Ranked #1 in Dealer Satisfaction, eXtéresAUTO wins awards in both Reputation Management and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Categories 

Riverside, CA – February 8, 2012 – eXtéresAUTO has received the “Highest Rated”  Reputation Management and “Highest Rated” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Awards in the fourth annual DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards, presented at a special event in conjunction with the 2013 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo. eXtéresAUTO received the highest dealer satisfaction ranking in the Reputation Management and SEO categories, as determined by the thousands of auto dealers who are part of the DrivingSales.com community.

“First and foremost I must thank our clients for helping eXtéresAUTO achieve the Highest Rated distinction for the fourth year,” stated eXtéresAUTO CEO, Richard Winch. “Our employees work very hard to ensure our clients dominate the digital landscape and on behalf of all of them, I’d like to thank our extraordinary clients for their past support and continued loyalty.”

By combining online reputation management tools with search engine optimization, eXtéresAUTO’s exclusive Search Asset Management (SAM) Solution provides clients with the most powerful page 1 visibility on the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  The absolute backbone of any strong online presence is advanced search engine optimization (SEO) combined with the power of online reviews, and eXtéresAUTO is the clear automotive industry leader based on the responses from satisfied customers.

“We congratulate eXtéresAUTO, on receiving the ‘Highest Rated’ Reputation Management and ‘Highest Rated’ SEO Provider Awards, an accolade we consider to be one of our industry’s highest because it comes directly from dealers,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder, Jared Hamilton. “With so many hundreds of vendors offering a multitude of products and services, we are proud to offer dealers with access to vendor information that will help them be more profitable, while also providing the dealer community an opportunity to single out products and services like eXtéresAUTO who are leading the pack in innovation, performance, and customer service.”

The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards measure dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services, and are based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified over the calendar year (January – December) at DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings.  DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons, and provides dealerships with important information from actual customers who have hands-on experience using vendor products / solutions in their stores. Each rating is verified as coming from an actual dealership employee.

Full award results are available online at http://dealersatisfactionawards.com/. Award winners are showcased in the Q1 2013 issue of the DrivingSales Dealership Innovation Guide. For more information on the Dealership Innovation Guide, please visit: http://drivingsalesinnovationguide.com/.

About DrivingSales Vendor Ratings

DrivingSales Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons “searchable by category, company or rating” and is one of the most popular features of DrivingSales.com. Dealers are asked to rate their vendors on a 1-5 star scale, including whether they would recommend the vendor product to colleagues, and why they would or would not recommend the product.

About eXtéresAUTO

eXtéresAUTO is a leading provider of Digital Marketing Solutions for the automotive industry. Its proprietary Search Asset Management (SAM™) technology integrates advanced SEO, Online Reputation Management, and more. AutoSuccess named eXtéresAUTO as one of the "Best of the Best Companies" for 2011, and their SEO and Reputation Management solutions have ranked #1 in dealer satisfaction from 2009 through 2012. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in Riverside, CA.

About DrivingSales

Founded in 2008 and dedicated to the dealer community, DrivingSales is a business intelligence and performance improvement company that delivers unbiased*, profit-building information to make automobile dealers more successful through three distinct channels: DrivingSales Data, DrivingSales University and DrivingSales Media. DrivingSales Data houses the largest database of cross-vendor, dealership performance data in the North American auto industry and provides dealerships with the most statistically accurate performance benchmarks and metrics for their marketing and technology investments. DrivingSalesUniversity is a fully interactive online university that offers advanced profit-building strategies to automotive professionals through hundreds of classes taught by world-leading experts. DrivingSales Media connects dealers to peers and information through its global media assets, including DrivingSales.com, the world’s largest automotive social network; The DealershipInnovationGuide, an industry leading quarterly publication; DrivingSalesExecutiveSummit, the top automotive conference for progressive dealers, and DrivingSalesTV, Web TV covering everything car-dealer related. Approximately one in every three dealerships in the United States has a registered member in the DrivingSales community.

