While SEO is a simple practice once you learn the basics (and begin implementing strategies and techniques), it's often intimidating to beginners and those who don't specialize in digital marketing.

In order to help more and more people learn about SEO in a simple and organized fashion, Search Engine Land created the "Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors." At a glance, it provides a fundamental guide to the practice, but lacks the detail necessary to go from crawling to walking. Below, we'll take a look at the content section of the table and dig deeper into the world of content for SEO to shape how you think about content and help you jumpstart your SEO.

Cq - QUALITY

You've probably heard the term "quality content" more times than you care to remember. To cut out the confusion once and for all, there is no real definition to let someone know what separates good quality content from bad quality content.It's mostly a feeling.

• Did you write enough to properly cover your topic?
• Did you add too much content? (Fluff, irrelevant points, etc.)
• How was your grammar?
• Did the piece flow from one part to another?
• What about relevant images, videos, links?

All of these questions need to be answered confidently before you can truly call your content "quality."

Cr - RESEARCH

Even if your piece is a simple 500-word blurb on a topic, knowing the type of phrases and language people will use when searching this content is extremely important.

Break out the Keyword Planner Tool found in Adwords and really take a few minutes to discover keywords related to your target topic. The most basic optimization may not take a post from zero to hero on its own, but it can give it the extra boost in needs to bring in a good flow of regular traffic.

Cw - WORDS

Did you integrate the phrases and keywords you discovered? How did you add them in? Did it affect your content's quality? (The way it reads and flows naturally.)

While inserting keywords for the SEO benefit is something most SEOs practice on a daily basis, you can't ruin the reading experience for the end user just to satisfy search engines.

Cf - FRESH

Covering topics that are "in" or "trending" is not a new phenomenon, but Google rewards this with what they call "Query Deserved Freshness."

The update itself is not new, and has been in action since 2007, but knowing that a certain type of content is treated differently in the SERPs may change how you create content, especially if you're in an industry where there's plenty of news.

For example, I love to take trending topics and turn them into longform content that goes beyond what other sites are reporting at the time. Because not all readers are able to follow stories that update several times, so answering all of the questions they could have in one epic post is an extra way to add value while attaching your site to the QDF Train.

Cv - VERTICAL

While I mentioned images and video in the quality section, the "vertical" Search Engine Land lists in their Periodic Table of SEO has to do with search engines that are dedicated to a single vertical.

For example, Google Images is all about images, while Google News focuses on timely news related to pre-set categories or topics you search for on the site. In order to have a balanced assortment of content, it's a good idea to try creating content for these different verticals.

Whether that means utilizing custom photography or other imagery, shooting videos, or publishing regular news articles, it's possible to gain traction in multiple areas of content beyond just the written word.

Ca - DIRECT ANSWERS

Most sites might think they don't have a lot to provide Google with in regard to its Knowledge Graph, Direct Answers, and other useful information you see when you directly embedded in the SERPs nowadays.

Using on-page markup and structured data, such as Schema, you can optimize your pages to increase the likelihood that your content will be picked up by the Knowledge Graph and used in quick answers. Many SEOs are against the idea of Google embedding information directly on the SERPs, while others see it as an easy way to stand out from the crowd.

If picked up as a source of information, it's also another source of traffic to your site when users click on the source link Google often provides when pulling information from third-parties.

Vt - THIN

While your definition of quality may be different than mine, I like to think most digital marketers truly know the difference between quality content and thin content. It's often something you can spot within a few seconds of landing on a particular page, but some pages disguise thin content with well-designed pages and content templates.

Other terms used to describe thin content include "lacking substance," "useless," and "vague." This doesn't necessarily mean the content was too short, as many confuse thin content with anything under a certain word count. Unfortunately, content can be thin even at 4,000 words. This is because Google's algorithm can't effectively rate your content based on its merit just yet.

The search engine relies mostly on data from users to tell if content is supplying users with answers or not. If the data shows people bouncing from your site at an extremely high rate, it's likely your content sucks and isn't what search users are looking for.

While more words on the page can contribute to higher time on site, it can't prevent high bounce rates. Whether that means you work on increasing the quality of your content, or begin implementing a more hyper-focused approach to your topics, do your best to think of your target audience and what they want first and then worry about optimizing for Google and other search engines.  

As you expand your knowledge of content and how to utilize it for SEO, you should naturally be mindful of ways you can improve your content. If necessary, create a checklist that you can use to go through each element mentioned in the content section of the Periodic Table of SEO. This will help you identify errors in your content, and will bring better content rankings and reader engagement. Good luck!

