One of the things that I do now more than ever is listen to other vendors pitch their products. I hope this post doesn't scare any of them from reaching out to us; don't worry, I'm not naming names. I'm focused on a particular practice, not the practitioners.

The practice I'm talking about has many faces. Some present it with fear by telling dealers that if they're not participating in the latest fad or growing trend that they're missing out on business. Others put on the face of trickiness and present their products as a way of getting around this system or that roadblock in a slick manner. The most common face they put on their product is one of simplicity as they demonstrate how their service magically gets them in front of billions of local car shoppers.

They're all talking about presence. Being present on a network, website, device type, ad platform, or vertical search property is great, but the one thing that I don't hear nearly enough is about how the dealership is portrayed. A dealer shouldn't strive to be present on any particular platform. They need to know how to stand out on these platforms.

The thing that's missing from the vast majority of products and services I see every week is representation. Don't just show me that a dealer is present. Show me how our dealers will be presented. The messaging is often more important than the presence itself.

We've seen this in its simplest form through search and social. I have seen dealers improve their performance for particular search terms without having to move up in the rankings (though moving up is obviously important as well). If the messaging is unique and speaks about the dealership to the searchers, they're much more likely to click the link even if they're not at the very top. The same holds true for social. Reaching more people is fine. Getting them to click to the website isn't a matter of mastering an algorithm or adjusting the ad spend as much as it's about putting the right message in front of the right people.

A dealership's web presence is, by its very nature, one that needs to be bigger, but don't let size be the primary focus. You can have the loudest bullhorn in the world but if your message isn't interesting, the audience will still ignore you.

The year was 2009. We were working on building out website content for a client and we wanted to get to know the different departments in order to personalize the content to make the visitors more likely to do business with them. A savvy General Manager taught me a lesson that stuck with me throughout my career.

"We don't need to sell the dealership. We need to sell our website to Google," she said. "There may come a time when people read the crap we put on the pages, but that's not today."

I didn't fully agree then, but I understood the point. It wasn't until very recently that I realized how right she was, particularly the last line. I was aware that website visitors do tend to go straight to inventory or specials, but I was always aware from testing that 14% of the visitors lingered on videos or read through content before moving on from or to the inventory.

This 14% was why I didn't fully agree. Now, I realize how right she was. 14% is a drop in the bucket. Today, that number is much higher. People are lingering. They're watching videos. They're investigating the dealership as much as they're researching the vehicles. In essence, they want to buy from a dealership they can trust for one reason (which I'll get to in a moment).

Content today must be compelling and personal. There is no longer a need for "SEO content" the way that most understand it. No generic boilerplate content. No keyword stuffing. Content in written or video formats should be more than just discussing indivdual models. There needs to be a reason for people to want to buy from you.

In other words, the most effective dealership marketing and advertising includes messaging that separates you from competitors. It's no longer just about price and selection. They are making buying decisions before they ever meet you.

Earlier I mentioned there's a reason that people are investigating dealerships as much as they're investigating cars. The reason is because trust is returning. The trust factor that the industry lost since the 70s has finally started shifting. Our industry has been much more transparent and forthright with customers for some time. Now, the customers are starting to believe in it since this is their second or third car they've purchased during the new age "good experience" era of the industry.

Personally, I'm not the most touchy-feely person, but from a marketing perspective I realize how important it is to be exceptional to your customers. Today, this is more important than it's ever been.

The year was 2009. We were working on building out website content for a client and we wanted to get to know the different departments in order to personalize the content to make the visitors more likely to do business with them. A savvy General Manager taught me a lesson that stuck with me throughout my career.

"We don't need to sell the dealership. We need to sell our website to Google," she said. "There may come a time when people read the crap we put on the pages, but that's not today."

I didn't fully agree then, but I understood the point. It wasn't until very recently that I realized how right she was, particularly the last line. I was aware that website visitors do tend to go straight to inventory or specials, but I was always aware from testing that 14% of the visitors lingered on videos or read through content before moving on from or to the inventory.

This 14% was why I didn't fully agree. Now, I realize how right she was. 14% is a drop in the bucket. Today, that number is much higher. People are lingering. They're watching videos. They're investigating the dealership as much as they're researching the vehicles. In essence, they want to buy from a dealership they can trust for one reason (which I'll get to in a moment).

Content today must be compelling and personal. There is no longer a need for "SEO content" the way that most understand it. No generic boilerplate content. No keyword stuffing. Content in written or video formats should be more than just discussing indivdual models. There needs to be a reason for people to want to buy from you.

