the highest guest satisfaction and who ultimately became a great immediate leader within the organization. And while everyone may assume various reasons why guests come back to Disney time and time again, they really come back because of three reasons: How clean they keep Disney, friendliness of the staff and because guests feel safe. Very universal emotional triggers and Disney appeals to these factors on a consistent basis. 

Here's my follow up recap for the rest of the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit held last week in Las Vegas. 

Dylan Swift, National Director of Marketing at Yelp, opened up Monday morning with an overview of the online review landscape. He raised some eyebrows with his initial recommendation to the crowd: "Don't ask your customers for reviews on Yelp!" Dylan said that reviews should simply be an organic extension of your dealership's experience. Bad experiences will yield negative reviews. So, make sure your experiences are as positive as possible. Sure, obvious stuff - but it does helps to hear directly from Yelp about their processes and admitting the possibility of reviews being stripped away. (I've had legitimate, positive reviews for my dealership removed - and with no explanation) 

Some dealers may have taken this guidance as a sign that Yelp doesn't necessarily understand the dealership review landscape (much like Google struggled a couple of years ago) Others may have interpreted this as a subtle hint that if you participate in Yelp's paid advertising programs, then maybe your reviews won't disappear. I don't believe this is a conspiracy of sorts, but the question does still remain about why so many positive reviews go missing. 

One simple take away: If you're using specific call to actions in your CRM follow up emails, you may want to remove Yelp as an option. Showroom iPad kiosk solutions that include Yelp should also be considered for removal. 

Next up on the agenda was the DrivingSales Best Idea Contest. This has always been one of my favorite portions of the entire event. Creative and progressive dealers compete against each other by sharing their best ideas to help improve their dealerships performance. There is never a shortage of great efforts and ideas. Another reason why I like this contest is that it helps the audience get a wonderful view of the enthusiasm these dealers posses - that's refreshing to see and should act as an inspiration to everyone in the audience for them to bring back to their dealerships as well. All of the contestants did an excellent job with their ideas; their presentations were also top notch this year. 

Congratulations to Robert Karbaum, eCommerce Director for Weins Canada Inc. as he took home the top prize of $3000 with his Appointment Boarding Pass idea. (A strong signal that the Canadians are serious about upping their game!) Cheers to the other contestants who eagerly shared their efforts with the attendees - that alone is an awesome gesture and something that everyone respects tremendously. (There was some online chatter about this portion not being about the dealer's individual ideas vs. them showing of variations of vendor products - the main point here is that the dealers are trying to personalize these efforts and make them their own.) The others dealers competing were: 

• “Picture Perfect Reputation Management” – Megan Barto, Marketing Director, Ciocca Honda

• “True Internet ROI” – Mark Brady, CTO/CMO, Fisher Honda-Kia

• “Sell My Car” – Zack Freed, E Commerce Director, McCombs Automotive Team

• “How to Visualize Big Data in the Dealership” – Jason Stum, Digital Marketing Manager, LaFontaine Automotive Group

And for those in attendance, please don't be lazy and simply copy their idea. add your dealership's flair and personality to the concepts is you'e so inclined and make it fit your brand's personality. That's how you stand out among this crowded space. 

The next keynote to speak was Dr. Joeseph Weintraub, Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior, Babson College. Dr. Weintraub is an expert authority on leadership concepts and strategy - he's also one of those people that makes it extremely difficult to fit all of his experiences and knowledge into a 30 minute presentation. This is the type of guy you listen to all day long and then sit around a nice meal and simply soak up his wisdom. His emphasis on coaching content and leadership initiatives should speak volumes to dealers. He struck a chord with me with his message about creating learning through relationships to help improve the method and the processes. It needs to work on both ends and can't just be a one way street. His concept of allowing an organization's leaders to help grow future leaders make complete sense; the future of any dealership lies within the abilities of tomorrow's leaders, yet many simply ignore this path or don't recognize it at all. Dr. Weintraub's key elements of innovative companies is also something that dealers should consider adopting to help maintain a fresh stance in today's stagnant culture. Some examples include: 

• “Avoid analysis paralysis when we identify new opportunities by exhibiting a bias towards action; we are constantly experimenting"

• "We are not afraid to fail, we treat failure as a learning opportunity"

