If you've spent any time on the marketing side of your dealership, you know how valuable organic search traffic is. But in order to receive a large amount of search traffic, you need to rank for a variety of different keywords, which means having a properly-optimized website, high-quality content, and inbound links from authoritative sites.

Now, on the desktop side, there have been plenty of studies that prove that the #1 organic result on Google receives the brunt of the clicks. As Google users become more familiar with searching for information online, and Google updates its algorithm to provide better overall results, though, the number of people who click on the first result has gone down significantly.

(This is also a sign that your metadata--which is the information displayed about your page on Google and other search engines--needs to be optimized so users can understand what your content is about, which will increase clickthroughs to your dealership's website.)

Mobile Users Click the First Result More Than Desktop Users

On the mobile side, however, we're seeing the #1 position as a more important positon than on desktop. According to a study by seoClarity, 27.7% of mobile search users click on the first result, as opposed to 19.3% on the desktop side.

To make matters better (or worse depending on your dealership's rankings), CTR rates for the #2 position drop all the way down to 9.2% on mobile. The reason this is so important is because the #2 position on desktop search results gets an average of 11.4%.

For dealerships ranking on page one from position 6-10 of mobile results, though, there is little change compared to desktop results. In fact, this study shows that you should see more clicks at the bottom of the page of mobile results than desktop results.

What Do I Take Away from This New Information?

The biggest takeaway from the mobile search CTR study is that it's still really important to claim the #1 result through proper SEO. You want a diverse range of content on your site to rank for a variety of different keywords and longtail search queries. The better quality content you have, combined with great optimization, the more your site will move up the ranks and the more organic traffic and leads you'll receive.

Have a question about SEO and/or Google search rankings? Ask in the comments below and I'll provide as much insight as I can to help you grow your dealership's organic traffic!

If you've spent any time on the marketing side of your dealership, you know how valuable organic search traffic is. But in order to receive a large amount of search traffic, you need to rank for a variety of different keywords, which means having a properly-optimized website, high-quality content, and inbound links from authoritative sites.

Now, on the desktop side, there have been plenty of studies that prove that the #1 organic result on Google receives the brunt of the clicks. As Google users become more familiar with searching for information online, and Google updates its algorithm to provide better overall results, though, the number of people who click on the first result has gone down significantly.

(This is also a sign that your metadata--which is the information displayed about your page on Google and other search engines--needs to be optimized so users can understand what your content is about, which will increase clickthroughs to your dealership's website.)

Mobile Users Click the First Result More Than Desktop Users

On the mobile side, however, we're seeing the #1 position as a more important positon than on desktop. According to a study by seoClarity, 27.7% of mobile search users click on the first result, as opposed to 19.3% on the desktop side.

To make matters better (or worse depending on your dealership's rankings), CTR rates for the #2 position drop all the way down to 9.2% on mobile. The reason this is so important is because the #2 position on desktop search results gets an average of 11.4%.

For dealerships ranking on page one from position 6-10 of mobile results, though, there is little change compared to desktop results. In fact, this study shows that you should see more clicks at the bottom of the page of mobile results than desktop results.

What Do I Take Away from This New Information?

The biggest takeaway from the mobile search CTR study is that it's still really important to claim the #1 result through proper SEO. You want a diverse range of content on your site to rank for a variety of different keywords and longtail search queries. The better quality content you have, combined with great optimization, the more your site will move up the ranks and the more organic traffic and leads you'll receive.

Have a question about SEO and/or Google search rankings? Ask in the comments below and I'll provide as much insight as I can to help you grow your dealership's organic traffic!

Dealerships are facing an uphill battle in the fight to reclaim search rankings from third-party listings, as well as the attempt to win customers through social media. For both automotive SEO and social media marketing, however, content is the single most important factor for overall success.

You can optimize your dealership’s site to compete for certain keywords, but that’s only going to get you so far with Google. In order to truly impact rankings, you need to acquire links to your site. The absolute best way to do that is to produce content worth linking to in the first place. That is the essence of content marketing.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the art of creating high-quality content for the purpose of building awareness about a product, service, brand, or company. This is typically accomplished without employing sales tactics or openly pushing an agenda, unlike other forms of advertisement.

The idea is to create content that your target audience will find valuable–whether it be entertaining, informative, or both at the same time. This content wants to be shared. It’s so good that every person that sees it wants everyone they know to see it.

How content marketing works for car dealers

Step 1. Create great content.

Step 2. Share/promote content.

Step 3. Users enjoy, share, and link to your content.

Step 4. Google accounts for the activity around your content and increases your rankings.

Step 5. Local car buyers are better able to find your site to research vehicles and submit leads.

Is your content worth linking to?

Imagine you’re looking for information on a car your dealership happens to sell. Is your site providing that information or is another site doing a better job? Your site needs to be the resource that goes above and beyond what’s expected and provides real answers that are presented in an easily-digestible, entertaining fashion.

How Do Dealerships Create Great Content?

