Google’s recent Freshness Update is designed to give more weight to “fresh” website content on certain queries. Google has always rewarded fresh content, but last month’s update has given freshness even more emphasis in its ranking algorithm.

Google has been pretty clear about which searches will rely heavily on fresh content. For example:

• Recent events or hot topics – Example search: “NBA lockout” or “Occupy Oakland”
• Regularly recurring events – Example search: “NFL scores” or “Dancing with the Stars”
• Frequent updates – Example search: “Subaru Impreza reviews” or “best slr cameras”

Did that last one get your attention? This has huge implications for the auto industry. In their own blog posts explaining the way their Freshness Update has changed their search results, they’re using an example from the auto industry. Every year, new cars models are released, and brands are constantly receiving reviews online.

So you’re thinking that having a car dealer website gives you a leg up – your inventory will change monthly, so your site will always have fresh content. Which is correct… but your competition up the street has the same “freshness” benefit.  You’ve got to concentrate on your entire website, not just your inventory pages.

Most dealers will set up their dealer website and never change any of the pages other than their inventory. Most of the pages have only a few sentences referencing the fact that they offer financing and a few warranty options.

Forget Google for just a minute – pull up your dealer website and look at it like you’re a potential customer. Click through your website and see if it’s useful and relevant. Can you find information on financing rates or options? Can you read about the warranty packages and what’s covered? Is there any information about the dealership other than the location?

If potential customers don’t find value and relevance, the search engines won’t either. We talk to dealers all the time who don’t understand why they’re not showing up for "used cars City" – but they don’t have the actual phrase anywhere on their website (check back to our post Used vs. Pre-owned for more on this).

It depends where you’re located too. It’s a lot easier to rank high for "used cars Clarksville" than it is to rank high for "used cars San Diego." Bigger cities and metro areas will have more auto dealers, so there’s more competition. You’ve got to have useful, relevant content on your website in order to rank higher than the other dealers, and you’ve got to keep that content updated.

SEO isn’t a new concept, it’s been around for years – and you can bet that your competitors are doing it. The days are gone when you could just throw up a website and list your inventory and win. The competition is fierce, and if you’re not showing up on the first page or two of Google, you’re virtually invisible to your potential customers.

True Search Engine Optimization isn’t “built-in” or “automatic.” Sure, there are some technical elements that can be automated by your website provider, but actual competitive SEO requires ongoing work. SEO is not a one-time task, and it never ends.

For more information about our auto dealer SEO services, please feel free to call us at 888-311-7386. We’ll gladly answer any questions you might have about your site or SEO in general. If you’d like to learn more about SEO, click here to read all of our blog posts on the subject. Also, make sure you subscribe to our blog, we post regular updates about SEO and its importance in the auto industry.

Our exclusive eBay Motors Whitepaper shares inside information about eBay Motors and shows you exactly what to do to be successful on the automotive industry’s most trafficked website. Competition on eBay is fierce, so you need to be sure that your dealership stands out from your competitors. We share detailed tips on how to create the perfect auction listing, including how to create the optimal title, which pictures you should include, and how you should write your description.

We also cover the various auction types and share successful pricing strategies. Did you realize that eBay phone calls should be handled in a completely different manner than normal inbound calls? We’ll teach you exactly what to say to eBay callers, and we’ll walk you through the steps you should take to close every eBay deal.

Here’s what’s included in our eBay Motors Whitepaper:

• eBay Motors company information and statistics
• Vehicle Photos
• Vehicle Videos
• Virtual Business Cards
• Vehicle Descriptions
• Pricing Strategies
• eBay Search Rankings Explained
• How to Help eBay Buyers
• eBay Phone Tips
• Closing and Delivery

If you’re not posting on eBay Motors, this Whitepaper is the perfect assistant to get you started. If you’re already a seasoned eBay Motors veteran, this Whitepaper will help your auctions be more successful.

Reputation Management has been getting a lot of buzz lately, especially with Google’s recent updates that use ratings to influence placement in the search results. Good reviews can boost your placement, and bad reviews can lower you – but beyond the technical points, it’s common knowledge that online reviews have an effect on your business.

