The conversation I had with one of our clients yesterday made me inquisitive (and a little infuriated) as to what dealers are being taught in regards to automotive SEO.  Everyone is on a tear to learn SEO for themselves, strategize for themselves, and implement things for themselves solely based on what they are learning from people inside the Automotive industry (hey dealers, there’s a plethora of the best SEO information in the world just outside our automotive bubble).

Our client has been with us for about a month.  They wanted to talk to me about the SEO strategy they’ve implementing internally over the past 45 days or so.  Their strategy was to go out and buy 50 individual domains, turn them into “microsites” and point all links back to their main domain.  Meanwhile, we haven’t even broached the subject of improving SEO on their main domain.  There are 1,000 things wrong with this strategy including the way they were implementing it.  These microsites were literally one page deep, contained zero content, zero META information and zero value in the eyes of Google.  Let alone the fact they were all the same, so there is a huge duplicate content issue (assuming there was any content).

These guys were “TAUGHT” that building as many microsites as possible and then linking them to their main website is going to increase their rankings.  WRONG! 

I’m angry.  Not at the poor guys who had to un-learn everything they were taught at NADA, but at all the WRONG SEO information that is floating around this industry.  SEO is not an art…nor is it a science.  It’s proven “theory-in-practice”.  But there are still SEO fundamentals that anyone who practices SEO should be aware of  - especially if they are out there preaching it to innocent dealers who know no different.  

That basic, simple, “SEO 101” theory is as follows: SEO YOUR MAIN WEBSITE, and for g-d’s sake please do some research outside this industry.  I have posted this before, but here again is a link to an article posted by one of the leading SEO professionals in the world, Rand Fishkin.  The article is called, “The Microsite Mistake”.  I’ll let Rand take it from here:  http://www.ecarlist.com/blog/2010/03/the-microsite-mistake/

 Here are some great SEO resources that apply universally:

www.searchenginewatch.com

www.SEOroundtable.com

www.sempo.org 

www.SEOMOZ.com

The conversation I had with one of our clients yesterday made me inquisitive (and a little infuriated) as to what dealers are being taught in regards to automotive SEO.  Everyone is on a tear to learn SEO for themselves, strategize for themselves, and implement things for themselves solely based on what they are learning from people inside the Automotive industry (hey dealers, there’s a plethora of the best SEO information in the world just outside our automotive bubble).

Our client has been with us for about a month.  They wanted to talk to me about the SEO strategy they’ve implementing internally over the past 45 days or so.  Their strategy was to go out and buy 50 individual domains, turn them into “microsites” and point all links back to their main domain.  Meanwhile, we haven’t even broached the subject of improving SEO on their main domain.  There are 1,000 things wrong with this strategy including the way they were implementing it.  These microsites were literally one page deep, contained zero content, zero META information and zero value in the eyes of Google.  Let alone the fact they were all the same, so there is a huge duplicate content issue (assuming there was any content).

These guys were “TAUGHT” that building as many microsites as possible and then linking them to their main website is going to increase their rankings.  WRONG! 

I’m angry.  Not at the poor guys who had to un-learn everything they were taught at NADA, but at all the WRONG SEO information that is floating around this industry.  SEO is not an art…nor is it a science.  It’s proven “theory-in-practice”.  But there are still SEO fundamentals that anyone who practices SEO should be aware of  - especially if they are out there preaching it to innocent dealers who know no different.  

That basic, simple, “SEO 101” theory is as follows: SEO YOUR MAIN WEBSITE, and for g-d’s sake please do some research outside this industry.  I have posted this before, but here again is a link to an article posted by one of the leading SEO professionals in the world, Rand Fishkin.  The article is called, “The Microsite Mistake”.  I’ll let Rand take it from here:  http://www.ecarlist.com/blog/2010/03/the-microsite-mistake/

 Here are some great SEO resources that apply universally:

www.searchenginewatch.com

www.SEOroundtable.com

www.sempo.org 

www.SEOMOZ.com

Can you spot it?  It's the sign of misplaced priorities.  That's not a Toyota.  It's a Nissan Juke.  And as you read this, it's probably still sitting proudly on the website of a very large dealer group's franchise flagship store.  

This dealer's priority was "SEO".  It wasn't usability, aesthetics, functionality, integration, or even process.  It was S - E - O.  They decided to get a website with what they perceive is the best automotive SEO company in our space.  The problem?  The website is not good.  The SEO may or may not be good, but let's assume it's great.  It's irrelevant because  this image is one of approximately 30 mistakes that I found on this dealers website - all to do with usability.

But it's ok, because the SEO is all that matters.  Right?  I feel badly because dealers have been hammered over the head with the SEO Hammer for so long, they are almost brainwashed walking around in some SERP-induced comma.  

Dealers, please...get your priorities in order.  SEO is allowed to be one of them, but putting SEO above website usability (and in this case accuracy) is putting the cart directly in the way of the horse.  

Can you spot it?  It's the sign of misplaced priorities.  That's not a Toyota.  It's a Nissan Juke.  And as you read this, it's probably still sitting proudly on the website of a very large dealer group's franchise flagship store.  

This dealer's priority was "SEO".  It wasn't usability, aesthetics, functionality, integration, or even process.  It was S - E - O.  They decided to get a website with what they perceive is the best automotive SEO company in our space.  The problem?  The website is not good.  The SEO may or may not be good, but let's assume it's great.  It's irrelevant because  this image is one of approximately 30 mistakes that I found on this dealers website - all to do with usability.

But it's ok, because the SEO is all that matters.  Right?  I feel badly because dealers have been hammered over the head with the SEO Hammer for so long, they are almost brainwashed walking around in some SERP-induced comma.  

Dealers, please...get your priorities in order.  SEO is allowed to be one of them, but putting SEO above website usability (and in this case accuracy) is putting the cart directly in the way of the horse.