*Vendor Neutral Policy: Dedicated solely to making dealerships more profitable, while also providing benefit to automakers and the industry as a whole, DrivingSales adheres to a strict vendor neutral policy through each of its channels. This means the company only provides unbiased information, not ‘pay-to-play’ follow up services -- and never accepts payment in exchange for media coverage or lets potential advertisers dictate messaging or create bias in any of its channels.

eXtéresAUTO Media Relations:
Kari Cierley, 866-475-5553, k.cierley@exteres.com

DrivingSales Media Relations:
Melanie Webber (melanie@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 949.307.1723
Angela Jacobson (angela@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 714.454.877

Ranked #1 in Dealer Satisfaction, eXtéresAUTO wins awards in both Reputation Management and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Categories 

Riverside, CA – February 8, 2012 – eXtéresAUTO has received the “Highest Rated”  Reputation Management and “Highest Rated” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Awards in the fourth annual DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards, presented at a special event in conjunction with the 2013 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo. eXtéresAUTO received the highest dealer satisfaction ranking in the Reputation Management and SEO categories, as determined by the thousands of auto dealers who are part of the DrivingSales.com community.

“First and foremost I must thank our clients for helping eXtéresAUTO achieve the Highest Rated distinction for the fourth year,” stated eXtéresAUTO CEO, Richard Winch. “Our employees work very hard to ensure our clients dominate the digital landscape and on behalf of all of them, I’d like to thank our extraordinary clients for their past support and continued loyalty.”

By combining online reputation management tools with search engine optimization, eXtéresAUTO’s exclusive Search Asset Management (SAM) Solution provides clients with the most powerful page 1 visibility on the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  The absolute backbone of any strong online presence is advanced search engine optimization (SEO) combined with the power of online reviews, and eXtéresAUTO is the clear automotive industry leader based on the responses from satisfied customers.

“We congratulate eXtéresAUTO, on receiving the ‘Highest Rated’ Reputation Management and ‘Highest Rated’ SEO Provider Awards, an accolade we consider to be one of our industry’s highest because it comes directly from dealers,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder, Jared Hamilton. “With so many hundreds of vendors offering a multitude of products and services, we are proud to offer dealers with access to vendor information that will help them be more profitable, while also providing the dealer community an opportunity to single out products and services like eXtéresAUTO who are leading the pack in innovation, performance, and customer service.”

The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards measure dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services, and are based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified over the calendar year (January – December) at DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings.  DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons, and provides dealerships with important information from actual customers who have hands-on experience using vendor products / solutions in their stores. Each rating is verified as coming from an actual dealership employee.

Full award results are available online at http://dealersatisfactionawards.com/. Award winners are showcased in the Q1 2013 issue of the DrivingSales Dealership Innovation Guide. For more information on the Dealership Innovation Guide, please visit: http://drivingsalesinnovationguide.com/.

About DrivingSales Vendor Ratings

DrivingSales Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons “searchable by category, company or rating” and is one of the most popular features of DrivingSales.com. Dealers are asked to rate their vendors on a 1-5 star scale, including whether they would recommend the vendor product to colleagues, and why they would or would not recommend the product.

About eXtéresAUTO

eXtéresAUTO is a leading provider of Digital Marketing Solutions for the automotive industry. Its proprietary Search Asset Management (SAM™) technology integrates advanced SEO, Online Reputation Management, and more. AutoSuccess named eXtéresAUTO as one of the "Best of the Best Companies" for 2011, and their SEO and Reputation Management solutions have ranked #1 in dealer satisfaction from 2009 through 2012. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in Riverside, CA.

About DrivingSales

Founded in 2008 and dedicated to the dealer community, DrivingSales is a business intelligence and performance improvement company that delivers unbiased*, profit-building information to make automobile dealers more successful through three distinct channels: DrivingSales Data, DrivingSales University and DrivingSales Media. DrivingSales Data houses the largest database of cross-vendor, dealership performance data in the North American auto industry and provides dealerships with the most statistically accurate performance benchmarks and metrics for their marketing and technology investments. DrivingSalesUniversity is a fully interactive online university that offers advanced profit-building strategies to automotive professionals through hundreds of classes taught by world-leading experts. DrivingSales Media connects dealers to peers and information through its global media assets, including DrivingSales.com, the world’s largest automotive social network; The DealershipInnovationGuide, an industry leading quarterly publication; DrivingSalesExecutiveSummit, the top automotive conference for progressive dealers, and DrivingSalesTV, Web TV covering everything car-dealer related. Approximately one in every three dealerships in the United States has a registered member in the DrivingSales community.