A recent study by Cone shows just how much reviews can help or hinder your dealership. A mind-blowing 4 out of 5 consumers have changed their mind about a purchase based solely on negative information they found online! That’s 80% of your potential customers who will decide NOT to buy from you because they found negative reviews about your dealership online.

It goes both ways though – the study also showed that 87% of consumers said that a positive review actually confirmed their decision to purchase.

Another interesting stat – 59% reported that they are more likely to research a purchase online because they can easily access applications on their mobile phones.

The most important statistic to come out of the study: a whopping 89% of Americans will verify recommendations on high cost purchases, such as cars. That means 9 out of 10 potential customers will be researching your dealership online before doing business with you… so what will they find???

You should know about every single review your dealership has online… period.  If people are online talking about your business, there’s no excuse NOT to be a part of the conversation. A good rule of thumb is that you need 10 positive reviews for every 1 negative review. Do you know where all your reviews are and how they look?

Remember – it’s not hard to make basic reputation management part of your daily routine. We put up a post last week called Social Media Monitoring in 10 Minutes a Day – read it now, if you haven’t seen it yet. You just can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and not think about your online reputation.

If you’d like to have us take care of your reputation management, it’s included in our auto dealer SEO services. We’ll monitor your social media reputation, as well as online reviews, and help you to promote positive reviews and address negative reviews. We’ll also assist you in changing your processes to help gather more positive reviews from your happy customers. Call a dealer consultant today at 888.311.7386 for more information.

Craigslist has been an incredible source of leads and revenue for car dealers, but doing business with the site hasn’t come without peril.  There are a multitude of posting issues: over-posting, posting too quickly, listings get flagged, accounts get banned, certain computers get blocked, entire dealerships get banned from posting… and the list goes on and on. The bottom line is that Craigslist was not created for commercialization, but instead as a community service – so they have absolutely no desire to cater to businesses using their website.

So how do you conduct regular business on Craigslist?  I’ve unpacked the top ten Frequently Asked Questions about Craigslist from our dealers to help you make Craigslist a successful part of your marketing efforts (and ideally, drastically increase your sales).

1. How come I can post from home, but not from my dealership?

Craigslist has either blocked your IP address or you MAC address.  An IP Address is a numerical label assigned to any network device (a computer or network router, for example) and is used for communication on the Internet.  Generally speaking, every computer inside your dealership network goes out to the Internet with the same external IP Address.  If your IP address has been blocked, then any computer using that IP address will be unable to post to Craigslist.

A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to your computer for communication on a network.  If your MAC Address has been blocked, then that specific computer is banned from Craigslist.  The monitoring technology used by Craigslist can detect abuse and block either (or both) options.

2. I could post earlier today, but now I can’t post. Why?

Craigslist issues temporary bans on accounts without notice.  They don’t send you an email or call you, you’ll just suddenly wonder why you can’t post listings.  In many cases, this is brought on by over-posting or posting too frequently.

3. Why aren’t my listings showing up on Craigslist?

In most cases, Craigslist will take 15 to 20 minutes to add a new listing to the site.  If your listings don’t appear after 20 minutes, then something is going on.  They’ve probably placed a temporary ban on your account, but they continue to let you post on the site.  Our recommendation is to take a break from listing today and try again tomorrow.

4. I’ve been banned from Craigslist.  How can I continue listing on the site?

Assuming you have been banned in every way (IP Address, MAC Address, Craigslist account, and duplicate content), you will need to create a new Craigslist account with a new email address and then post from a different location (a different computer on a different network).

5. Can I post my cars directly to the site without a template?

Yes.  In fact, it is a good practice to vary your listings so you don’t get flagged for “duplicate listings”.  After logging in, simply click the “post to classifieds” link and follow the wizard.  It is a bit more work to copy and paste content and then upload photos, but it’s well worth the diversification of listing templates.

6. How can I post to multiple cities on Craigslist?

We get this question all the time from dealers, but even still, we do not recommend this strategy.  The best strategy is to post in your specific (or nearest) city and play within the policies of Craigslist.  If you want to try to beat the system and try multi-city posting, then you’ll need to use a unique email address for each account.  Make sure that each account is always tied to the specific email address associated with it.  You’ll also be better off posting to each city from different IP addresses.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Multi-city posting is the fastest way to get banned from Craigslist.  They DO record the location of your IP Address for each post, so eventually they will detect the over-posting.  It’s like playing a clam shell game – you might get lucky a few times, but in the end, you’ll lose.