• "We have the right recruiting and hiring systems in place to support a culture of innovation" 

• "We are consistent in actually doing the things that we say we value"

• "We have a deliberate, comprehensive and disciplined approach to innovation" 

The next portion of the event I experienced was the breakout sessions. This year's DSES had a stellar lineup to choose from depending on your own personal needs and situation. I made it a point to visit as many dealer breakout sessions as possible because I was most interested in seeing what these dealers are doing. And I was not disappointed with the content I experienced. While they were all filled with timely, relevant information, two sessions that stood out for me were given by Aaron Wirtz (Subaru of Wichita) and Grant Gooley (Boyer Automotive Group). These two sessions were both highly polished and you could tell they had months of preparation and rehearsal put into them. Both presenters created an infectious enthusiasm among the audience and shared great concepts. The actual tools and tips shared almost seemed secondary; I enjoyed the way Aaron and Grant made their successes seem effortless - and fun. You could tell they simply love what they do. If your dealership doesn't have someone with that type of passion in that role, then you need to find one, quickly.  

After the breakout sessions, everyone rushed back to catch Bruce Kimbrall, Disney Institute, talk about their favorite brand - Disney. Always so much you can learn from top brands such as Disney and it was a treat to hear their perspective. The message is also so powerful when you hear from such a historical brand and you begin to piece together how a company can become such a part of our lives. Bruce shared Disney's six stage of branding: 

• Unbranded Goods

• Unbranded References

• Brand as a personality

• Brand as an icon

• Brand as a company

• Brand as a policy

He shared their philosophy on brand loyalty - always a hot topic for dealers. He insisted it boiled down to brand integrity. It doesn't matter what your product or service is, it will always come down to creating a positive experience for the guest. This philosophy transfers nicely into the concept of valuing all consumers to create the lifetime value effect. It does your organization no good to only create a portion of consumer value during their lifetime - it must be ongoing. He also described the steps involved in this process:

1. Create internal service quality (How you treat employees) 

2.  Employee satisfaction

3. Employee retention

4. External service quality (How you treat your customers) 

5. Customer satisfaction

6. Customer value

7. Customer loyalty

8. Profit/Growth/Revenue

Leadership was another key theme during his keynote. Everyone is empowered to lead - and create magical moments for every guest at Disney. He also indicated there was a direct correlation between those who created the highest guest satisfaction and who ultimately became a great immediate leader within the organization. And while everyone may assume various reasons why guests come back to Disney time and time again, they really come back because of three reasons: How clean they keep Disney, friendliness of the staff and because guests feel safe. Very universal emotional triggers and Disney appeals to these factors on a consistent basis. 

Wow. Five and half years years ago I received a phone call from Jared Hamilton. He asked, no - told me, I had to head out to Las Vegas to attend a new event he was holding specifically for "progressive dealers." I had no idea what he meant by that; as a relatively new dealer on the scene I just assumed every dealer was progressive. It sounded awesome and I knew I had to be there. so off to Vegas I went. 

Jared described a conference that would speak to dealers about their current problems, provide greater awareness and help dealers actually improve operations. I recall him telling me how this was going to be the best thing ever and that someday, eventually, it would be the biggest & best retail conference. I also remember getting off the phone saying to myself, "I like that kid - he's a dreamer, but I like him." 

True to his word Jared has delivered on that promise to the retail industry. After five years the DrivingSales Executive Summit has become the defacto retail automotive conference to attend. Nearly 3000 people have attended all five events over the years, thousands more have followed along online to soak up the knowledge from the speakers and the attendees. (The event has even been a national trending topic on Twitter. Twice.) 

Jared and his superstar event planning team have attracted the best industry speakers, world-class keynotes from outside the industry and the best retail dealers to contribute their experiences with attendees. This year was no exception. In fact, this year's event was extended to include a special pre-DSES Canadian section for our dealer neighbors to the North. This group of dealers, vendors and speakers nearly equalled the same number of attendees from the 1st DSES. 