*Vendor Neutral Policy: Dedicated solely to making dealerships more profitable, while also providing benefit to automakers and the industry as a whole, DrivingSales adheres to a strict vendor neutral policy through each of its channels. This means the company only provides unbiased information, not ‘pay-to-play’ follow up services -- and never accepts payment in exchange for media coverage or lets potential advertisers dictate messaging or create bias in any of its channels.

eXtéresAUTO Media Relations:
Kari Cierley, 866-475-5553, k.cierley@exteres.com

DrivingSales Media Relations:
Melanie Webber (melanie@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 949.307.1723
Angela Jacobson (angela@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 714.454.877

Leading Dealership SEO and Reputation Management Provider Significantly Expanding National Sales and Support Force

Riverside, CA – June 15, 2011 – eXteresAUTO, the top-rated SEO and Reputation Management provider[1] for auto retailers, today announced that the company has appointed dealership sales and training veteran, Bernie Mock, to the position of Regional Sales Manager. As part of the company’s overall expansion, they will be announcing numerous Regional Sales Manager appointments in the coming weeks.

Mock, who will oversee client development, support and training for one of the top three auto sales markets in the nation, Florida, brings over 30 years of dealership experience to eXteresAUTO. His career spans every phase of dealership sales and operations, and he previously served as an award-winning consultant for over 15 years at companies ranging from Half-A-Car, Reynolds Consulting Services and Assurant Solutions. He is an expert in personalized dealership process coaching and Internet strategies - and is one of only twenty people in the nation that has trained over 1,000 Ford dealerships. Prior to his long consulting and training career, he also served in sales and management positions for 13 years at dealerships.

“We’re thrilled to be expanding, building out our national sales and support network, and having Bernie on board,” said Dennis Colome, eXteresAUTO’s Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “He’ll be a great new resource for our dealer clients in Florida: giving them one-on-one training, and helping them take all the search- and review-driven traffic we drive to them, and convert them into more sales and service appointments.”

eXteresAUTO provides total “Search Asset Management” (SAM™) for car dealerships, combining the first, and consistently #1-rated, dealership SEO and Online Reputation Management solutions. Every eXteresAUTO product is engineered to help auto retailers establish the most powerful, positive presence across the search engines and online review/social media sites – to generate a high volume of calls and leads at a fraction of the cost of other traditional and Internet marketing options.

For more information about eXteresAUTO, contact: Beth McGoarty @ beth@rbicom.com or 213-300-0107

Leading Dealership SEO and Reputation Management Provider Significantly Expanding National Sales and Support Force

Riverside, CA – June 15, 2011 – eXteresAUTO, the top-rated SEO and Reputation Management provider[1] for auto retailers, today announced that the company has appointed dealership sales and training veteran, Bernie Mock, to the position of Regional Sales Manager. As part of the company’s overall expansion, they will be announcing numerous Regional Sales Manager appointments in the coming weeks.

Mock, who will oversee client development, support and training for one of the top three auto sales markets in the nation, Florida, brings over 30 years of dealership experience to eXteresAUTO. His career spans every phase of dealership sales and operations, and he previously served as an award-winning consultant for over 15 years at companies ranging from Half-A-Car, Reynolds Consulting Services and Assurant Solutions. He is an expert in personalized dealership process coaching and Internet strategies - and is one of only twenty people in the nation that has trained over 1,000 Ford dealerships. Prior to his long consulting and training career, he also served in sales and management positions for 13 years at dealerships.

“We’re thrilled to be expanding, building out our national sales and support network, and having Bernie on board,” said Dennis Colome, eXteresAUTO’s Vice President, Sales and Marketing. “He’ll be a great new resource for our dealer clients in Florida: giving them one-on-one training, and helping them take all the search- and review-driven traffic we drive to them, and convert them into more sales and service appointments.”

eXteresAUTO provides total “Search Asset Management” (SAM™) for car dealerships, combining the first, and consistently #1-rated, dealership SEO and Online Reputation Management solutions. Every eXteresAUTO product is engineered to help auto retailers establish the most powerful, positive presence across the search engines and online review/social media sites – to generate a high volume of calls and leads at a fraction of the cost of other traditional and Internet marketing options.

For more information about eXteresAUTO, contact: Beth McGoarty @ beth@rbicom.com or 213-300-0107

MediaPost reported today that Edmunds is launching a new program called “Edmunds Exclusives” modeled on a Groupon – but offering locally targeted deals on new and used cars.

The details are here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=152186&nid=127740

The program (now in beta in South Florida, but slated to roll out to other US markets this summer, and then nationally), gives ready-to-buy car shoppers access to local car deals directly at Edmunds.com. The goal, says Edmunds, is to give dealers and OEMs who have excess or slow-moving inventory a new way to move those cars.