7. Why are my listings getting flagged?

Several conditions can contribute to your listings getting flagged, but the two main contributors are most likely other community members flagging your listings (because they’re trying to keep companies off the “community” website) OR a competitor is probably flagging of your listings to reduce competiton.  Best practices to avoid flagged listings: do not post the same vehicle twice in less than 7 days, randomize your posting template, and don’t post 100% of your inventory every day.  Your best option is to post less than 15% of your inventory each day, with no more than 10 cars posted daily.

8. How does Craigslist know what city I’m in?

Whenever you post, Craiglist records your IP address.  Your IP address can provide the geolocation of your network.  Now that Craigslist knows your geolocation information, it can serve up the nearest city and know pretty accurately where you’re located.  Don’t believe me? Go to www.whatismyipaddress.com and see for yourself.

9. Who can I call at Craigslist to talk about my issues?

Nobody! Amazingly enough, there aren’t any service agents for you to speak with.  Earlier this year, I tried calling the phone number listed on their WHOIS information for craigslist.org.  After navigating the auto attendant for an hour, I finally got a billing person on the phone, who then sent me to “some guy” who told me exactly “we have less than 30 people working here and don’t have time for this phone call. –click.”  True story.

10.Is there a better time of day to post?

No one has reliable data to show that certain times of day are better to post.  Prior to the April 22, 2011 changes made by Craigslist, much of the monitoring of the site was manual or done by the community.  The theory was that posting earlier in the morning was advantageous, because most of the site police volunteers were on the west coast.  As of the update on April 22, we now believe that many of the monitoring and security measures have been automated, so posting at certain times to avoid manual detection is no longer relevant. Our recommendation is to diversify your listing times (morning, afternoon, and night).

I can sum up all of these issues with one question: “Why is it so difficult to work with Craigslist?”  The answer: Craigslist is an online classified community.  The biggest misunderstanding that dealers have about posting is that Craigslist simply doesn’t care that you are there… period.  The site deems itself a “community service” for individuals, not companies, so they don’t care about making it easy for you to post.

If you’re already using Craigslist, these guidelines will help you improve your listing strategy, and if you’re not using Craigslist, this list will help you drastically boost your sales. If you have any tips you’d like to share, please share them in the comments below.

When you’re writing content for the pages of your car dealer website, choosing words that appeal to your potential customers might seem like the most important thing to do. Instead of using words that tend to have a less than positive connotation, like “used cars”, most dealers opt for more attractive-sounding words like “pre-owned cars”. While writing content that appeals to your customers is important, it’s absolutely vital to write content that includes keywords that will help your site show up higher in search engines and bring you more visitors. After all, what’s the point of writing appealing content for an audience that doesn’t exist?

Keywords on your car dealer website play a huge role in how your site ranks in search results; the correct use of keywords can help to drive lots of traffic to your site from search engines. However, choosing keywords based on what you think your target audience searches for, or what you think “sounds better”, is the wrong approach to take. Your choice of keywords should always be backed by research.

With keyword analytics tools, like Google’s free and popularly used Keyword Tool, you can easily see how many times keywords are searched for and choose the ones that reach the most people in your target audience. As you can see in Image 1, “used cars” is searched for at a significantly higher rate than “preowned cars”. If you are a used car dealer, “used cars” would be the better keyword choice to optimize for.

The difference between the number of searches for these two keyphrases is typically the same for long-tail keywords that include “used cars” and “preowned cars”. As you can see in Image 2, “used cars dallas tx” is searched for more than “preowned cars dallas tx”, “used cars miami fl” is searched for more than “preowned cars miami fl”, and “used cars cleveland oh” is searched for more than “preowned cars cleveland oh”.

In fact, if you look at other keywords that are commonly used by car dealers, you would find differences between many similar keyphrases (as is shown in Image 3).

So, when you’re writing content for your website, remember – choosing the right keyword could lead to more visits to your website, which would produce more leads, and eventually result in more sales. The days of “just having a website” are long gone – competition for customers is fierce, especially in the down economy. You’ve got to be sure that your website performs well in the search engines if you want to beat out your competitors.