The Canadian portion of the event signifies a new shift in the retail industry. The Canadians appear to be even thirstier for the information flow US dealers have been sipping at the past few years. The speed at which they're absorbing and implementing this content is staggering. These dealers needed their venue due to the culture changes and DrivingSales was able to respond with the help of Jay Radke. (Did you know that Canadians are the largest consumers of YouTube content in North America?) Jay assembled an all-star cast of successful Canadian dealers such as: Robert Karbaum, Aleksandra Banas, Dave Hicks, Doug & Andrew Maciver. Brent Wees (Glovebox) was also invited to share his knowledge on responsive web design and mobile strategies. Bringing everything to a close and validating everyone's presentations was Al Awadia (Google).

Later on Sunday master of ceremonies Charlie Volgleheim opened up in the festivities tighter than ever and with his unique blend of professionalism and wit. Jared Hamilton wasted no time in delighting the attendees with what to expect over the next couple of days. He then delivered what I believe to be one of his strongest keynotes to date. He whipped the audience into a frenzy with fixed operations stats and performance data over the years and how this segment has fared against other dealership departments. Bottom line - it isn't pretty. His presentation ended like the finale of a fireworks display. He rattled off performance numbers in a Ran Man-esque manner that was not only impressive but made clear and simple sense: dealers need to pay attention to their fixed ops activities, how they manage this department and how their marketing activities can impact their fixed ops efforts.  

- 62% of drivers research the service technicians recommendations before coming in.

- 43% of drivers search online when deciding where to take their car for service. 

- Dealers must go with a fixed ops approach in your BDC structure.

Scott Hernalsteen took the stage next and shared some of their and insights on how to help improve merchandising efforts. While he offered some general best practice reminders, the data points can clearly help any dealership with regards to their 3rd party merchandising efforts: 

 - VDP views increase by 34% when vehicles arelisted below MSRP.

- 186% more VDP views when priced below the market and also have multiple customer photos.

- 70% of new car buyers actually pay more than the price they saw online.

 - 26% more people traveled 30+ miles to a dealership when there are custom vehicle comments

Up next was Leif Babin, US Navy SEAL Officer. This was an intense keynote with one simple message: Leadership. Also important to note, Leif is only the second person in DSES history get a standing ovation after his presentation. (Gary V. was the 1st) 

Rather than try to convey the emotions his keynote elicited, I'll share some of the hard hitting items Leif provided us: 

 - If the team fails, everyone fails. 

- Laws of Combat: 1. Cover & move. 2. Simple. 3. Prioritize & Execute. 4. Decentralize Command.  

- Orders need to be given in a clear & concise manner so everyone understands them.

- When it's overwhelming, relax, look around and make a call. 

- Talk through what could go wrong with your team so they're prepared. 

- Your team needs to understand not only what what to do, but why they need to do it. 

- Leaders take ownership when things go wrong. 

- (And my favorite) It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate.

I'll follow up tomorrow with the rest of the DrivingSales recap - so much more to review. 

Wow. Five and half years years ago I received a phone call from Jared Hamilton. He asked, no - told me, I had to head out to Las Vegas to attend a new event he was holding specifically for "progressive dealers." I had no idea what he meant by that; as a relatively new dealer on the scene I just assumed every dealer was progressive. It sounded awesome and I knew I had to be there. so off to Vegas I went. 

Jared described a conference that would speak to dealers about their current problems, provide greater awareness and help dealers actually improve operations. I recall him telling me how this was going to be the best thing ever and that someday, eventually, it would be the biggest & best retail conference. I also remember getting off the phone saying to myself, "I like that kid - he's a dreamer, but I like him." 

True to his word Jared has delivered on that promise to the retail industry. After five years the DrivingSales Executive Summit has become the defacto retail automotive conference to attend. Nearly 3000 people have attended all five events over the years, thousands more have followed along online to soak up the knowledge from the speakers and the attendees. (The event has even been a national trending topic on Twitter. Twice.) 

Jared and his superstar event planning team have attracted the best industry speakers, world-class keynotes from outside the industry and the best retail dealers to contribute their experiences with attendees. This year was no exception. In fact, this year's event was extended to include a special pre-DSES Canadian section for our dealer neighbors to the North. This group of dealers, vendors and speakers nearly equalled the same number of attendees from the 1st DSES. 