They describe it as “cash-back, financing and leasing deals from dealers,” although it may also expand to include “deals on repairs and parts, maintenance and body shops, aftermarket audio dealers and auto broker services.” They’re starting by simply offering invitations to Edmunds.com visitors, but after it rolls out in other markets they will be “sending consumers direct offers through search strategies.”

Some Thoughts:

Given that Groupon is the fastest-growing company in the history of the world…And given that there are HUNDREDS of full-blown “daily deal” and group buying sites in the US alone (with dozens servicing a single city). And given new GroupOn clones are sprouting up for every vertical imaginable…it’s not surprising news.

The new Edmunds model, of course, seems to be actually quite different than a GroupOn. The social/group buying - i.e., the group - aspect can’t be there, given the offer is for specific car models. And it’s not in real-time, Edmunds notes, because the cycle is logically based on the auto industry’s monthly sales targets/cycle. It does channel that wildly popular, just-for-members deal-offer-model that has become a global mania.

Car dealers suddenly have a lot of group-buying/daily deal sites to mull over: the Groupons of course – but also the brand-new Google Offers, Facebook Deals – and now the car-sales-specific Edmunds Exclusives.

This is a massive market and the hottest online category: comScore just predicted that the group-buying market will triple to $3 billion this year.

As more car dealers dip their toes into daily deal and group buying sites (whether with straight up deals like a super-discounted oil changes or maintenance jobs at a GroupOn - or by promoting cash-back or financing deals for new and used cars via an Edmunds), they will have to be sure (like the restaurants and spas that having been doing this for years), that they carefully set the right parameters for the deal. I.e., that the deal is strong and attractive enough, but at the same time manageable. And as with all marketing investments, that they carefully track their ROI – did it drive new customers that became repeat customers, generate incremental revenue over time, etc?

By Merla Turner, Director of Dealer Training at eXteresAUTO. (Rated #1 by dealers for both SEO and Online Reputation Management at this site)

If you have questions, you can contact her at m.turner@exteres.com or 866-994-2613

MediaPost reported today that Edmunds is launching a new program called “Edmunds Exclusives” modeled on a Groupon – but offering locally targeted deals on new and used cars.

The details are here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=152186&nid=127740

The program (now in beta in South Florida, but slated to roll out to other US markets this summer, and then nationally), gives ready-to-buy car shoppers access to local car deals directly at Edmunds.com. The goal, says Edmunds, is to give dealers and OEMs who have excess or slow-moving inventory a new way to move those cars.

They describe it as “cash-back, financing and leasing deals from dealers,” although it may also expand to include “deals on repairs and parts, maintenance and body shops, aftermarket audio dealers and auto broker services.” They’re starting by simply offering invitations to Edmunds.com visitors, but after it rolls out in other markets they will be “sending consumers direct offers through search strategies.”

Some Thoughts:

Given that Groupon is the fastest-growing company in the history of the world…And given that there are HUNDREDS of full-blown “daily deal” and group buying sites in the US alone (with dozens servicing a single city). And given new GroupOn clones are sprouting up for every vertical imaginable…it’s not surprising news.

The new Edmunds model, of course, seems to be actually quite different than a GroupOn. The social/group buying - i.e., the group - aspect can’t be there, given the offer is for specific car models. And it’s not in real-time, Edmunds notes, because the cycle is logically based on the auto industry’s monthly sales targets/cycle. It does channel that wildly popular, just-for-members deal-offer-model that has become a global mania.

Car dealers suddenly have a lot of group-buying/daily deal sites to mull over: the Groupons of course – but also the brand-new Google Offers, Facebook Deals – and now the car-sales-specific Edmunds Exclusives.

This is a massive market and the hottest online category: comScore just predicted that the group-buying market will triple to $3 billion this year.

As more car dealers dip their toes into daily deal and group buying sites (whether with straight up deals like a super-discounted oil changes or maintenance jobs at a GroupOn - or by promoting cash-back or financing deals for new and used cars via an Edmunds), they will have to be sure (like the restaurants and spas that having been doing this for years), that they carefully set the right parameters for the deal. I.e., that the deal is strong and attractive enough, but at the same time manageable. And as with all marketing investments, that they carefully track their ROI – did it drive new customers that became repeat customers, generate incremental revenue over time, etc?