AutoRevo offers Search Engine Optimization services that cover all of this and more – SEO is a very time-consuming process, and we know that most dealers simply don’t have the time to learn how to do it or to dedicate the time to do it themselves. But, for those dealers out there who like to do it themselves, or who are interested in learning, we’ll be posting several SEO-related posts a month to help you beef up your SEO knowledge.

Leave us a comment below if there’s a specific question you’d like answered, or a topic you’d like for us to cover.

There was a big splash in the automotive news world last week when we saw the first auto dealership Groupon offer. Twitter and blogs were all abuzz with industry experts, vendors, and dealers debating the deal, and offering opinions about whether it would work or not.  Now the deal has expired, and the minimum number of Groupon vouchers weren’t purchased, so the deal is null and void.

Of course, everyone is now jumping on the “here’s why it didn’t work” bandwagon… There’s a great post by Arnold Tijerina over at dealer-magazine.com called “Why the first car dealership Groupon failed” – give it a read, he’s got a few great points…

To summarize, he says the deal didn’t have value for the customer because customers EXPECT to negotiate with the dealer and bring the price down by at least $500 – so why would a Groupon be necessary?  Also, the dealer probably didn’t handle the Groupon correctly – as potential buyers were leaving comments debating the worth of the deal, the GM left a few comments of his own to try to prove to people how valuable the deal was:

VALUE GUARANTEE OFFER!!!!
In the unlikely event that we are unable to come to an agreement on a vehicle purchase/lease, for whatever reason, I will honor your voucher toward $199.00 in our service, parts or body shop departments. Purchase accessories, have routine maintenance done or have those annoying dings, dents and scratches repaired.

Seriously? If you don’t find a car, you can get $199 in credit in our service department… for the $199 coupon?  That’s not a deal, that’s just pre-paying for services… So instead of proving worth, he’s devaluing his own deal. And this comment makes even less sense:

William P visited our store yesterday. He selected and test drove the vehicle he was interested in. He worked out all of the pricing details with our sales staff until he was satisfied with the pricing. He THEN AND ONLY THEN explained he had purchased the Groupon voucher but needed a vehicle immediately. We reduced his amount due by $500.00 and honored the voucher in order to accommodate a customer. He took delivery today. We’re still confident that the sales requirement will be met.

He posted this before the minimum number of vouchers were purchased, and before the time limit had expired… so he’s working against his own deal by showing people that the coupon isn’t even necessary!

Those are great points… but here’s the real reason I think the Groupon deal failed:

People buy Groupon deals to save money and get a deal.

The way this deal was structured, you’re buying a $200 Groupon to save $500 on a vehicle purchase… So even if you bought a used car worth $6,000 (about the lowest priced vehicle they have in stock), you only end up saving $300 – only about 3%!!! Most Groupon deals tend to be at least 50% off the purchase price of whatever the voucher is for, and that’s all you have to pay.  In this case, your $200 Groupon is also a commitment to spend at least $6000 more… so it’s nowhere near the easy impulse buy like most Groupon vouchers.

Plus, you’re committing to buying a car from that specific dealership. So now, the dealership is targeting all Groupon users in the Detroit area who are also going to buy a car in the next year (and realistically, the only people who’d buy the Groupon are people who are already looking to buy a car now). That’s probably a pretty small slice of the Groupon user pie in Detroit… and since the Groupon buyer then HAS to buy from this specific dealership, the slice gets even smaller…

That’s why the Groupon deal didn’t work – it wasn’t an easy “wow, what a deal!” impulse buy – when all the successful Groupon deals give you huge discounts, saving such a tiny percentage on a high-dollar purchase just wasn’t valuable.

The three largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, all outline ways for web pages to rank well in their search results; however, they do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank web pages. As a result, the degree of influence that different factors have on rankings is much contested by SEO experts.

In a recent study conducted by SEOmoz, the importance of several on-page factors were rated by 72 SEO experts and then ranked based on the level of consensus/contention. The following ranking of factors is derived from this report, listed in descending order of importance. Below each factor, an explanation of its core concepts is provided.