In other words, the most effective dealership marketing and advertising includes messaging that separates you from competitors. It's no longer just about price and selection. They are making buying decisions before they ever meet you.

Earlier I mentioned there's a reason that people are investigating dealerships as much as they're investigating cars. The reason is because trust is returning. The trust factor that the industry lost since the 70s has finally started shifting. Our industry has been much more transparent and forthright with customers for some time. Now, the customers are starting to believe in it since this is their second or third car they've purchased during the new age "good experience" era of the industry.

Personally, I'm not the most touchy-feely person, but from a marketing perspective I realize how important it is to be exceptional to your customers. Today, this is more important than it's ever been.

If you're one who checks Google Analytics often to see how your traffic is doing, you've problem seen a lot of sites popping up in analytics over the last year or so that don't make sense. It would seem like these you're getting traffic from strange sites, particularly those selling SEO or other marketing services.

It's spam. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's not really hurting you. The better news is that you can get rid of it. You may have checked out some of these sites to find your link. Wait, where is it? There's no link to your website there. How did... what the... wait a second. You just did what they intended you to do. They got you to their website in hopes that you'll think, "Hey, I need SEO. Let's see what these guys can offer."

Unfortunately, it works. They spoof traffic through a key sending requests from their website to yours, making it look as if they're visiting your website when they're not. This is how they get business. This is how they market their services. Let's let the annoyance or anger (it infuriates me) die down a bit. Now, let's offer a solution. Filtering. It's the only thing we've found to work. One by one, site by site, you have to plug them into a Google Analytics filter and eliminate them from your numbers. Here's how, courtesy of SomethingIDidNotKnow:

To add a filter:

1. go to your Administration page (last tab on your home page)
2. All filters (on the leftmost column)
3. New filter
4. Choose Filter type “Custom” > “Exclude”
5. Choose “Referral” from the Filter Field menu
6. Set this as Filter pattern:

   semalt\.com|ilovevitaly\.co|priceg\.com|forum\..*darodar\.com|blackhatworth\.com|hulfingtonpost\.com|buttons-for-website\.com

7. Select the views that you want to be filtered (I chose “All web site data”)
8. Save

The filter pattern is a regular expression, so every time you find a new source of spam, simply add another “|spammersite\.com” (remember to escape dots with a backslash, as they mean “any character”).

Now you know how to fix it. To stop it from continuing, don't support these companies. If you see them doing it, do not buy from them. In fact, we canceled a service (Semalt) once we started seeing that they were doing this. It's a plague that needs to be eradicated.

If you're one who checks Google Analytics often to see how your traffic is doing, you've problem seen a lot of sites popping up in analytics over the last year or so that don't make sense. It would seem like these you're getting traffic from strange sites, particularly those selling SEO or other marketing services.

It's spam. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's not really hurting you. The better news is that you can get rid of it. You may have checked out some of these sites to find your link. Wait, where is it? There's no link to your website there. How did... what the... wait a second. You just did what they intended you to do. They got you to their website in hopes that you'll think, "Hey, I need SEO. Let's see what these guys can offer."

Unfortunately, it works. They spoof traffic through a key sending requests from their website to yours, making it look as if they're visiting your website when they're not. This is how they get business. This is how they market their services. Let's let the annoyance or anger (it infuriates me) die down a bit. Now, let's offer a solution. Filtering. It's the only thing we've found to work. One by one, site by site, you have to plug them into a Google Analytics filter and eliminate them from your numbers. Here's how, courtesy of SomethingIDidNotKnow:

To add a filter:

1. go to your Administration page (last tab on your home page)
2. All filters (on the leftmost column)
3. New filter
4. Choose Filter type “Custom” > “Exclude”
5. Choose “Referral” from the Filter Field menu
6. Set this as Filter pattern:

   semalt\.com|ilovevitaly\.co|priceg\.com|forum\..*darodar\.com|blackhatworth\.com|hulfingtonpost\.com|buttons-for-website\.com

7. Select the views that you want to be filtered (I chose “All web site data”)
8. Save

The filter pattern is a regular expression, so every time you find a new source of spam, simply add another “|spammersite\.com” (remember to escape dots with a backslash, as they mean “any character”).

Now you know how to fix it. To stop it from continuing, don't support these companies. If you see them doing it, do not buy from them. In fact, we canceled a service (Semalt) once we started seeing that they were doing this. It's a plague that needs to be eradicated.