For many SEOs, content marketers, and writers, generating ideas for content is one of the most difficult tasks to perform, especially as a beginner.

But whether you're just getting started or simply struggling with a business SEO strategy, this five-step guide will help you shape how you generate ideas and help you focus on your goal of creating the absolute best content on the web.

Step 1: Do Your Keyword Research

Like many SEOs and content managers, I believe the first step in any content idea generation process should be keyword research.

Do I think it's an absolute necessity to drive organic traffic? No.

Do I think it's better than not doing any research? Yes!

The reason I do keyword research for most of my idea generation is simple: I want to know what people are searching so I can help answer simple questions, solve complex problems, and entertain readers.

If I decide one day to write a post about the best pens hotels leave in guests' rooms, how do I know this is topic worth covering if I don't have any data to back it up? Well, I don't.

So by moving forward and writing that post, I'm essentially walking into this topic blind. You wouldn't drive your car blind, would you? Of course not. You want to know where you're going. Content and SEO are no different, which is why we do keyword research.

Step 2: Mind Map from Keyword to Topic

Once you've got your main, generic keyword on the topic you want to cover, put that keyword through Google's Keyword Planner Tool and make a list of high-volume keywords that are directly related to your main keyword. For instance, if my main keyword was "Batman," here's what a list of my related keywords would look like:

• Batman Movies
• Batman Games
• Batman Costume
• Batman Toys
• Batman Quotes

From here, you want to create a mind map (I use Bubbl.us), starting with your original keyword "Batman" and add your related keywords  to start the map.

Step 3: Go One Level Deeper

Head back to the Keyword Planner and toss your related keywords in one at a time. Take a careful look at the results.

What pops out at you? Don't just immediately run with the keyword that has the highest volume. Choose something with a good amount of traffic, great potential, and fun factor.

While the ultimate goal is to rank for a specific keyword, as well as those semantically similar, you also want your content to be shareable. Social media acts as a huge discovery platform, and can lead to plenty of links if your content is great and promoted properly.

Step 4: Think About Intent

Intent is one of the single most important lessons you need to learn in order to produce great content. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the person searching for "Best Batman Toys" and think about what they would want to click on after searching that query on Google or any other search engine.

The search "Batman Toys" doesn't tell us much about intent. More than likely it's half inquires for information on various Batman toys on the market, and half shoppers looking to buy Batman toys. "Best Batman Toys," on the other hand, is not too vague. If someone submits that query, they're looking for the best Batman toys.

To be fair, though,they could be looking for the best of all time, or simply the best available now. You can choose one, the other, or just try to tackle everything in one incredible piece of content.

Step 5: Provide Value to the Searcher

From here on in, keywords don't matter. You've done your research, picked your topic, and now it's time to take action.

The ultimate goal here is to provide value to the searcher. Whether that be a group of college kids looking for a list of Batman drinking games or a diehard Batman fan in need of motivational quotes from their favorite character, your content should go above and beyond to satisfy them.

Don't think about how well you can optimize this page; just think about how the search user will react when they land on your page. Will they be dumbfounded by the amount of detail you went into on the topic, or will they simply be turned off by your failure to understand exactly what they were looking for?  

There's no secret formula to this process. It all depends on how badly you want to succeed. So don't give up if you fail to rank for the first few months. Simply take notes on how each piece of content performed, how you can improve, and follow through to grow as a writer and marketer.

Whether you’re in PR, linkbuilding, or other forms of digital marketing, one part of your job might be reaching out to bloggers with requests for coverage or links. As a veteran blogger, I’ve been sent thousands of pitches and replied to only a small percentage of them.

Recently, I’ve begun reaching out to bloggers with requests of my own and have used many of the tactics that worked on me to win them over.

I should keep them to myself, as less competition will help me ultimately succeed more with more and more blogs, but I will release five of the best tips that will help you increase the effectiveness of your outreach.

Keep the Request Quick and Direct

The problem with most outreach emails I receive is that the sender is trying too hard to convince me to fulfill their request.

People constantly want to set up phone meetings or video chats to rope you into listening to their pitch. If you do this, please stop. The average writer/blogger doesn’t have time for that in 2015. We’re trying to juggle multiple stories at once and anything extra could bring us down like a house of cards.

The solution? Keep it quick and be direct.