1. Keyword use anywhere in the title tag.
   A keyword or key phrase is a word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine. A title tag is the meta tag of web pages that determines what text appears at the top of Internet browsers.
   

   EXAMPLE: “Lone Star Cars – Used Cars and Used Trucks in Dallas, Texas”

2. Keyword use as the first word(s) of the title tag
   According to the experts’ ratings, it is important for the first keyword(s) in your title tag to be keyword(s) that you would like your web page to show up for in search results.
   

   EXAMPLE: “Used Cars and Used Trucks in Dallas, Texas – Lone Star Cars”

3. Keyword use in the root domain name (e.g. keyword.com)
   A Root Domain is the starting point of the top level domain structure, for example, www.keywordHere.com.
   

   EXAMPLE: “www.trucksintexas.com”

4. Keyword use anywhere in the H1 headline tag
   A heading briefly describes the subject of the section it introduces. Heading elements go from H1 to H6, with the lower numbered headings (ex: H1) being considered most important.
   

   EXAMPLE: “Lone Star Cars – Your Source For Used Cars”

5. Keyword use in internal link anchor text on the page
   An internal link – a link from one website pointing to another web page on the same site. Anchor Text is the actual clickable text of a link. Search engines use anchor text to indicate the relevancy of the referring site and of the link to the content on the landing page.
   

   EXAMPLE: “learn more about our extended warranty”

6. Keyword use in external link anchor text on the page
   An external link (a.k.a. back link) is any link into a page or site from any other website.
   

   EXAMPLE: another website links to your site with “Used cars in Dallas”

7. Keyword use as the first word(s) in the H1 tag
   According to the experts, it is important for the first keyword(s) in your H1 tag to be your targeted keyword(s) for the page.
   

   EXAMPLE: “Used Cars Like You’ve Never Seen Before”

8. Keyword use in the first 50-100 words in HTML on the page
   According to the experts, it is important for keyword(s) you’re targeting be located in the top section of your page’s body text. You don’t want to be “spammy” and just list a bunch of keywords – your text needs to read naturally, but you need to be sure you’re using your keyword in the first 50-100 words.  
    
9. Keyword use in the page name URL
   Page name URL is the name of the web page URL. It is used to locate a specific page on a domain.
   

   EXAMPLE: “www.lonestarcars.com/financing”

10. Keyword use in image alt text
    An alt tag is the HTML text that appears when an image doesn’t load, or when images are turned off. Alt text is useful in SEO because it can include keywords that a search engine looks for in response to a query.
    

    EXAMPLE: “Lone Star Cars is Dallas’ premier used car dealer”

The best news of the day – AutoRevo’s system allows you to have control over every single one of these ranking factors.

Take some time to go through your dealer website and see how your current site content matches up to these ten ranking factors. It might take a few days, but it will be worth the effort to go through your site and update your custom pages to adhere to these guidelines. Not only will your site be more user-friendly and informative, it will rank better in the search engines.

Other vendors think we're crazy for giving this info away for free... but we think it's basic information that every dealer should know.

The US auto dealer market is fiercely competitive... so we've put this checklist together to help your dealership succeed! Our free Internet Marketing Checklist is full of tips and action items that you can use to help make yourself a better digital marketer. It's clearly written and easy to follow, so you can implement the tips without having to spend a ton of time on them. It's broken up into several sections, so you can implement the different sections as time allows.

Here's what's inside:

• On-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your dealer website - We'll walk you through several elements that you can update yourself (without relying on your provider to make the changes) that can have a positive effect on your rankings in the search engines.
• Mobile Dealer Website - 88% of US mobile phone users are more likely to buy from a dealer who has a mobile website. We'll walk you through the 7 important factors that your mobile website MUST have to be competitive in the mobile website arena.
• Local Search - Local results are becoming increasingly important in the search engine results pages. We'll show you how to claim your Google Places listing and then optimize it so your listing will perform better than your competitors down the street.
• Website Video - Video has become vital for auto dealer websites. We'll show you how to take advantage of video if you're not using it, and how to get an extra boost from video if you've already got it on your site.
• Social Media - We give you a checklist that shows how to use Facebook and Twitter correctly (most dealers are doing it wrong), and we'll show you how to take advantage of the growing power of Foursquare. We also provide tips on how to track your various social media properties with one easy-to-use free application.
• QR Codes - We'll walk you through the steps for creating trackable QR codes that you can use to digitize all non-digital media. Now, you'll be able to track actual conversions from newspaper ads and any other print media your dealership uses.
• Reporting and Pricing - Amazingly enough, there are still a ton of dealers out there who are using "gut feelings" to price their vehicles or to figure out what to buy at auction. We show you how to use pricing tools to pick what really works for your dealership, and how to stay on top of your prices using reports and analytics so you'll turn vehicles faster, for higher profits.