By Merla Turner, Director of Dealer Training at eXteresAUTO. (Rated #1 by dealers for both SEO and Online Reputation Management at this site)

If you have questions, you can contact her at m.turner@exteres.com or 866-994-2613

Google Preview Now Extended to PPC Ads & Supports Most Flash Sites

Preview for PPC Ads: Starting yesterday, the Instant Preview icon (that now-familiar little magnifying glass) will appear next to ads at Google, so searchers can view the ad’s landing page. So, Previews now not only impacts your organic results and SEO campaigns, but your SEM as well. Google argues that since it lets users take a look at your landing page before they click (and that’s free, one is only charged if they actually click through), businesses should drive “more highly-qualified traffic to their sites.” Hey, maybe it will end up saving dealers money…

This is not an optional new feature for advertisers, or something you can disable – it’s just how it is now. And Google notes it won’t affect your quality score in any way. 

Google Preview Now Extended to PPC Ads & Supports Most Flash Sites

Preview for PPC Ads: Starting yesterday, the Instant Preview icon (that now-familiar little magnifying glass) will appear next to ads at Google, so searchers can view the ad’s landing page. So, Previews now not only impacts your organic results and SEO campaigns, but your SEM as well. Google argues that since it lets users take a look at your landing page before they click (and that’s free, one is only charged if they actually click through), businesses should drive “more highly-qualified traffic to their sites.” Hey, maybe it will end up saving dealers money…

This is not an optional new feature for advertisers, or something you can disable – it’s just how it is now. And Google notes it won’t affect your quality score in any way. 

Google never rests: today they added a new feature called ‘+1’ that lets people share their recommendations for businesses, websites/pages, articles, etc., by clicking a new ‘+1’ icon on webpages/sites or ads they find cool, useful or they just plain recommend. Starting this afternoon (in experiment mode) those recommendations will show up to their friends, family and social connections (i.e., connections in Gchat, Gmail, Google Reader, Buzz – and soon Twitter). Searchers will see all the +1 votes that webpage or business has gathered, and the names and photos of the ‘likers.’ 

As publications like Ad Age have noted, the move represents Google’s most aggressive to date into social search and it’s the first time they will have baked DIRECT social signals into the search results. Ad Age argues that over time the search giant will integrate the +1 into the search algorithm, so these human votes will impact the organic search rankings. What they said exactly is: “We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings.” Read the Ad Age analysis here: http://adage.com/article/digital/google-adds-button-foray-social-search/149645/).

And see the very Google-esque short video for consumers on how it works here: http://www.youtube.com/user/google?blend=1&ob=4#p/a/u/1/OAyUNI3_V2c.

More Facts Dealers Need to Know: 

• +1 votes will also be added to search ads, and their tests show that they increase PPC ad clicks. There’s no charge to add, and Google says higher click-throughs improve quality scores, which of course means that advertisers could ultimately pay less for keywords or positions. To see how +1 works for advertisers, visit their AdWords blog. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/1-button-adwords.html

• Ad Age notes that traditionally, inbound links have been the strongest component in page rank, but last year Google also gave Twitter updates big traction in results – and this adds a whole new, super-targeted social element to search. 

• No plan to include Facebook connections – and given how this is ‘inspired’ by Facebook functionality, you can see why they don’t have the right to (and probably never will!) 

• Google says the way it decides which +1s to show people come from various signals – people they’re connected to thru Google (Chat buddies, contacts, etc.) And soon their connections on sites like Twitter. 

• Only people logged into their Google account will see the +1s. 

• In weeks ahead, +1s will “appear in many more places and Google products and sites across Web. 

+1 Needs to be Part of Your Online Reputation Campaign:

Obviously, with such powerful first-page visibility, getting +1s for your dealership/website/pages is now a key element of your Online and Social Reputation. Hence, you need to do what all Online Reputation requires: find appropriate, authentic and natural ways for your happy sales and service customers to +1 you and your pages/sites. Because you can see how impactful it will be: somebody’s searching X brand dealership in X market, and the dealerships/dealer websites/dealer PPC ads that people like/+1 are going to stand out!

Helping your customers to get started: 

• The first time they click on a +1 button in search results they will be prompted to create a Google profile – and they can adjust their privacy settings the way they want. They must have a Google profile, and at that profile they can see all their +1s in one place and delete anyone they want. 

• If they press +1, they also have the ability to undo it immediately

• If people want to know who they’re connected to in Google’s eyes, tell them to visit the ‘Social Circle and Content” section in the Google Dashboard. 