1. Understand your customer — What gets the most views on your site right now? What questions are customers asking when they visit your dealership? What are your most popular vehicles? Are customers more interested in new or used cars? Do you get a lot of bad credit customers? The more you understand your customers, the better you can tailor content for the keywords you’re looking to target.
2. Discover what works — As a dealership, you’d probably look to other dealerships to see what works and what doesn’t in terms of content. But your average dealership is not creating original content as part of their SEO strategy. Instead, look to automotive-related publications for insight into what people want to read and view online.
3. Experiment with different content — In order to get an idea of what people will share or link to from your dealership’s site, create at least three different types of content. One might be a vehicle comparison of one of your popular models vs. a competitor, another might be an infographic about the evolution of a particular model, and another may be a list of tips for new car owners. Make sure each piece of content has the same chance for success, but see which one comes out on top and follow the feedback from users to tailor your next batch.

Basic Content Promotion

After the creative process is complete and your content is live, how do you go about promoting it so users can discover it?

Utilize social media sites, along with the amplifying powers of paid promotion, to target users based upon interest. The ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your content to increase social signals through shares, as well as links from other sites.

You start this process by using Facebook’s Promoted Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets to target local users. Facebook has a sophisticated ads platform that allows you to target users by every parameter associated with a Facebook profile, making it a great place to start.

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets platform is new to most businesses, but a great start in going beyond local users. The reason Twitter is important in that regard is site publishers, writers, and editors tend to be active on the site, looking for news and content to share. Targeting an audience with an interest in cars or the automotive industry is a great strategy for building links.

Advanced Content Promotion

If your dealership wants to take its content marketing to the next level, give Reddit and StumbleUpon a try. These two sites require content that is both high quality and targeted. This means you need to understand what the users on these sites are after before you simply drop in to promote your existing content. Because both sites’ users will bounce faster than any other type of user on the web if they’re not interested.

Content Marketing on Reddit 

Reddit users are very particular about the types of advertising that appears on the site. This social news site is made up of mostly young males who are very passionate about the community. If your ads are not highly-targeted and entertaining, it’s not likely to perform and may even receive negative attention or none at all since Reddit does not guarantee views. However, Reddit users love to see advertisers who understand that if you’re going to advertise, you might as well add value to the end user as well.

To accomplish this, the content you market toward Reddit users must be created with the community in mind. Take a look at the top-ranked content on subreddits (niche communities within Reddit) like Cars, CarTalk, and Autos for examples of what Reddit’s car-loving members wants to see.

The infographic idea I previously mentioned–that details the evolution of a particular model–is a timeless idea that  would work well if the ad copy was written in a unique, fun fashion.

Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon

Unlike Reddit, StumbleUpon actually guarantees the views you pay for with its advertising platform Paid Discovery. The service also puts your content on an even playing field with user-submitted content and allows it to receive additional free views if it is shared by StumbleUpon users.

In fact, if you create content that users really respond to, you could receive just as much traffic from user shares as you did from Paid Discovery. This incentivizes businesses to create exceptional content for the StumbleUpon community.

Like Reddit, though, StumbleUpon’s users expect high-quality content and will skip over pages that do not immediately stand out from the pack. There’s no room for error or half-completed work when it comes to social media success.

Measuring Success

When your ultimate content marketing goal is to boost SEO efforts, it takes a few months to see the fruits of your labor. In the meantime, the easiest way to measure success before you see changes in your search rankings is overall traffic to your content, as well as social shares. No matter what you’re paying for, if your audience is responding to the content, you should see a good jump in traffic.

Content marketing is not a race, and relies solely on the effort you and your team put into the end product. The best approach is to always focus on making your target audience happy. Results will follow from there.

Dealerships are facing an uphill battle in the fight to reclaim search rankings from third-party listings, as well as the attempt to win customers through social media. For both automotive SEO and social media marketing, however, content is the single most important factor for overall success.

You can optimize your dealership’s site to compete for certain keywords, but that’s only going to get you so far with Google. In order to truly impact rankings, you need to acquire links to your site. The absolute best way to do that is to produce content worth linking to in the first place. That is the essence of content marketing.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the art of creating high-quality content for the purpose of building awareness about a product, service, brand, or company. This is typically accomplished without employing sales tactics or openly pushing an agenda, unlike other forms of advertisement.

The idea is to create content that your target audience will find valuable–whether it be entertaining, informative, or both at the same time. This content wants to be shared. It’s so good that every person that sees it wants everyone they know to see it.

How content marketing works for car dealers

Step 1. Create great content.

Step 2. Share/promote content.

Step 3. Users enjoy, share, and link to your content.

Step 4. Google accounts for the activity around your content and increases your rankings.

Step 5. Local car buyers are better able to find your site to research vehicles and submit leads.

Is your content worth linking to?

Imagine you’re looking for information on a car your dealership happens to sell. Is your site providing that information or is another site doing a better job? Your site needs to be the resource that goes above and beyond what’s expected and provides real answers that are presented in an easily-digestible, entertaining fashion.

How Do Dealerships Create Great Content?

1. Understand your customer — What gets the most views on your site right now? What questions are customers asking when they visit your dealership? What are your most popular vehicles? Are customers more interested in new or used cars? Do you get a lot of bad credit customers? The more you understand your customers, the better you can tailor content for the keywords you’re looking to target.
2. Discover what works — As a dealership, you’d probably look to other dealerships to see what works and what doesn’t in terms of content. But your average dealership is not creating original content as part of their SEO strategy. Instead, look to automotive-related publications for insight into what people want to read and view online.
3. Experiment with different content — In order to get an idea of what people will share or link to from your dealership’s site, create at least three different types of content. One might be a vehicle comparison of one of your popular models vs. a competitor, another might be an infographic about the evolution of a particular model, and another may be a list of tips for new car owners. Make sure each piece of content has the same chance for success, but see which one comes out on top and follow the feedback from users to tailor your next batch.