The consolidation of website vendors and OEM mandates makes it challenging for dealers to feel like they can get an edge over their competitors. With the right best practices, you can take what you have and make it amazing.

Here are five things we recommend to our clients that are pretty much universal. Some might be doing one or two of these. There may be some of you savvy DrivingSales folks who are doing three or four. If anyone is doing all five, we should take. I know a great place that could use your services.

Go All Out with Analytics

Many dealers wish they had a tool that could tell them how their different advertising sources were really working, what results they were delivering, what buttons people were clicking on... the list of desires is huge. The problem with these desires is that the tool is available to everyone free of charge. Google Analytics, when used properly, is extremely powerful. It's not the best tool in the world. In fact, the data can be misleading. However, if you set up goals, tags, and custom dashboards, it can be a great way to get a clearer picture about all of your advertising and marketing investments.

Focus on Landing Pages

At some point, a correlation was made between SRP/VDP views and sales. The more that people saw inventory, the more likely they were to buy. This is correct and is completely logical if you think about it. If they're on your website and they're going to buy a car, chances are they're going to want to look at inventory. However, the correlation was somehow translated into causation and everyone started focusing on driving as much of their traffic directly to inventory as possible. The right approach is much more detailed than what can be communicated in a bullet point on a blog post, but proper use of landing pages and messaging that allows for easy access to inventory will yield better overall results. I'll elaborate in the future.

Reduce Calls to Action

More is not always better. If you give them too many choices, they're less likely to make one. You can't force someone to fill out a form for a vehicle they don't want and you can't prevent someone from filling out a form on a vehicle they do want.

There are all sorts of quotes and idioms that we can apply to the concept of calls to action, but at the end of the day it comes down to keeping it simple. You don't need 17 calls to action on a page. Instead, you need a few at most. One is actually best. Again, not enough space here to elaborate, but I'll go into more detail about this in a future DrivingSales blog post.

Build (and support) Content

The good news is that more dealers and vendors are building unique content pages and blog posts on their web site. The bad news is that since more dealers are doing it, they're not working as effectively as they once did. Dealers who want to achieve great success particularly on search with their content must support it with offsite signals such as links and social shares.

Simplify and Reduce Banners

The first banner gets the monster share of the clicks. The second gets some. The third might get a few. Beyond that, the numbers get down into the single digits, even going down so far as none.

I have no illusion that I'll be able to convince dealers that the best way to position messaging on a homepage is to take the absolutely most important and compelling message today and make that the only banner. I'll start with baby steps. At the very least, reduce your banners down to a few. Eventually, I should be able to show you through data that you'll get more by giving less in the form of banner messaging, but it's hard to break a paradigm like banner overload. We'll start small.

There are plenty of things that dealers should be doing with their websites. These five might not even be the top five, but we have to start somewhere if we're going to improve the industry.

The consolidation of website vendors and OEM mandates makes it challenging for dealers to feel like they can get an edge over their competitors. With the right best practices, you can take what you have and make it amazing.

Here are five things we recommend to our clients that are pretty much universal. Some might be doing one or two of these. There may be some of you savvy DrivingSales folks who are doing three or four. If anyone is doing all five, we should take. I know a great place that could use your services.

Go All Out with Analytics

Many dealers wish they had a tool that could tell them how their different advertising sources were really working, what results they were delivering, what buttons people were clicking on... the list of desires is huge. The problem with these desires is that the tool is available to everyone free of charge. Google Analytics, when used properly, is extremely powerful. It's not the best tool in the world. In fact, the data can be misleading. However, if you set up goals, tags, and custom dashboards, it can be a great way to get a clearer picture about all of your advertising and marketing investments.

Focus on Landing Pages

At some point, a correlation was made between SRP/VDP views and sales. The more that people saw inventory, the more likely they were to buy. This is correct and is completely logical if you think about it. If they're on your website and they're going to buy a car, chances are they're going to want to look at inventory. However, the correlation was somehow translated into causation and everyone started focusing on driving as much of their traffic directly to inventory as possible. The right approach is much more detailed than what can be communicated in a bullet point on a blog post, but proper use of landing pages and messaging that allows for easy access to inventory will yield better overall results. I'll elaborate in the future.

Reduce Calls to Action

More is not always better. If you give them too many choices, they're less likely to make one. You can't force someone to fill out a form for a vehicle they don't want and you can't prevent someone from filling out a form on a vehicle they do want.