Even if you think you're ahead of the game and your dealership's Internet marketing efforts are blowing your competition away, you should download the checklist - you'll be sure to find a few tips you didn't know about.

We work with multiple dealer groups, and they all have their own preferences on how inventory and leads are routed.  Some have 2 OEM flags under 1 roof and share a DMS, others have multiple rooftops and 1 pre-owned lot with each running their own DMS, and some even have multiple pre-owned lots with one OEM rooftop.  The point is that the multiple rooftop configurations of dealer groups have no end.

Just recently, we brought on a new franchise OEM dealer group that had 2 OEM rooftops and 1 pre-owned rooftop.  Simple enough, right?  Here was the rub:  The pre-owned lot was 40 miles away from the OEM rooftops, they had 1 dealer group website that only displayed phone number and contacts for the new car stores, and all new car and pre-owned car leads went to the new car sales reps!  You see where this is going…

New car sales reps were selling the pre-owned vehicles on a lot 40 miles away to leads that came through the dealership’s website.  Consequently, the pre-owned sales reps only handled walk-ins and phone ups (that didn’t call the phone number on the website).  The Pre-Owned Manager had talked with the General Manager on several occasions about this issue, but the answer was always “I don’t care who sells the car, as long as the car is sold.” When we brought them on board, the 4 pre-owned sales reps were ready to bolt…

Not only is this a morale killer for the pre-owned sales reps to have their inventory sold out from under them to their own leads, but it was extremely inefficient for customers as well.  When a customer would call in asking about a pre-owned vehicle, the new car sales rep hasn’t even seen the vehicle, so he has to look it up.   The rep then informs the customer that he can show the vehicle but it is 40 miles away (or that he can show the vehicle at a later time, when someone’s had enough time to drive over and bring the vehicle back to the new car lot).  Really?  What if a customer just walks on the lot looking for the pre-owned vehicle they saw on the website?  I couldn’t imagine running a dealership group in this way.

To make a long story short, we had conversations with the GM of the new dealership and convinced him that new car leads should be routed to new car sales reps and pre-owned leads should be routed to pre-owned sales reps, no matter what channel the customer came in through.

There is definitely power in a dealer group’s online presence, but our clients need to understand the fundamental foundation of the online display of their group brand online.

So, I wanted to list 5 fundamentals of a dealer group website:

1. Home page – Home pages are intended to cast a broad digital marketing net.  You do not know what the consumer is coming to your homepage to find, so you should have every department represented. We believe the pre-owned inventory on a dealer group’s home page should get top left screen real estate.  Top left is the hottest visual section of an online display.  Consumers are drawn to your dealer group pre-owned inventory because of the large selection.  Let them search all pre-owned inventory regardless of location.  Don’t make them go to each location’s website to find their desired vehicle.On the new car side, consumers are coming to your website to look at a specific brand, so having new inventory separated by brand makes a lot of sense.
2. Inventory list - Enabling the search of all pre-owned inventory from one list is key.  You can either separate the inventory list by location, or once the customer is on the vehicle details page, the location can be displayed.
3. Search, Filter, and Sort – Does your dealer website have the “old school” search? Usability of this old school search functionality is poor at best.  Words that come to mind are clunky, frustrating, and unintuitive; especially if your customers are searching large sets of inventory.  Dealer groups should be using the modern user-friendly search filters that are available from the advanced website providers.  Google-style search boxes are key as well.  Many customers, especially ones who are later in the buying cycle, will prefer to just type in what they’re looking for.
4. Vehicle Details Page - Once a consumer lands on a vehicle, the contact phone number (and in some cases, the actual sales rep’s name) must be displayed.  The provider’s system must be able to display phone numbers by location and by vehicle.
5. Lead routing by location -When a lead is submitted through your dealer website, is it routed to the correct location or does it go to the Internet ringmaster who “passes out the leads”?  Please – stop the one-person-passing-out-leads business.  It doesn’t scale, it’s a single point of failure, and it causes constant conflict among teams.  Route the lead directly to the location and representative that is vested in responding to that lead.