Basic Content Promotion

After the creative process is complete and your content is live, how do you go about promoting it so users can discover it?

Utilize social media sites, along with the amplifying powers of paid promotion, to target users based upon interest. The ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your content to increase social signals through shares, as well as links from other sites.

You start this process by using Facebook’s Promoted Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets to target local users. Facebook has a sophisticated ads platform that allows you to target users by every parameter associated with a Facebook profile, making it a great place to start.

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets platform is new to most businesses, but a great start in going beyond local users. The reason Twitter is important in that regard is site publishers, writers, and editors tend to be active on the site, looking for news and content to share. Targeting an audience with an interest in cars or the automotive industry is a great strategy for building links.

Advanced Content Promotion

If your dealership wants to take its content marketing to the next level, give Reddit and StumbleUpon a try. These two sites require content that is both high quality and targeted. This means you need to understand what the users on these sites are after before you simply drop in to promote your existing content. Because both sites’ users will bounce faster than any other type of user on the web if they’re not interested.

Content Marketing on Reddit 

Reddit users are very particular about the types of advertising that appears on the site. This social news site is made up of mostly young males who are very passionate about the community. If your ads are not highly-targeted and entertaining, it’s not likely to perform and may even receive negative attention or none at all since Reddit does not guarantee views. However, Reddit users love to see advertisers who understand that if you’re going to advertise, you might as well add value to the end user as well.

To accomplish this, the content you market toward Reddit users must be created with the community in mind. Take a look at the top-ranked content on subreddits (niche communities within Reddit) like Cars, CarTalk, and Autos for examples of what Reddit’s car-loving members wants to see.

The infographic idea I previously mentioned–that details the evolution of a particular model–is a timeless idea that  would work well if the ad copy was written in a unique, fun fashion.

Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon

Unlike Reddit, StumbleUpon actually guarantees the views you pay for with its advertising platform Paid Discovery. The service also puts your content on an even playing field with user-submitted content and allows it to receive additional free views if it is shared by StumbleUpon users.

In fact, if you create content that users really respond to, you could receive just as much traffic from user shares as you did from Paid Discovery. This incentivizes businesses to create exceptional content for the StumbleUpon community.

Like Reddit, though, StumbleUpon’s users expect high-quality content and will skip over pages that do not immediately stand out from the pack. There’s no room for error or half-completed work when it comes to social media success.

Measuring Success

When your ultimate content marketing goal is to boost SEO efforts, it takes a few months to see the fruits of your labor. In the meantime, the easiest way to measure success before you see changes in your search rankings is overall traffic to your content, as well as social shares. No matter what you’re paying for, if your audience is responding to the content, you should see a good jump in traffic.

Content marketing is not a race, and relies solely on the effort you and your team put into the end product. The best approach is to always focus on making your target audience happy. Results will follow from there.

When it comes to social media marketing, the last site you’re probably thinking of adding to your repertoire is Pinterest. The site is known for its large female user base, collections of clothes, decorating ideas, and DIY tips and tricks; however, with its unique spin on social bookmarking, car dealers can use their inventory to reach an entirely new social audience.

What is Pinterest?

Before we go any further, it’s probably best to give a brief introduction to Pinterest. Because unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are in-your-face mainstream services used by nearly every business on the planet, Pinterest is only just now maturing.

Pinterest provides a way for people to collect things–articles, images, products–they like from across the web and share them.  It’s a virtual bulletin board. Users “pin” items to “boards,” which are typically dedicated to a specific topic, but are ultimately a preference. For instance, some users may have boards for different fashion trends to publicly show off what they’re looking to buy next season while others may have boards dedicated to recipes and cooking tips to keep track of things they’d like to cook.

But Pinterest has evolved into more than just a site for people to pine over fashion trends and recipes. It’s a hub for real ecommerce that every business has the opportunity to take advantage of by providing Pinterest users with access to your inventory.

Why Pinterest is Important

Facebook and Twitter are all about absorbing information and moving on. Nothing stays popular too long on either service, as there’s always something new that comes along and the old stories get buried away.

With Pinterest, on the other hand, anything cool can remain popular over time. While it does have a homepage similar to Facebook and Twitter–on which users can see recently-posted content–users explore profiles and find content in different ways than they would on Facebook or Twitter. This allows your content to have more longevity and potentially reach more people than it otherwise would on other social media sites.

3 Ways to Drive Traffic from Pinterest

Now that you understand what Pinterest is and how it’s being used, let’s talk about what’s really important: ways dealers can utilize it.

Pin VDPs Using Inventory Images

One of the biggest struggles in automotive social media marketing is getting traffic to VDPs. By design, these are not social-media friendly, and typically ignored by users when posted directly to a social media page. With Pinterest, however, you can take images of your inventory and pin them to various boards, allowing users to discover them as if they were regular pieces of content.

You can have boards for exteriors and interiors, or separate content by model and have unique boards for each model your dealership offers. This will allow fans searching for content on a particular vehicle to easily be able to find and share your content, helping your dealership become a bigger and bigger presence amongst Pinterest users.