There are all sorts of quotes and idioms that we can apply to the concept of calls to action, but at the end of the day it comes down to keeping it simple. You don't need 17 calls to action on a page. Instead, you need a few at most. One is actually best. Again, not enough space here to elaborate, but I'll go into more detail about this in a future DrivingSales blog post.

Build (and support) Content

The good news is that more dealers and vendors are building unique content pages and blog posts on their web site. The bad news is that since more dealers are doing it, they're not working as effectively as they once did. Dealers who want to achieve great success particularly on search with their content must support it with offsite signals such as links and social shares.

Simplify and Reduce Banners

The first banner gets the monster share of the clicks. The second gets some. The third might get a few. Beyond that, the numbers get down into the single digits, even going down so far as none.

I have no illusion that I'll be able to convince dealers that the best way to position messaging on a homepage is to take the absolutely most important and compelling message today and make that the only banner. I'll start with baby steps. At the very least, reduce your banners down to a few. Eventually, I should be able to show you through data that you'll get more by giving less in the form of banner messaging, but it's hard to break a paradigm like banner overload. We'll start small.

There are plenty of things that dealers should be doing with their websites. These five might not even be the top five, but we have to start somewhere if we're going to improve the industry.

There have been several studies in the automotive industry that have conclusively answered this question with hard data and compelling reasons why it is the way it is. Unfortunately, these "conclusive" studies often point in opposite directions and always seem to be conducted by companies that lean in one direction or the other.

Which is better for search PPC, banner ads, and other forms of advertising? Should you point your ads to take prospects directly into vehicle details pages or search results pages or should you send visitors to landing pages with messaging first? The reason that the studies seem to take the same data and yield different conclusions is based on two things: intent of the company doing the study and ways through which the data is collected and analyzed.

Our perspective on the issue adds a third factor that has helped us to come to our own conclusion for clients: visitor intent. The beauty of modern digital advertising is that it allows us to make determinations about website visitors before they even click based upon their source, keywords, and past activity. The key to all of this is following Google's lead based upon their ultimate data set for automotive.

Last year, Google started making the shift from "visits and unique visitors" to "sessions and users". This wasn't just a cosmetic change nor was it the only thing they've been changing. They understand that intent is much more easily defined once you parse out the data correctly. They realize that at different stages in the research and buying cycle, car shoppers will be searching for different things and expecting different results to appeal to their real-time needs.

We went into some detail about this concept in a blog post but for now, let's look at the basic concepts to see if we can answer the straightforward question of inventory versus landing pages.

The New Paradigm

While I would hate to make it sound as if Google is revising the zero moment of truth concept, there is a great deal of shifting happening in their mentality towards what really works for driving the sale in the automotive industry. Whether it's a new reality or an old reality that's just now being recognized doesn't matter. What's important is that they see the shift.

To break it down, let's look at direct examples. If someone does a search for "best family sedans" they are likely in consideration mode. They're at the top of the funnel. In fact, they might not even be certain whether or not they're currently in the market. They're exploring. This would be a bad time to send them into inventory. Instead, they should be given a very specific and useful message to help them but that also has the opportunity to push them further down in the funnel. Think of these people like service customers waiting for their cars by walking the lot. Most of them are just passing time, but everyone has a story about the vehicle in service that turned into a trade in before it ever left the shop. It happens and these visitors need the proper messaging. Sending them to inventory would be like leaving a service customer to walk the lot on their own.

Let's look at another search. If someone types in "new Hyundai Sonata in High Point" then they have a different intent. They could be in the middle of the funnel. They might be at the bottom of the funnel. In this situation, one message might be designed to lead them to a landing page with information about current specials and sales while giving them an easy button to take them to inventory. Another message could be about the cars directly with a straight path to the Sonata VDPs. In this situation, both options are viable and testing of both will yield the proper path for each individual dealership.

Final keyword: "2015 Ford Focus for sale in Indianapolis". If you have a nice selection, send them straight to the SRP. They know what they want, they know where they want it, and they're ready to look at cars in stock.

All three examples present different users with specific messages. More importantly, they present the same users with different messaging and destinations as they work their way down the funnel. It's a win-win methodology that serves the customers' needs and the dealership's needs simultaneously.

The different perspectives can point to one side or the other. It's within the data to make the determination based upon intent. Which is a better destination, inventory or landing pages? Our answer is, "Yes."

There have been several studies in the automotive industry that have conclusively answered this question with hard data and compelling reasons why it is the way it is. Unfortunately, these "conclusive" studies often point in opposite directions and always seem to be conducted by companies that lean in one direction or the other.