The Canadian portion of the event signifies a new shift in the retail industry. The Canadians appear to be even thirstier for the information flow US dealers have been sipping at the past few years. The speed at which they're absorbing and implementing this content is staggering. These dealers needed their venue due to the culture changes and DrivingSales was able to respond with the help of Jay Radke. (Did you know that Canadians are the largest consumers of YouTube content in North America?) Jay assembled an all-star cast of successful Canadian dealers such as: Robert Karbaum, Aleksandra Banas, Dave Hicks, Doug & Andrew Maciver. Brent Wees (Glovebox) was also invited to share his knowledge on responsive web design and mobile strategies. Bringing everything to a close and validating everyone's presentations was Al Awadia (Google).

Later on Sunday master of ceremonies Charlie Volgleheim opened up in the festivities tighter than ever and with his unique blend of professionalism and wit. Jared Hamilton wasted no time in delighting the attendees with what to expect over the next couple of days. He then delivered what I believe to be one of his strongest keynotes to date. He whipped the audience into a frenzy with fixed operations stats and performance data over the years and how this segment has fared against other dealership departments. Bottom line - it isn't pretty. His presentation ended like the finale of a fireworks display. He rattled off performance numbers in a Ran Man-esque manner that was not only impressive but made clear and simple sense: dealers need to pay attention to their fixed ops activities, how they manage this department and how their marketing activities can impact their fixed ops efforts.  

- 62% of drivers research the service technicians recommendations before coming in.

- 43% of drivers search online when deciding where to take their car for service. 

- Dealers must go with a fixed ops approach in your BDC structure.

Scott Hernalsteen took the stage next and shared some of their and insights on how to help improve merchandising efforts. While he offered some general best practice reminders, the data points can clearly help any dealership with regards to their 3rd party merchandising efforts: 

 - VDP views increase by 34% when vehicles arelisted below MSRP.

- 186% more VDP views when priced below the market and also have multiple customer photos.

- 70% of new car buyers actually pay more than the price they saw online.

 - 26% more people traveled 30+ miles to a dealership when there are custom vehicle comments

Up next was Leif Babin, US Navy SEAL Officer. This was an intense keynote with one simple message: Leadership. Also important to note, Leif is only the second person in DSES history get a standing ovation after his presentation. (Gary V. was the 1st) 

Rather than try to convey the emotions his keynote elicited, I'll share some of the hard hitting items Leif provided us: 

 - If the team fails, everyone fails. 

- Laws of Combat: 1. Cover & move. 2. Simple. 3. Prioritize & Execute. 4. Decentralize Command.  

- Orders need to be given in a clear & concise manner so everyone understands them.

- When it's overwhelming, relax, look around and make a call. 

- Talk through what could go wrong with your team so they're prepared. 

- Your team needs to understand not only what what to do, but why they need to do it. 

- Leaders take ownership when things go wrong. 

- (And my favorite) It's not what you preach, it's what you tolerate.

I'll follow up tomorrow with the rest of the DrivingSales recap - so much more to review. 

Updating social media profile avatars, backgrounds and images is a basic necessity of managing either your personal or professional brand. Unfortunately it’s also the biggest pain; just when you think you’re all set, another social platform changes their design and your images simply don’t fit the new layout. (Yes, this applies to you, the OCD reader)

So, hopefully this nice infographic will keep you looking good. The helpful folks over at Raidious (Go figure, they help build brands) covers all the bases for you with the latest sizes and dimensions for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn & YouTube channels. Why these channels? That’s all you really need to help with your objectives and also keep it manageable.

Now go check your images and get something cool and unique in place.

Updating social media profile avatars, backgrounds and images is a basic necessity of managing either your personal or professional brand. Unfortunately it’s also the biggest pain; just when you think you’re all set, another social platform changes their design and your images simply don’t fit the new layout. (Yes, this applies to you, the OCD reader)

So, hopefully this nice infographic will keep you looking good. The helpful folks over at Raidious (Go figure, they help build brands) covers all the bases for you with the latest sizes and dimensions for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn & YouTube channels. Why these channels? That’s all you really need to help with your objectives and also keep it manageable.

Now go check your images and get something cool and unique in place.

Well, it's finally happening. Google has announced that it will stop passing along organic keyword values to Google Analytics. The values will not flow through as users are being directed to the secure version of Google. Even if you type in http://Google.com your browser will redirect you to the secure version. (https)

Why are they doing this?