Pin Blog Posts From Your Site

Does your dealership have a blog? Are you still using it to post pictures of recent car buyers with their cars? Take steps to create content relevant to the vehicles you sell that people actually want to read.

Whether that be the history of a specific model or a list of luxury options buyers can add to their vehicle, make sure your dealership is producing a variety of posts that people would want to click through to, read, and share.

Pin Landing Pages

If your team is creating landing pages, start sharing them. Not all may be appropriate for social media, but vehicle landing pages are perfect if you’re looking to promote important pages to drive traffic. You’ll also generate social signals in the process, which will benefit your overall SEO strategy.

These are just three of the most basic ways to utilize Pinterest for your dealership’s social media presence. But in order to grow that presence, you have to post more than just content that directs to your website. Users will follow your boards and repin (similar to a retweet) more of your content if you prove to be a great source for a variety of topics related to your dealership’s brands.

Ideas for Growing Your Following

Have Fun with Boards

Don’t just name your boards “Camaro” or “Jeep,” stand out by creating titles that actually make users want to click. Be specific about what your pinning to each board and you’ll attract more and more interested users to follow.

For instance, a Jeep dealership could have a board called “Jeep Owners Have All The Fun,” which could be pictures of Jeep meet-ups and off-road adventures.  A Chevy dealership could have one titled “Why the Camaro is Better Than the Mustang” and  post images of old and new Camaro models, along with videos of races, reviews, and other things having to do with the Camaro/Mustang rivalry.

Include Local Content

Part of Wikimotive’s automotive social media strategy is to always include local content that encourages a targeted local following for clients across all social media sites. To accomplish this on Pinterest, we create boards exclusively for a dealer’s local area.

Whether that be sunny Florida or strong Boston, there’s a ton of history and other interesting things that can be shared about your local area. Create a board for pictures and information about local landmarks and have a few dedicated to local sports teams. You want to focus a lot of your initial effort on getting connected with local users.

Videos, Photo Galleries, and Wallpapers

In order to build a worthwhile presence on any social media site, you have to maintain a balance between your content and content you discover. One of the most effective ways to do this as a dealership is link to various videos and images galleries from major automotive publications.

If Car and Driver has a great video review of one of your newest models, pin it from the source. When LeftLaneNews publishes one of its incredible photo galleries of a car you sell (or will sell in the future), make sure people can see it. And if you really want to reach the enthusiast, have a brand-related desktop wallpaper board filled with wallpapers of various models that users can browse through to show off their brand loyalty.

The Future: Promoted Pins

Promoted Pins work the same as Promoted Posts and Tweets on Facebook and Twitter: your paying for more eyes on your content. For ecommerce, this is a big deal because the average shopper referred by Pinterest spends between $140 and $180, as opposed to Facebook’s $80 and Twitter’s $60.

With geotargeting, category selection, and other options sure to be at your disposal, dealers will soon be able to get their content in front of interested, local users.

These small parts of your dealership’s overall social media strategy can make the difference between doing the bare minimum and accumulating a valuable following. Pinterest does not require a major investment or a ton of time to add to your social media routine–it simply requires dedication to quality upkeep.

When it comes to social media marketing, the last site you’re probably thinking of adding to your repertoire is Pinterest. The site is known for its large female user base, collections of clothes, decorating ideas, and DIY tips and tricks; however, with its unique spin on social bookmarking, car dealers can use their inventory to reach an entirely new social audience.

What is Pinterest?

Before we go any further, it’s probably best to give a brief introduction to Pinterest. Because unlike Facebook and Twitter, which are in-your-face mainstream services used by nearly every business on the planet, Pinterest is only just now maturing.

Pinterest provides a way for people to collect things–articles, images, products–they like from across the web and share them.  It’s a virtual bulletin board. Users “pin” items to “boards,” which are typically dedicated to a specific topic, but are ultimately a preference. For instance, some users may have boards for different fashion trends to publicly show off what they’re looking to buy next season while others may have boards dedicated to recipes and cooking tips to keep track of things they’d like to cook.

But Pinterest has evolved into more than just a site for people to pine over fashion trends and recipes. It’s a hub for real ecommerce that every business has the opportunity to take advantage of by providing Pinterest users with access to your inventory.

Why Pinterest is Important

Facebook and Twitter are all about absorbing information and moving on. Nothing stays popular too long on either service, as there’s always something new that comes along and the old stories get buried away.

With Pinterest, on the other hand, anything cool can remain popular over time. While it does have a homepage similar to Facebook and Twitter–on which users can see recently-posted content–users explore profiles and find content in different ways than they would on Facebook or Twitter. This allows your content to have more longevity and potentially reach more people than it otherwise would on other social media sites.

3 Ways to Drive Traffic from Pinterest

Now that you understand what Pinterest is and how it’s being used, let’s talk about what’s really important: ways dealers can utilize it.

Pin VDPs Using Inventory Images

One of the biggest struggles in automotive social media marketing is getting traffic to VDPs. By design, these are not social-media friendly, and typically ignored by users when posted directly to a social media page. With Pinterest, however, you can take images of your inventory and pin them to various boards, allowing users to discover them as if they were regular pieces of content.