Does your dealer website have these 5 fundamentals in place?

Skip the internal conflict over who can steal cars out from under another group location.  If a sister store has an existing client interested in inventory on another location’s lot, that’s different than routing pre-owned leads to the new car location.  Dealer group websites are a vital piece of the marketing puzzle, but nothing is going to fit together correctly unless the vehicles are clearly assigned to the correct physical location.

(written by AutoRevo CEO Chad Polk)

Invest in mobile and be ready for your shoppers

If you haven’t yet heard of the 3-screen lifestyle, you’ll soon become very aware of it.  It’s the ever-growing lifestyle of consumers with a TV, Computer, and now s Smartphone.  Modern marketers are finding creative ways to reach these consumers who are riding the growing wave of always on instant availability.  Recent research finds that U.S. mobile Internet users are engaging in shopping-related activities at a rate that exceeds desktop usage.

Any way you look at mobile, it is transforming the way your customers shop and interact with your dealership.  Dealerships that are not investing in mobile shopping technology are at risk of getting left behind.  The good news for mobile initiative dealers is that mobile-optimized websites can raise engagement as much as 85%.

This isn’t meant to scare anyone.  Mobile websites are just another marketing channel to reach prospective customers.  What better gift could a customer give you than to have your dealership available in their pocket 24/7? You’re probably a smartphone user, right?  At any given time, how far away is your phone?  Personally, I know the farthest my phone ever gets from me is my nightstand.

In a recent study done by Adobe, I found some statistics that will get your attention:

• 53% of mobile shoppers rated product and pricing information as most important
• 66% of mobile shoppers prefer shopping via mobile browser vs. in an app
• 46% of first time mobile shoppers access a retailer’s site is by typing the website into the browser
• For consumer researching and browsing product information, 81% prefer mobile browser and 19% prefer mobile app
• 71% of consumers prefer a mobile browser over a mobile app when comparing products and prices.
• 53% of consumers spend 1-5 hours per week shopping mobile websites

Auto dealers have gone through the TV phase, are living in the computer phase, and have now been given a new frontier for marketing: the smartphone era.  For dealers, mobile can be a highly influential marketing channel.  For automotive retailers, it provides the unprecedented immediacy of shopping your store when the need strikes the consumer.  Think of mobile not strictly as a purchase channel, but more as a marketing channel to drive consumers to an action (lead conversion) and to serve them information whenever they’re ready to buy.

Mobile shopping is still in its early days, but auto dealers absolutely need a mobile presence to begin testing and measuring what works for their store, clients, and region.  Mobile will continue to evolve as user experiences catch up to the fast pace of smartphone technology.

So, you ask, “What should I consider when setting up my mobile website?”  Here’s a list of 5 areas to consider when you’re getting started with mobile (or to evaluate your current mobile site).

1. Minimalist approach to the user interface (UI), with a focus on uncluttered shopping experience.  An example of poor UI would be putting too much information on the inventory list.
2. Your mobile website must convert leads.  Do you have consistent easy-to-navigate lead forms, touch-to-call, or SMS functionality?
3. High quality imagery.  Touch screen smart phones have made incredible strides in displays.  Does your mobile website deliver rich media to the mobile browser?
4. Deep product details.  There are several great ways to display as much vehicle data on a smartphone screen as there is on desktop browsers.  Provide your consumers with as much information as you do on the desktop.
5. Robust search.  Searching, sorting, and filtering inventory could not be more important on a mobile website.  Customers are usually looking for a finite inventory set or a specific vehicle when searching on mobile.

Google recently stated that mobile searches have increased by 500% from 2008 to 2010, and according to recent projections published by Nielson Co., 1 in 2 Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011. It’s time to take notice that the “must have a website” era in our industry has now become the “must have a mobile website” era! 

(source: Adobe Scene7 Mobile Commerce Survey: Mobile Shopper Insights for 2011)