Basically this does two things. It keeps the SEO's guessing and more importantly it puts the focus squarely on content. Google wants websites to be important with regards to the quality of their content rather than just the quality of the marketing ability. 

Some may argue a Google-conspiracy theory at work in that this will just push more activity to Google Adwords (Adwords keyword data will still flow through to analytics) and therefore help drive revenue. Hooray for shareholders if that's the case; Booo for website owners and those just relying on organic activity.

Keyword data will still flow for Yahoo and Bing - and I believe there is a huge opportunity for many sites to grab valuable long tail traffic from those search engines as well.

So. What should you do?

My first thought is to make sure you have your pages cleaned up and organized. Get rid of duplicate titles and description. Organize your organic efforts and be sure you're tracking your keywords and their respective pages within your software - regardless of who is managing the efforts. You need to know where you rank, what the long term performance of that page is and how it performs.

Are you creating individual content for that page? Do you have something different (something different than the thousands of other pages that have been created by your website vendor for the other dealers on the same platform?) 

Are you tracking the performance of the pages and their content? Here's an example of a custom Google analytics report you can use to easily track how your pages are performing: Content Efficiency Analysis. Be sure to set up your goal conversion tracking to track the form activity. 

Do you have custom tracking numbers on your pages? Track as much as possible. 

And lastly - Merchandise as best as possible. You're still going to drive valuable traffic to your site, so make it all worthwhile for the visitors. You know the drill: 35+ photos real videos, price, location, phone number, history reports, etc. And make sure sure the photos are high quality, in a photo booth if possible with great lighting. This all comes together like a puzzle to drive results. 

Nobody knows for sure where the analytics reporting is headed, but we've known this day was coming. Maybe Google is done giving this product away for free. They have plenty of data; paid analytics could be the next step. (I've also said it for a while - this is the beginning of the Semantic Web/Structured Data...more on that in another post)

Don't be left behind and neglect the best practices for on-page optimization, usability and tracking keyword ranking with helpful search programs.

How do you see this changing your activities?  

Well, it's finally happening. Google has announced that it will stop passing along organic keyword values to Google Analytics. The values will not flow through as users are being directed to the secure version of Google. Even if you type in http://Google.com your browser will redirect you to the secure version. (https)

Why are they doing this?

Basically this does two things. It keeps the SEO's guessing and more importantly it puts the focus squarely on content. Google wants websites to be important with regards to the quality of their content rather than just the quality of the marketing ability. 

Some may argue a Google-conspiracy theory at work in that this will just push more activity to Google Adwords (Adwords keyword data will still flow through to analytics) and therefore help drive revenue. Hooray for shareholders if that's the case; Booo for website owners and those just relying on organic activity.

Keyword data will still flow for Yahoo and Bing - and I believe there is a huge opportunity for many sites to grab valuable long tail traffic from those search engines as well.

So. What should you do?

My first thought is to make sure you have your pages cleaned up and organized. Get rid of duplicate titles and description. Organize your organic efforts and be sure you're tracking your keywords and their respective pages within your software - regardless of who is managing the efforts. You need to know where you rank, what the long term performance of that page is and how it performs.

Are you creating individual content for that page? Do you have something different (something different than the thousands of other pages that have been created by your website vendor for the other dealers on the same platform?) 

Are you tracking the performance of the pages and their content? Here's an example of a custom Google analytics report you can use to easily track how your pages are performing: Content Efficiency Analysis. Be sure to set up your goal conversion tracking to track the form activity. 

Do you have custom tracking numbers on your pages? Track as much as possible. 

And lastly - Merchandise as best as possible. You're still going to drive valuable traffic to your site, so make it all worthwhile for the visitors. You know the drill: 35+ photos real videos, price, location, phone number, history reports, etc. And make sure sure the photos are high quality, in a photo booth if possible with great lighting. This all comes together like a puzzle to drive results. 

Nobody knows for sure where the analytics reporting is headed, but we've known this day was coming. Maybe Google is done giving this product away for free. They have plenty of data; paid analytics could be the next step. (I've also said it for a while - this is the beginning of the Semantic Web/Structured Data...more on that in another post)

Don't be left behind and neglect the best practices for on-page optimization, usability and tracking keyword ranking with helpful search programs.

How do you see this changing your activities?