You can have boards for exteriors and interiors, or separate content by model and have unique boards for each model your dealership offers. This will allow fans searching for content on a particular vehicle to easily be able to find and share your content, helping your dealership become a bigger and bigger presence amongst Pinterest users.

Pin Blog Posts From Your Site

Does your dealership have a blog? Are you still using it to post pictures of recent car buyers with their cars? Take steps to create content relevant to the vehicles you sell that people actually want to read.

Whether that be the history of a specific model or a list of luxury options buyers can add to their vehicle, make sure your dealership is producing a variety of posts that people would want to click through to, read, and share.

Pin Landing Pages

If your team is creating landing pages, start sharing them. Not all may be appropriate for social media, but vehicle landing pages are perfect if you’re looking to promote important pages to drive traffic. You’ll also generate social signals in the process, which will benefit your overall SEO strategy.

These are just three of the most basic ways to utilize Pinterest for your dealership’s social media presence. But in order to grow that presence, you have to post more than just content that directs to your website. Users will follow your boards and repin (similar to a retweet) more of your content if you prove to be a great source for a variety of topics related to your dealership’s brands.

Ideas for Growing Your Following

Have Fun with Boards

Don’t just name your boards “Camaro” or “Jeep,” stand out by creating titles that actually make users want to click. Be specific about what your pinning to each board and you’ll attract more and more interested users to follow.

For instance, a Jeep dealership could have a board called “Jeep Owners Have All The Fun,” which could be pictures of Jeep meet-ups and off-road adventures.  A Chevy dealership could have one titled “Why the Camaro is Better Than the Mustang” and  post images of old and new Camaro models, along with videos of races, reviews, and other things having to do with the Camaro/Mustang rivalry.

Include Local Content

Part of Wikimotive’s automotive social media strategy is to always include local content that encourages a targeted local following for clients across all social media sites. To accomplish this on Pinterest, we create boards exclusively for a dealer’s local area.

Whether that be sunny Florida or strong Boston, there’s a ton of history and other interesting things that can be shared about your local area. Create a board for pictures and information about local landmarks and have a few dedicated to local sports teams. You want to focus a lot of your initial effort on getting connected with local users.

Videos, Photo Galleries, and Wallpapers

In order to build a worthwhile presence on any social media site, you have to maintain a balance between your content and content you discover. One of the most effective ways to do this as a dealership is link to various videos and images galleries from major automotive publications.

If Car and Driver has a great video review of one of your newest models, pin it from the source. When LeftLaneNews publishes one of its incredible photo galleries of a car you sell (or will sell in the future), make sure people can see it. And if you really want to reach the enthusiast, have a brand-related desktop wallpaper board filled with wallpapers of various models that users can browse through to show off their brand loyalty.

The Future: Promoted Pins

Promoted Pins work the same as Promoted Posts and Tweets on Facebook and Twitter: your paying for more eyes on your content. For ecommerce, this is a big deal because the average shopper referred by Pinterest spends between $140 and $180, as opposed to Facebook’s $80 and Twitter’s $60.

With geotargeting, category selection, and other options sure to be at your disposal, dealers will soon be able to get their content in front of interested, local users.

These small parts of your dealership’s overall social media strategy can make the difference between doing the bare minimum and accumulating a valuable following. Pinterest does not require a major investment or a ton of time to add to your social media routine–it simply requires dedication to quality upkeep.

Your Facebook page is a lot like a sports car. It's got a lot of moving parts, requires some dedicated maintenance to stay in working condition, and can be unreliable depending on who made it.

But how do I do all of this? What maintenance do I have to perform? How do I know my page is in good hands?

Okay, clearly you have a lot of questions about this process. But social media, while sometimes complicated, is often misunderstood and made to appear more complicated than it truly is.

Let's assume you've just started a Facebook page for your company. Whether this task was pushed onto your plate by your boss or you're a small business owner who does it all, you're likely wondering where you go from here, right?

The process is daunting, but here's a guide to stepping into the driver's seat and putting your Facebook page into drive so it can help bring in sales and assist in building a solid reputation for your business.

Your Page's Design is the Paint Job

There are two kinds of paint jobs that catch the attention of other drivers: the beautiful, custom jobs that make us turn our heads in envy and the rusty, mistreated ones that make us shake our heads in disgust.

Now, unless you've got a business based around rusty, mistreated cars, you're not likely to want one on the cover of your Facebook page. This means you'll want a custom cover, designed exclusively with your business in mind in order to attract the attention of Facebook users and brand your page as quality and worthy of a like.

How do I get a custom design, though?

If you're looking into hiring a digital marketing company to help grow your Facebook page, the service should cover inital design elements, including your profile picture and cover photo. If you're unable to secure those services, though, finding a graphic designer to create mockups is much easier than you might think.

99 Designs is a marketplace for graphic design, running on a unique platform that pits designers against each other in a battle for your business. They create mockups to your specification, and you only pay for the one you end up using on your Facebook page. This is great if you're looking to separate yourself from competitors who have shown little creativity with their social media efforts.

Can I keep things simple and still look good?

Of course! Have you ever seen Nike's Facebook cover? It's easily the most simple, yet powerful covers they could possibly use. It represents what the brand stands for with just three words: Just Do It.

You may not have a phrase that is universally linked to your brand, so that might not have the same effect. The point, however, is that no matter what you choose for your cover, it should display the image you're trying to present to your customers.