The only times I reply to an email pitching me on a product or service is when the request is quick and direct. You want me to write a post about your line of products, link to your site in an older post, tweet that your company is awesome, or whatever other request you have–just tell me that.

I don’t need to know some BS about why I should do it, just give me the details so I can decide whether or not I’m interested. This leads me to my next point…

Do the Heavy Lifting Yourself

If you want a better chance of getting replies and requests fulfilled, go above and beyond for the recipient. Don’t just say, “Hey, would love if you checked this out and did something with it.” Because unless the product or service your pitching stands out as perfect for the blogger or ground-breaking in its industry, the blogger needs to do most of the heavy lifting.

Take the time to give each individual blogger suggestions on how they can integrate your content into theirs. Whether that’s straight up offering a free sample or trial of service to suggest a review or sending a post idea with an outline they can use.

The idea is to make yourself stand out from the crowd of press releases and spam that tend to accumulate in a blogger’s email and make yourself useful!

Don’t Ask to Schedule a Call

Everyone claims to be busy, but bloggers really are busy. So when you suggest a phone call to discuss your pitch in more detail, they start to hyperventilate.

The last thing someone with deadlines needs is to waste time on a phone call when you could simply send them all of the information they need to know via email. It falls under the heavy lifting category, as this is you trying to save yourself time.

You’ve probably also been told that if you can get someone on the phone you’ll have a better shot at getting your request fulfilled. (That’s a sales tactic, and it won’t work on bloggers!)

There’s nothing wrong with sending all of the information they could ever need and also asking if they’d like to connect on a call. The problem comes when the call stands in the way of the blogger getting the initial information.

It may take you longer to complete, but I can guarantee that you’ll have a better success rate if you put all your cards on the table up front, instead of trying to reel a blogger into an unnecessary meeting.

Personalize Your Email to Each Blogger

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to outreach is most people don’t bother personalizing the email to the recipient. They have a template and a list of email addresses, and they blindly blast email after email.

Don’t be one of those people!

Go beyond just adding in your target’s name and get to know them. You may find they hate unsolicited emails, prefer to be pitched at a different email address, or enjoy the convenience of talking on Twitter or other social networks.

You can also discover things about them to mention in your email. You don’t want to stroke their ego too much, as that comes off as disingenuous, but try to make a connection between what they do and your pitch.

Follow Them on Social Media First

This might not always work, but most bloggers are active on social media, especially Twitter. This makes it easy to find and follow most bloggers, get to know them a bit more, and get their attention.

Now, the goal here is to get their attention BEFORE you send your pitch. Make them think you discovered them on social media instead of through their site, as that will make your pitch look less crafted for linkbuilding or press value. This means waiting at least a day or two after following and interacting with them on Twitter before sending your pitch.

They likely go through new followers every day or two, so there’s a good chance they saw you or your brand’s name. If they then check their email and see it again, there’s a good chance they’ll read it to see what you have to say.

Have fun with outreach, and don’t get caught up in the cycle of templates and blasting emails. You can have a ton of success by simply putting in extra work and targeting your outreach to the right people!

Bonus Infographic: The 5-Point Blogger Outreach Checklist

When someone new to digital marketing reads about link building strategies, it’s likely a confusing and stressful experience. The reason is, most people try to complicate the process to sell services by convincing you there’s something proprietary about their methods.

Now, most businesses should consider SEO or link building services if they want to get results, but the cost is something many small businesses simply can’t afford. But instead of just forgoing link building altogether, you need solutions that fit your business, right?

That’s why I’ve put together a list of five simple link building strategies that small businesses can start immediately. So take notes and start building links!

Sponsor Something Locally or Create Your Own Event

Local businesses are often asked to sponsor events, children’s sports teams, and school functions. And while many see some of these are charitable or simply promotional, most of the organizations looking for sponsorship would be happy to feature you on their website or already do it as a part of the sponsorship.

When looking for opportunity’s, check out the  organization or event’s website to see if they link to their sponsors.

Alternatively, you could create your own local event, which will attract plenty of link opportunities from local press, event trackers, and perhaps other local businesses.

Become a Source for Reporters

Local press is huge for small businesses, but there are other ways small businesses can utilize the press to aid in link building efforts.

One of the best ways is by signing up to be a source on Help A Reporter Out (HARO), a service that connects journalists and bloggers with sources that can help them craft the perfect story.