Which is better for search PPC, banner ads, and other forms of advertising? Should you point your ads to take prospects directly into vehicle details pages or search results pages or should you send visitors to landing pages with messaging first? The reason that the studies seem to take the same data and yield different conclusions is based on two things: intent of the company doing the study and ways through which the data is collected and analyzed.

Our perspective on the issue adds a third factor that has helped us to come to our own conclusion for clients: visitor intent. The beauty of modern digital advertising is that it allows us to make determinations about website visitors before they even click based upon their source, keywords, and past activity. The key to all of this is following Google's lead based upon their ultimate data set for automotive.

Last year, Google started making the shift from "visits and unique visitors" to "sessions and users". This wasn't just a cosmetic change nor was it the only thing they've been changing. They understand that intent is much more easily defined once you parse out the data correctly. They realize that at different stages in the research and buying cycle, car shoppers will be searching for different things and expecting different results to appeal to their real-time needs.

We went into some detail about this concept in a blog post but for now, let's look at the basic concepts to see if we can answer the straightforward question of inventory versus landing pages.

The New Paradigm

While I would hate to make it sound as if Google is revising the zero moment of truth concept, there is a great deal of shifting happening in their mentality towards what really works for driving the sale in the automotive industry. Whether it's a new reality or an old reality that's just now being recognized doesn't matter. What's important is that they see the shift.

To break it down, let's look at direct examples. If someone does a search for "best family sedans" they are likely in consideration mode. They're at the top of the funnel. In fact, they might not even be certain whether or not they're currently in the market. They're exploring. This would be a bad time to send them into inventory. Instead, they should be given a very specific and useful message to help them but that also has the opportunity to push them further down in the funnel. Think of these people like service customers waiting for their cars by walking the lot. Most of them are just passing time, but everyone has a story about the vehicle in service that turned into a trade in before it ever left the shop. It happens and these visitors need the proper messaging. Sending them to inventory would be like leaving a service customer to walk the lot on their own.

Let's look at another search. If someone types in "new Hyundai Sonata in High Point" then they have a different intent. They could be in the middle of the funnel. They might be at the bottom of the funnel. In this situation, one message might be designed to lead them to a landing page with information about current specials and sales while giving them an easy button to take them to inventory. Another message could be about the cars directly with a straight path to the Sonata VDPs. In this situation, both options are viable and testing of both will yield the proper path for each individual dealership.

Final keyword: "2015 Ford Focus for sale in Indianapolis". If you have a nice selection, send them straight to the SRP. They know what they want, they know where they want it, and they're ready to look at cars in stock.

All three examples present different users with specific messages. More importantly, they present the same users with different messaging and destinations as they work their way down the funnel. It's a win-win methodology that serves the customers' needs and the dealership's needs simultaneously.

The different perspectives can point to one side or the other. It's within the data to make the determination based upon intent. Which is a better destination, inventory or landing pages? Our answer is, "Yes."

Have you ever wondered why PPC and SEO are often separated. Even in companies that offer both, they usually treat them as two separate entities, stating that the practices that work in PPC are different from the practices that work in SEO. We beg to differ.

Much of PPC is driven by Quality Score. This means that the keyword, the ad, and the page that you send them to should all match up and bring value to the person doing the search.

Much of SEO is driven by relevance of content. This means that the keyword, the organic listing, and the page you send them to should all match up to bring value to the person doing the search.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Google has stated over and over again that presence of a PPC spend has no effect on how well a website ranks organically. For years, companies in the automotive industry claimed that it did. Lately, there has been a reversal since there's so much content out there that demonstrates that the two do not correlate. As a result, companies have used that as a reason to now separate out the two.

The problem is that the correlations existed, just not in the way that was being preached. A page that's strong for SEO will also be strong for PPC from a Quality Score perspective. With this established, the only remaining piece to the puzzle is making the pages both valuable from a content perspective as well as strong from a conversion perspective. We believe we have this concept nailed, but that's something for our own blog.

Here, I'd like to encourage dealers who are doing their own PPC to think within this principle as they build pages. Sending everyone to the VDPs or SRPs is a popular strategy, but I believe it behooves you to do some testing. Building strong landing pages that work for SEO, PPC, and conversion may be your best bet. Does it require more work? Yes. Does it yield better results? Absolutely.

The SEO value of PPC is non-existent in our industry because it takes work, not because it can't or shouldn't be done.

We're talking about two separate strategies that have the same goals (traffic, leads, and sales) that play in the same basic venue. Don't you think they should be working together?