Other Great Examples

Ford Mustang

Spotify Red Bull

Facebook Ads Work Like an Engine

More than anything, your Facebook page needs visitors. You can use it as a placeholder just in case someone happens to be interested in looking up your business on the social network, or you can get proactive and work to get people liking and interacting with your page.

Facebook Ads are the most effective way to do this. You're able to reach out to Facebook users with interests that help connect them to your business, gaining the initial exposure that's crucial to a successful social media marketing strategy.

Much like an engine, Facebook Ads keep your business's page running by delivering more and more unique, targeted users that will like your page and share your content.

How do I maximize the value of my Facebook Ads?

In order to get the most bang for your buck, you want to make sure you're targeting the most appropriate demographic. For instance, if your business develops software that tracks employee productivity, it would be a complete waste to target 13-17 year olds on Facebook.

You should already have an idea of who your average customer is and use the tools Facebook provides to delve into local, interest-based targeting. Because if there's one thing you don't want to do, it's run a random ad campaign. Might as well throw your money off of a bridge.

What should I do to start with Facebook Ads?

• Experiment -- The best way to learn anything is by getting your hands dirty and learning what works and what doesn't. Facebook Ads are no different, as what works for one business may not have the same positive effect on another. Take time to experiment with different campaigns and get to know the system.

• Have a Budget in Mind -- You can easily test the waters with Facebook Ads and set a small budget to start with and build up more and more as the results come in. However, you should always have a budget you'd like to keep in order to avoid overspending.

• Set Daily Limits -- Always make sure your campaigns keep users coming in each and every day. You don't want to end up wasting your entire monthly budget all in one day, because that can easily happen on a site with over a billion users.

Quality Content is the Gas, Promoted Posts Work to Accelerate

Fueling your Facebook page with content is like giving it the gas it needs to assist the engine in keep the car running smoothly. But just like a sports car, your Facebook page can't just take any old content, it needs the good stuff: premium, quality content.

What kind of content should I post on Facebook?

• Images -- Facebook users love images. And while they may not be providing your website with direct traffic, they serve as a way for people to interact with and share your business's page. Think about it this way: If 100 people share one of your posts on their News Feed, it could potentially reach 33,800 people. I got that number from the fact that the average Facebook user has 338 friends. Now, if only 2% of those people click through to your page, your business has been exposed to 676 new users.

• Blog Posts -- Your business's website needs a blog almost as much as it needs the basic information about your business. A blog serves as a way of creating additional pages that work to associate your site with your industry in the eyes of search engines like Google and Bing. The more content your site produces, the better you'll rank, and the more customers will be able to find your business over a competitor.

• External Links -- Sharing high quality links related to your business is a great way to add more variety to your Facebook posts, but can also work as a promotion method if applied correctly. For example, let's say you run a small bakery that sells donuts, pastries, and other delicious breakfast items. You could post links to studies that prove breakfast is the most important meal of the day and make a suggestion from your shop.

• Questions -- Sticking with the bakery idea, asking questions via your Facebook page is a great way to get users interacting with your business, as well as a great way to steer conversation toward your products or services. If the bakery were to ask "What's your favorite breakfast food?" that could spark up conversations about the various items offered and potentially lure in a few customers.

• Promotions -- After running through these various posts, our bakery is wondering if there's anything more they can do to appeal directly to customers to draw in business. The best way to do this is to run promotions via Facebook, offering coupons to users. According to Jeff Bullas, the best way to approach coupons on Facebook is to offer a dollar amount, such as "$10 off." Users aren't likely to know your prices, and they especially don't want to do the math, so keep things simple.

So, what are Promoted Posts? Promoted Posts act as your foot on the accelerator, helping your posts reach more users and boosting your page past the competition. Unlike Facebook Ads, promoted posts put your content directly in the News Feed of the people you want to target, giving your business greater reach and another way to grow its following.

However, like Facebook Ads, they should be carefully experimented with, which will allow you to better understand what type of content works best with your target audience.

How do I determine what works for my page?

Once you've properly experimented by promoting the various types of posts mentioned above, take a look at your stats and posts for the following:

• Positive Comments -- When a user takes the time to write out a positive comment about your post, take pride. The average Facebook user can be exposed to up to 1,500 different posts each day, so if they choose to interact with your content, look at what you did right and take note of it for future posts.

• High Number of Shares -- Likes and comments are important, but shares are what you want more than anything. With shares, users are helping to promote your posts for you, which should tell you that they not only like it, but that their friends will like it as well.

• Page Like Increases -- Let's assume your business's page is growing by an average of 5 new likes per day. If one day, your stats jump up to 25 likes, and then drop back down to 5 the next, go back and take a look at what was posted that day. Use that data to get a better idea of the type of content that's helping your business's page grow the most.

Customer Interaction is Your Regular Maintenance

In order for your sports car to perform optimally, you need to make sure it's receiving regular maintenance. And in that respect, your Facebook page needs someone to look after it--someone who can interact with customers and give the page a personality beyond the actual content.

What good does customer interaction on Facebook do?

Let's suppose someone called our example bakery outside normal hours and left a voicemail with a question about whether or not it produced a particular pastry. Now, even if our bakery doesn't sell the pastry in question, we're going to call them back, right? Of course! They should know that we appreciate the fact that they took the time to call and let them know what we do offer.