So if you run a car dealership and a reporter was seeking someone with experience in the automotive industry to comment on last month’s national car sales report,  you could reach out that reporter directly with an original comment. If the reporter likes it, they’ll quote you and often leave a link to your company.

Offer Products to Industry-Related/Local Bloggers

Bloggers love it when businesses reach out with free products/samples. Whether you’ve got a local shop or sell a retail product, reaching out to bloggers is a great way to get your brand in front of readers, get links, and build relationships.

Take some time to research blogs/bloggers in your industry or local area and simply ask for their shipping details or invite them to your shop at a specific time. When presented with such an easy answer, most bloggers will respond, which will give you an opportunity to pitch them.

Turn Non-linked Mentions into Links with Outreach

Most business owners are happy to receive mentions of their business in articles or on resource pages. Known as “citations” to SEOs, they offer some value on their own, but offer even more as links to your business’s website.

In this guide on getting sites to link these mentions, I break down my own personal method for discovering and reaching out to sites that have mentioned your business but not linked. It takes less than 15 minutes, but can add a ton of great authority that you might have otherwise overlooked.

Create Resourceful Content Using the ‘Skyscraper Technique’

Envisioned by Brian Dean of Backlinko, the “Skyscraper Technique” is one of the easiest ways to create truly amazing content that’s worth linking to more than any other similar piece.

Because one of the realities of content today is that there’s just way too much of it being created. If you’re just throwing more of the same onto the web, no one is going to value it, as it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

To change this, many bloggers and businesses employ the Skyscraper Technique using these three simple steps laid out by Dean:

1. Find content that has attracted links
2. Make that content even more attractive by building upon the foundation
3. Reach out to relevant sites that link to similar content

It’s that simple. You might not hit a home run on your first try, but the pay off of valuable links makes it more than worth the time and effort.

Taking Action

If you’re a small business owner with a few employees but no real marketing budget, turning these ideas into a reality can be tough. But you don’t have to do it all at once.

The order in which these strategies are presented is a great way to get started, meant to build up your comfort level and experience in link outreach.

Like most things in life, you’ll learn as you go. Good luck!

This post originally appeared on Wikimotive's blog on February 16, 2015. 

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!

There are many mistakes companies and marketers alike make when breaking into digital marketing. Whether we’re talking about automotive SEO, PPC, or social media, you have to understand the fundamentals of each type of marketing strategy before you can truly create successful campaigns.

If your business is looking to invest time and money into a new digital marketing strategy, in order to succeed, you need to avoid these five basic mistakes:

Thinking in Terms of Pure Traffic and Volume of Rankings

When you’re just starting out in digital marketing, building traffic can be addictive. But like any addiction, it’s unhealthy.

Your goal should be to grow traffic, but do you know where the traffic is coming from and who your audience is? We’ve talked about targeting by location and interest many times before on the Wikimotive blog, but it really is one of the most important things to consider.

And the same is true of content, whether it be on-site, or on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Creating content is not about volume anymore. Customers expect a higher quality from businesses, and throwing content at them hoping something sticks is the worst approach you can take.

Instead, focus on creating content you’d want to click on or share if you were a potential customer. That doesn’t mean post irrelevant content, it means get your customers excited about your products.

Trying to Appeal to Everyone on Social Media

Unless you’re a national or international brand, you can’t appeal to everyone. And even if you are, you still have an audience with specific interests.

Take the time to test the waters and keep track of what does and doesn’t work. If you’re a car dealer, reach out to your local community while reinforcing your inventory by posting content that inadvertently helps sell more cars. You don’t have to always focus on an actual piece of inventory or the idea of “SELL, SELL, SELL” in order to generate real leads.

With the tools Facebook and other social media sites are developing for businesses, it’s becoming easier and easier for local and small businesses to target the people who are in the market for a car or have an interest that matches up with your current customer base.

Not Investing Enough or Going the Cheap Route

More money is not always the answer to digital marketing problems, but when a service’s cost seems unnaturally low for the work required, you can guess the results.

In order to succeed with SEO, PPC, or social media, you have to invest. SEO requires custom attention and strategies, PPC requires a multitude of campaigns, and social media is vastly becoming pay to play.

The harsh reality is that your business has to spend money to make money. You understand how that works with traditional marketing, and the same principles apply to digital marketing.

Failing to Understand Statistics and ROI

Many digital marketing professionals will show businesses results without delving deep into the statistics behind those results. For instance, you can be at the top of page 1 for 1000 different searches on Google and never see a single lead or sale as a result.