I logged into my gmail account today and tested the +1 process out, below are images that show the difference in search results and what your customers would see:

It’s a major move dealers need to understand and get proactive about – and it’s another sign of where the Internet and Google are headed – interweaving search results, consumer recommendations and social connections into new platforms that will change the way people find and select businesses. 

And sure, it sounds like another recipe for gaming the system. Analysts point out, though, that Google has been getting pretty sharp at filtering out the gamers. So keep it real with +1!

If you have any questions or need help, please call me at 866-475-5553 or email me at m.turner@exteres.com.

Merla Turner is the Director of Dealer Training at eXtéresAUTO (and recently honored as one of the “Top Rated” Internet Trainers by DrivingSales’ Dealer Satisfaction Awards). Previously she served as Internet Director at Dick Hannah Honda in Vancouver, WA.

Google never rests: today they added a new feature called ‘+1’ that lets people share their recommendations for businesses, websites/pages, articles, etc., by clicking a new ‘+1’ icon on webpages/sites or ads they find cool, useful or they just plain recommend. Starting this afternoon (in experiment mode) those recommendations will show up to their friends, family and social connections (i.e., connections in Gchat, Gmail, Google Reader, Buzz – and soon Twitter). Searchers will see all the +1 votes that webpage or business has gathered, and the names and photos of the ‘likers.’ 

As publications like Ad Age have noted, the move represents Google’s most aggressive to date into social search and it’s the first time they will have baked DIRECT social signals into the search results. Ad Age argues that over time the search giant will integrate the +1 into the search algorithm, so these human votes will impact the organic search rankings. What they said exactly is: “We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings.” Read the Ad Age analysis here: http://adage.com/article/digital/google-adds-button-foray-social-search/149645/).

And see the very Google-esque short video for consumers on how it works here: http://www.youtube.com/user/google?blend=1&ob=4#p/a/u/1/OAyUNI3_V2c.

More Facts Dealers Need to Know: 

• +1 votes will also be added to search ads, and their tests show that they increase PPC ad clicks. There’s no charge to add, and Google says higher click-throughs improve quality scores, which of course means that advertisers could ultimately pay less for keywords or positions. To see how +1 works for advertisers, visit their AdWords blog. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/1-button-adwords.html

• Ad Age notes that traditionally, inbound links have been the strongest component in page rank, but last year Google also gave Twitter updates big traction in results – and this adds a whole new, super-targeted social element to search. 

• No plan to include Facebook connections – and given how this is ‘inspired’ by Facebook functionality, you can see why they don’t have the right to (and probably never will!) 

• Google says the way it decides which +1s to show people come from various signals – people they’re connected to thru Google (Chat buddies, contacts, etc.) And soon their connections on sites like Twitter. 

• Only people logged into their Google account will see the +1s. 

• In weeks ahead, +1s will “appear in many more places and Google products and sites across Web. 

+1 Needs to be Part of Your Online Reputation Campaign:

Obviously, with such powerful first-page visibility, getting +1s for your dealership/website/pages is now a key element of your Online and Social Reputation. Hence, you need to do what all Online Reputation requires: find appropriate, authentic and natural ways for your happy sales and service customers to +1 you and your pages/sites. Because you can see how impactful it will be: somebody’s searching X brand dealership in X market, and the dealerships/dealer websites/dealer PPC ads that people like/+1 are going to stand out!

Helping your customers to get started: 

• The first time they click on a +1 button in search results they will be prompted to create a Google profile – and they can adjust their privacy settings the way they want. They must have a Google profile, and at that profile they can see all their +1s in one place and delete anyone they want. 

• If they press +1, they also have the ability to undo it immediately

• If people want to know who they’re connected to in Google’s eyes, tell them to visit the ‘Social Circle and Content” section in the Google Dashboard. 

I logged into my gmail account today and tested the +1 process out, below are images that show the difference in search results and what your customers would see:

It’s a major move dealers need to understand and get proactive about – and it’s another sign of where the Internet and Google are headed – interweaving search results, consumer recommendations and social connections into new platforms that will change the way people find and select businesses. 

And sure, it sounds like another recipe for gaming the system. Analysts point out, though, that Google has been getting pretty sharp at filtering out the gamers. So keep it real with +1!

If you have any questions or need help, please call me at 866-475-5553 or email me at m.turner@exteres.com.

Merla Turner is the Director of Dealer Training at eXtéresAUTO (and recently honored as one of the “Top Rated” Internet Trainers by DrivingSales’ Dealer Satisfaction Awards). Previously she served as Internet Director at Dick Hannah Honda in Vancouver, WA.