Now, let's switch the phone call and voicemail with a Facebook comment on the bakery's page containing the same question. Would you still feel a reply is necessary? If not, why? Social media is the new customer support. Not everyone wants to call up our bakery when they have a question; they want the convenience of asking a question at 9pm and seeing a reply notification by the time they check their account at lunch the next day!

But beyond serving as another customer service platform, your general interactions will pay off if you take them seriously. Here are a few tips to help get you started:

• Reply to Every Comment -- In order to get the most out of the interactions on your page, make an effort to reply to every single comment on your posts. If you're a small business, that's not going to be a difficult task, as you won't be receiving hundreds or thousands of comments each day. This small act makes people feel special, letting them know that their comments are valued.

• Ask Questions -- Not every comment will open up opportunities for questions, but try to keep people talking as long as possible. This will not only increase the level of interaction on your page, it will allow you to make a personal connection with a potential customer.

• Control the Conversation -- At times, there are opportunities to steer the conversation toward your products or services. Make sure you have this planned out from the start, keeping in mind that there's a progression that needs to take place first. If someone is not showing interest, you don't want to push a sale and lose the connection.

Each Part Plays an Equally Important Role

Each one of these parts work together to create a Facebook page that proves to be valuable to your business. Make sure you're not ignoring one part by spending too much time on another.

Three Simple Rules to Follow

1. Your cover photo and profile picture must be visually appealing to users who click your ads or discover your page naturally.

2. Your content needs to great to get the most value from promoted posts and organic audience.

3. Your interactions have to be thought out to maximize the value of the user comments and messages.

Your Facebook page is a lot like a sports car. It's got a lot of moving parts, requires some dedicated maintenance to stay in working condition, and can be unreliable depending on who made it.

But how do I do all of this? What maintenance do I have to perform? How do I know my page is in good hands?

Okay, clearly you have a lot of questions about this process. But social media, while sometimes complicated, is often misunderstood and made to appear more complicated than it truly is.

Let's assume you've just started a Facebook page for your company. Whether this task was pushed onto your plate by your boss or you're a small business owner who does it all, you're likely wondering where you go from here, right?

The process is daunting, but here's a guide to stepping into the driver's seat and putting your Facebook page into drive so it can help bring in sales and assist in building a solid reputation for your business.

Your Page's Design is the Paint Job

There are two kinds of paint jobs that catch the attention of other drivers: the beautiful, custom jobs that make us turn our heads in envy and the rusty, mistreated ones that make us shake our heads in disgust.

Now, unless you've got a business based around rusty, mistreated cars, you're not likely to want one on the cover of your Facebook page. This means you'll want a custom cover, designed exclusively with your business in mind in order to attract the attention of Facebook users and brand your page as quality and worthy of a like.

How do I get a custom design, though?

If you're looking into hiring a digital marketing company to help grow your Facebook page, the service should cover inital design elements, including your profile picture and cover photo. If you're unable to secure those services, though, finding a graphic designer to create mockups is much easier than you might think.

99 Designs is a marketplace for graphic design, running on a unique platform that pits designers against each other in a battle for your business. They create mockups to your specification, and you only pay for the one you end up using on your Facebook page. This is great if you're looking to separate yourself from competitors who have shown little creativity with their social media efforts.

Can I keep things simple and still look good?

Of course! Have you ever seen Nike's Facebook cover? It's easily the most simple, yet powerful covers they could possibly use. It represents what the brand stands for with just three words: Just Do It.

You may not have a phrase that is universally linked to your brand, so that might not have the same effect. The point, however, is that no matter what you choose for your cover, it should display the image you're trying to present to your customers.

Other Great Examples

Ford Mustang

Spotify Red Bull

Facebook Ads Work Like an Engine

More than anything, your Facebook page needs visitors. You can use it as a placeholder just in case someone happens to be interested in looking up your business on the social network, or you can get proactive and work to get people liking and interacting with your page.

Facebook Ads are the most effective way to do this. You're able to reach out to Facebook users with interests that help connect them to your business, gaining the initial exposure that's crucial to a successful social media marketing strategy.

Much like an engine, Facebook Ads keep your business's page running by delivering more and more unique, targeted users that will like your page and share your content.

How do I maximize the value of my Facebook Ads?

In order to get the most bang for your buck, you want to make sure you're targeting the most appropriate demographic. For instance, if your business develops software that tracks employee productivity, it would be a complete waste to target 13-17 year olds on Facebook.

You should already have an idea of who your average customer is and use the tools Facebook provides to delve into local, interest-based targeting. Because if there's one thing you don't want to do, it's run a random ad campaign. Might as well throw your money off of a bridge.

What should I do to start with Facebook Ads?

• Experiment -- The best way to learn anything is by getting your hands dirty and learning what works and what doesn't. Facebook Ads are no different, as what works for one business may not have the same positive effect on another. Take time to experiment with different campaigns and get to know the system.

• Have a Budget in Mind -- You can easily test the waters with Facebook Ads and set a small budget to start with and build up more and more as the results come in. However, you should always have a budget you'd like to keep in order to avoid overspending.

• Set Daily Limits -- Always make sure your campaigns keep users coming in each and every day. You don't want to end up wasting your entire monthly budget all in one day, because that can easily happen on a site with over a billion users.

