I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and throughout my youth, our fine city would be infiltrated, so to speak, with unsightly visitors.  Bandits would swarm the town, shopping malls, and neighborhoods.  They would loiter about, often even able to go unseen without a keen eye looking for them.

They were vagabonds and pick-pockets, always looking for the edge to take advantage of you and fleece you on something (purse, wallet, game tickets) if you weren’t watching your belongings.  Some would go to the extreme.  If they saw you grilling out in your backyard, they’d walk right in through the open front door and steal the paintings white off your walls.  They were almost magicians at taking from you without you ever noticing.

Well we have Automotive Bandits as well.  They are right there, taking from you, and you don’t even see them.  You do nothing to prevent it because you are unaware they are taking money away from you.

The Bandits of the automotive world are these lead-generating website on YOUR Google Page One, singlehandedly stealing your customers right out from under your nose.  They live and breathe off of you and your business.  They optimize their own sites for your dealership’s name and gather leads that should be yours.  They take your business, customers looking for you specifically, and they sell them off to the highest bidder.  These Automotive Bandits are scavengers and will take whatever they can get their hands on.

They litter Google Page One with both organic positioning – based on their optimized content about YOUR dealership or they actually pay through PPC campaigns, leeching right off of you.

Here are some of the top Automotive Bandits I see.

AutoSite.com

AutoND.com

Autodealerbase.com

Autobodyalliance.com

Autodiscountgroup.com

AutoSales.com

Mystore411.com

Quickr.com

Vast.com

I’m sure there are some others I’ve missed so feel free to share them with the rest of us.  They are a dime a dozen and worth less than that.

Some of these are sometimes just microsites to third-party lead providers trying to maliciously get in on YOUR opportunities such as: 

Edmunds (everyone who wants to harvest leads buy PPC on dealership names)

Autotropolis – Going after YOUR organic internet shoppers because they are optimizing their site with keywords involving your dealership name and city in an effort to sell your leads right back to you – or your closest competitor.

Some are local directories, using solely PPC/SEM to break in onto your turf, such as:

Autos.aol.com – local directories where they can search for other cars.

Superpages.com.

I strongly urge you to start keeping a close eye on the 10-12 spots that take up your dealership’s Google Page One.  Are they all of your online entities and digital assets that you control or are they Automotive Bandits, slyly pickpocketing your dealership of its leads right from under your nose.

Do your best to dominate these sites and move them down the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) so you can protect what is rightfully yours.  Automotive Bandits aren’t deadly.  They are just dangerous to your bottom line if you let them run wild on the streets of Google. 

Keep your eyes open.  Do you see them?  You may not even noticed they’ve been hanging around you all along.  They’re tricky little buggers and the first step to preventing their mischief is by seeing them in the first place.

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and throughout my youth, our fine city would be infiltrated, so to speak, with unsightly visitors.  Bandits would swarm the town, shopping malls, and neighborhoods.  They would loiter about, often even able to go unseen without a keen eye looking for them.

They were vagabonds and pick-pockets, always looking for the edge to take advantage of you and fleece you on something (purse, wallet, game tickets) if you weren’t watching your belongings.  Some would go to the extreme.  If they saw you grilling out in your backyard, they’d walk right in through the open front door and steal the paintings white off your walls.  They were almost magicians at taking from you without you ever noticing.

Well we have Automotive Bandits as well.  They are right there, taking from you, and you don’t even see them.  You do nothing to prevent it because you are unaware they are taking money away from you.

The Bandits of the automotive world are these lead-generating website on YOUR Google Page One, singlehandedly stealing your customers right out from under your nose.  They live and breathe off of you and your business.  They optimize their own sites for your dealership’s name and gather leads that should be yours.  They take your business, customers looking for you specifically, and they sell them off to the highest bidder.  These Automotive Bandits are scavengers and will take whatever they can get their hands on.

They litter Google Page One with both organic positioning – based on their optimized content about YOUR dealership or they actually pay through PPC campaigns, leeching right off of you.

Here are some of the top Automotive Bandits I see.

AutoSite.com

AutoND.com

Autodealerbase.com

Autobodyalliance.com

Autodiscountgroup.com

AutoSales.com

Mystore411.com

Quickr.com

Vast.com

I’m sure there are some others I’ve missed so feel free to share them with the rest of us.  They are a dime a dozen and worth less than that.

Some of these are sometimes just microsites to third-party lead providers trying to maliciously get in on YOUR opportunities such as: 

Edmunds (everyone who wants to harvest leads buy PPC on dealership names)

Autotropolis – Going after YOUR organic internet shoppers because they are optimizing their site with keywords involving your dealership name and city in an effort to sell your leads right back to you – or your closest competitor.