Why is that? 

Because no one is actually searching for the terms your dealership's automotive SEO company is working on. That’s why it seems so easy for them to achieve, and why you’re not seeing more sales.

Take the time to access and assess your website’s analytics and line those up with incoming leads and sales. The ROI is often hard to pin down, and won’t happen overnight, but you know there is a point where something has got to give.

Not Being Patient Enough with New Strategies

Like I said, ROI doesn’t happen overnight. Patience with your digital marketing company or new internal marketing strategies is crucial to seeing real results.

SEO and social media can be particularly slow at the start of a new campaign. It takes time to build search engine authority and to grow an audience worth marketing to on several different social media sites.

If you want to separate yourself from the competition, however, SEO and social media are the keys to digital marketing success.

Originally featured on Wikimotive's blog under the title "5 Mistakes to Avoid When You’re New to Digital Marketing."

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In the latest addition of Google’s human search rater guidebook, the company introduced a new page rating concept used to manually rate the quality of a website and its pages. The practice of using human search raters is a crucial part of the way Google updates its search algorithm. Because as with any experiment, you want to test your theory.

The new concept Google introduced is called “E-A-T,” which stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.” In reality, this idea isn’t too different from what Google, search professionals, and digital marketing companies have been saying about quality content for years. But with an official abbreviation and plan laid out within the human rater guidebook, we now understand exactly how Google is thinking about these topics.

Getting to Know E-A-T

More and more, Google is placing emphasis on the quality of a website’s content. What this means is, the company understands how to rank pages better based purely on its content, rather than relying on inbound links, keywords, and other indicators that can easily be manipulated.

Expertise

As a user, when you search Google for information on a topic, especially one that may affect your life, such as financial, medical, or legal advice, you want to hear from an expert. Google understands this, which is why they’ve told human raters to consider the author of the content as a ranking factor.

How Google builds internal profiles for individual writers and tracks them across the web without fail is still questionable, but the basic takeaway here is that you want the information on your site to be backed up by facts.

But before you rush out to hire experts in your industry to produce your content, you have to understand that Google also tells its raters to keep an open mind as to what “expertise” entails.

Someone with no formal education could still, from personal experience, be able to provide sound financial advice to someone looking to get out of debt. Radio personality Dave Ramsey is a good example of someone Google would likely consider an expert in personal finance, despite the fact that Ramsey is not formally educated in any topic related to personal finances. His advice, however, is trusted by many, which we’ll delve more into later.

Authoritativeness

Authority has always played a large role in the way Google ranks websites and pages. But this new way of thinking about content weighs authority in a much different way than how many links are pointing to a page and where they came from.

Instead, Google wants its human raters to determine authority based on a website’s overall content quality, relevancy, and reputation. Keeping with the Dave Ramsey example, you’re likely to find a lot of useful, quality information that relates to personal finance on his website. The way that’s often packaged may be diverse, such as articles on budget-friendly family activities or how to properly sell your home, but they’re written around Ramsey’s financial principles.

Of course, Ramsey’s advice is often criticized, which could actually hurt his site’s ability to rank as an authority in Google’s eyes. Meanwhile, sites like CNN Money, BankRate, and DailyFinance are much more likely to rank higher because they’re less likely to post controversial advice or opinions.

Trustworthiness

From the information Google provided in its latest human rater guidebook, trust has a lot to do with your site’s reputation. If you’re a business, your site’s rating may be dependent on your business’s reputation.

Google tells its human raters to look for “reviews, references, and recommendations” to help them understand what experts and users or customers think about your business or your site’s content.

Awards are referenced as a way for raters to distinguish higher quality publications from others when thinking about news websites specifically. For example, if a publication won the Pulitzer Prize, it’s a strong indicator that the site’s quality standards are high and that those looking for quality news should visit that site over a less-reliable source. How Google values other awards that may be found on the web is not clear at this time.

What Does This Mean for the Future of SEO?

In the end, Google is looking for more and more diverse ways to distinguish good content from bad content, to make manipulating search rankings more difficult. To stay ahead of the curve and ensure future rankings, you have to work on establishing your site as a credible source of information.

Whether that information is related to your business or your site covers a specific topic like personal finance, the more work you put into your content, the more Google will reward you. It’s very basic advice, but that’s the direction in which Google is headed.

Orignially posted on Wikimotive's company blog under the title "What You Need to Know About Google’s E-A-T Evaluation System."

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.