Quality Content is the Gas, Promoted Posts Work to Accelerate

Fueling your Facebook page with content is like giving it the gas it needs to assist the engine in keep the car running smoothly. But just like a sports car, your Facebook page can't just take any old content, it needs the good stuff: premium, quality content.

What kind of content should I post on Facebook?

• Images -- Facebook users love images. And while they may not be providing your website with direct traffic, they serve as a way for people to interact with and share your business's page. Think about it this way: If 100 people share one of your posts on their News Feed, it could potentially reach 33,800 people. I got that number from the fact that the average Facebook user has 338 friends. Now, if only 2% of those people click through to your page, your business has been exposed to 676 new users.

• Blog Posts -- Your business's website needs a blog almost as much as it needs the basic information about your business. A blog serves as a way of creating additional pages that work to associate your site with your industry in the eyes of search engines like Google and Bing. The more content your site produces, the better you'll rank, and the more customers will be able to find your business over a competitor.

• External Links -- Sharing high quality links related to your business is a great way to add more variety to your Facebook posts, but can also work as a promotion method if applied correctly. For example, let's say you run a small bakery that sells donuts, pastries, and other delicious breakfast items. You could post links to studies that prove breakfast is the most important meal of the day and make a suggestion from your shop.

• Questions -- Sticking with the bakery idea, asking questions via your Facebook page is a great way to get users interacting with your business, as well as a great way to steer conversation toward your products or services. If the bakery were to ask "What's your favorite breakfast food?" that could spark up conversations about the various items offered and potentially lure in a few customers.

• Promotions -- After running through these various posts, our bakery is wondering if there's anything more they can do to appeal directly to customers to draw in business. The best way to do this is to run promotions via Facebook, offering coupons to users. According to Jeff Bullas, the best way to approach coupons on Facebook is to offer a dollar amount, such as "$10 off." Users aren't likely to know your prices, and they especially don't want to do the math, so keep things simple.

So, what are Promoted Posts? Promoted Posts act as your foot on the accelerator, helping your posts reach more users and boosting your page past the competition. Unlike Facebook Ads, promoted posts put your content directly in the News Feed of the people you want to target, giving your business greater reach and another way to grow its following.

However, like Facebook Ads, they should be carefully experimented with, which will allow you to better understand what type of content works best with your target audience.

How do I determine what works for my page?

Once you've properly experimented by promoting the various types of posts mentioned above, take a look at your stats and posts for the following:

• Positive Comments -- When a user takes the time to write out a positive comment about your post, take pride. The average Facebook user can be exposed to up to 1,500 different posts each day, so if they choose to interact with your content, look at what you did right and take note of it for future posts.

• High Number of Shares -- Likes and comments are important, but shares are what you want more than anything. With shares, users are helping to promote your posts for you, which should tell you that they not only like it, but that their friends will like it as well.

• Page Like Increases -- Let's assume your business's page is growing by an average of 5 new likes per day. If one day, your stats jump up to 25 likes, and then drop back down to 5 the next, go back and take a look at what was posted that day. Use that data to get a better idea of the type of content that's helping your business's page grow the most.

Customer Interaction is Your Regular Maintenance

In order for your sports car to perform optimally, you need to make sure it's receiving regular maintenance. And in that respect, your Facebook page needs someone to look after it--someone who can interact with customers and give the page a personality beyond the actual content.

What good does customer interaction on Facebook do?

Let's suppose someone called our example bakery outside normal hours and left a voicemail with a question about whether or not it produced a particular pastry. Now, even if our bakery doesn't sell the pastry in question, we're going to call them back, right? Of course! They should know that we appreciate the fact that they took the time to call and let them know what we do offer.

Now, let's switch the phone call and voicemail with a Facebook comment on the bakery's page containing the same question. Would you still feel a reply is necessary? If not, why? Social media is the new customer support. Not everyone wants to call up our bakery when they have a question; they want the convenience of asking a question at 9pm and seeing a reply notification by the time they check their account at lunch the next day!

But beyond serving as another customer service platform, your general interactions will pay off if you take them seriously. Here are a few tips to help get you started:

• Reply to Every Comment -- In order to get the most out of the interactions on your page, make an effort to reply to every single comment on your posts. If you're a small business, that's not going to be a difficult task, as you won't be receiving hundreds or thousands of comments each day. This small act makes people feel special, letting them know that their comments are valued.

• Ask Questions -- Not every comment will open up opportunities for questions, but try to keep people talking as long as possible. This will not only increase the level of interaction on your page, it will allow you to make a personal connection with a potential customer.

• Control the Conversation -- At times, there are opportunities to steer the conversation toward your products or services. Make sure you have this planned out from the start, keeping in mind that there's a progression that needs to take place first. If someone is not showing interest, you don't want to push a sale and lose the connection.

Each Part Plays an Equally Important Role

Each one of these parts work together to create a Facebook page that proves to be valuable to your business. Make sure you're not ignoring one part by spending too much time on another.

Three Simple Rules to Follow

1. Your cover photo and profile picture must be visually appealing to users who click your ads or discover your page naturally.

2. Your content needs to great to get the most value from promoted posts and organic audience.

3. Your interactions have to be thought out to maximize the value of the user comments and messages.