Some are local directories, using solely PPC/SEM to break in onto your turf, such as:

Autos.aol.com – local directories where they can search for other cars.

Superpages.com.

I strongly urge you to start keeping a close eye on the 10-12 spots that take up your dealership’s Google Page One.  Are they all of your online entities and digital assets that you control or are they Automotive Bandits, slyly pickpocketing your dealership of its leads right from under your nose.

Do your best to dominate these sites and move them down the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) so you can protect what is rightfully yours.  Automotive Bandits aren’t deadly.  They are just dangerous to your bottom line if you let them run wild on the streets of Google. 

Keep your eyes open.  Do you see them?  You may not even noticed they’ve been hanging around you all along.  They’re tricky little buggers and the first step to preventing their mischief is by seeing them in the first place.

1. Tiny font tends to get caught in spam. If you have font smaller than 10px, it can get you nailed by the triggers. (Think of all the legalese trapped at the bottom of special offers…that is why)
   
2. Large font sizes bigger than 2+ gets trapped in spam filters
   
3. More than two font sizes and two font types are no good either
   
4. More than two images or two links in your email can get you caught as well
   
5. If you do send an image, make sure it isn’t too large and overwhelming to the email
   
6. If you do send an attachment, make sure it is under 300k
   
7. Don’t use too many bolds, colors, exclamation points, or italics
   
8. Make sure your email text has the same font and size as your signature. (Not sure if it affects spam, but it ticks me off and looks unprofessional :)
   
9. Don’t use punctuation in your subject line  (Writing a good subject line is a necessity and worthy of another blog entirely.  Recognize its importance)
   
10. Make sure that if you are sending an html email, you have a higher percentage of text to html image. (I just learned of this one by researching… pretty cool)
    
11. Always test yourself by mystery shopping as you can easily get put on a blacklist – and that can be the primary reason you are getting sent to spam
    
12. And do your best to steer clear of these “trigger” words:

1. Tiny font tends to get caught in spam. If you have font smaller than 10px, it can get you nailed by the triggers. (Think of all the legalese trapped at the bottom of special offers…that is why)
   
2. Large font sizes bigger than 2+ gets trapped in spam filters
   
3. More than two font sizes and two font types are no good either
   
4. More than two images or two links in your email can get you caught as well
   
5. If you do send an image, make sure it isn’t too large and overwhelming to the email
   
6. If you do send an attachment, make sure it is under 300k
   
7. Don’t use too many bolds, colors, exclamation points, or italics
   
8. Make sure your email text has the same font and size as your signature. (Not sure if it affects spam, but it ticks me off and looks unprofessional :)
   
9. Don’t use punctuation in your subject line  (Writing a good subject line is a necessity and worthy of another blog entirely.  Recognize its importance)
   
10. Make sure that if you are sending an html email, you have a higher percentage of text to html image. (I just learned of this one by researching… pretty cool)
    
11. Always test yourself by mystery shopping as you can easily get put on a blacklist – and that can be the primary reason you are getting sent to spam
    
12. And do your best to steer clear of these “trigger” words:

Returning from NADA 2011, it was more than apparent that we are in an age of “enlighten me”.  With Google stating that their entire focus in 2011 will be focusing on Social, Mobile, and Local, it means they understand that we consumers are me-centric and only willing to seek out opinion from our credible, close, personal, connected contingency of contacts.  A focus on social, mobile, and local could easily be combined to say this is the year of reputation management because reviews will run rampant.

If the NADA vendors and speakers taught us anything this last week it is that the public's perception of your store is going to be one of the driving sources of eyeballs and traffic to your store.  It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harry were selling some form of social media and reputation management.  You'd approach a booth and say, "Tell me about your product." and they'd reply "We build car washes in dealerships and assist with social media/rep management services."  Any amalgam of offerings was seen, but the constant is that EVERYONE thinks they are more reliable than you are to handle your own reputation.

Your reputation, loudly (and proudly?) displayed across the search engines and business listing sites will be your brand.  How do you want to be known?  What do you want to be known for?  Is your business map not only atop the search engines, but is it adorned with raving fans of your dealership?

It is abundantly clear that if you want to start building trust with the public, it starts from within.  Above and beyond how you conduct yourselves in an everyday setting (That is a given), it takes proactively reaching out to your loyal customers and asking for those reviews.

These online review sites (and the positive customer testimonial videos you can acquire - video or otherwise) will single-handedly determine the trust level that your local (and national) customers hold in your brand.

It is apparent that you need to stop relying on Google Alerts to see if your name is being dragged through the mud and THEN responding.  You must seek out positive reviews from your loyal customers.  How?  There are several answers.  From QR Codes on table tents and business cards to 3G connected iPads on-site to kiosks in service to long-term email/phone calling all the way to the simplest form… just asking for it when they’re in-store, you must put processes in place to start developing some goodwill reviews from your loyal, happy, local customers.

Reputation is important to everyone.  Even me.  I've written countless articles and blogs over the last several years dedicated to helping the in-the-trenches Internet professionals to create a positive, profitable department.  There is no fame or fortune in it.  I do it for the love of the craft.  Our craft.  If any of those articles or conference sessions or videos I've made have helped you, I couldn't ask for anything better than having you rate me as an Internet Trainer in the DrivingSales vendor rating section - here on the site.  http://www.drivingsales.com/ratings/companies/dealerknows-consulting

That's the easiest way I can ask "How Ya Like Me Now?"

Returning from NADA 2011, it was more than apparent that we are in an age of “enlighten me”.  With Google stating that their entire focus in 2011 will be focusing on Social, Mobile, and Local, it means they understand that we consumers are me-centric and only willing to seek out opinion from our credible, close, personal, connected contingency of contacts.  A focus on social, mobile, and local could easily be combined to say this is the year of reputation management because reviews will run rampant.

If the NADA vendors and speakers taught us anything this last week it is that the public's perception of your store is going to be one of the driving sources of eyeballs and traffic to your store.  It seems like every Tom, Dick, and Harry were selling some form of social media and reputation management.  You'd approach a booth and say, "Tell me about your product." and they'd reply "We build car washes in dealerships and assist with social media/rep management services."  Any amalgam of offerings was seen, but the constant is that EVERYONE thinks they are more reliable than you are to handle your own reputation.

Your reputation, loudly (and proudly?) displayed across the search engines and business listing sites will be your brand.  How do you want to be known?  What do you want to be known for?  Is your business map not only atop the search engines, but is it adorned with raving fans of your dealership?

It is abundantly clear that if you want to start building trust with the public, it starts from within.  Above and beyond how you conduct yourselves in an everyday setting (That is a given), it takes proactively reaching out to your loyal customers and asking for those reviews.

These online review sites (and the positive customer testimonial videos you can acquire - video or otherwise) will single-handedly determine the trust level that your local (and national) customers hold in your brand.

It is apparent that you need to stop relying on Google Alerts to see if your name is being dragged through the mud and THEN responding.  You must seek out positive reviews from your loyal customers.  How?  There are several answers.  From QR Codes on table tents and business cards to 3G connected iPads on-site to kiosks in service to long-term email/phone calling all the way to the simplest form… just asking for it when they’re in-store, you must put processes in place to start developing some goodwill reviews from your loyal, happy, local customers.

Reputation is important to everyone.  Even me.  I've written countless articles and blogs over the last several years dedicated to helping the in-the-trenches Internet professionals to create a positive, profitable department.  There is no fame or fortune in it.  I do it for the love of the craft.  Our craft.  If any of those articles or conference sessions or videos I've made have helped you, I couldn't ask for anything better than having you rate me as an Internet Trainer in the DrivingSales vendor rating section - here on the site.  http://www.drivingsales.com/ratings/companies/dealerknows-consulting

That's the easiest way I can ask "How Ya Like Me Now?"

Buford Beauregard is a former car-selling superstar turned acclaimed stand-up comedian from the south. Buford sells out trailer parks nationwide with his comedic act about automotive internet sales and is known for his catchphrases "Ain't she a beaut!" and "...you might not be an e-Dealer."

*It is well known that he is not related to Joe Webb, but does often use Joe as his opening act. Likely, based on the accent and hairstyle, Buford originates from either Alabama, Arkansas, or Mississippi. He cannot recall. But what he does know is automotive sales and digital marketing tactics.

Buford Beauregard is a former car-selling superstar turned acclaimed stand-up comedian from the south. Buford sells out trailer parks nationwide with his comedic act about automotive internet sales and is known for his catchphrases "Ain't she a beaut!" and "...you might not be an e-Dealer."

*It is well known that he is not related to Joe Webb, but does often use Joe as his opening act. Likely, based on the accent and hairstyle, Buford originates from either Alabama, Arkansas, or Mississippi. He cannot recall. But what he does know is automotive sales and digital marketing tactics.