In my previous Navigating SEO post, I introduced you to the idea of local SEO, its unique differences from organic results, and detailed a few of the most important ranking factors that could be helping or hurting your dealership's website.

Today, I'm going to go beyond the basic explanations and help you take action to improve your rankings and reach more ready-to-buy customers than ever before. It's not an easy process, but the results you can achieve will be the absolute most effective of any SEO strategy you're currently implementing.

Ready to work? Let's go!

Audit Citations

Your citations are probably a mess. I don't pretend to know that for a fact, but it's a trend I've noticed with every car dealership Wikimotive has worked with recently. 

Whether it's inconsistent phone numbers, changing business names, or poorly-formatted addresses, they all present issues when Google comes knocking. When it crawls the web, it's looking for consistent information about your business in order to determine that they're correct in placing your business in local results for specific keywords.

The more citations you have, and from high-quality/relevant sources, the more Google says "Ok, you're probably who you say you are, so let's get you ranked." (Note: I can't actually hear or talk to Google's search algorithm, so don't take that literally!)

To fix these inconsistencies to create or improve rankings, you need to actually find them. That's easier said than done.

Luckily for you, I have a handy tool to make that process as simple as possible.

Whitespark Local Citation Finder

Easily the best tool for citations, Whitespark searches the web for citations based on information you provide it so you can easily identify and correct inconsistencies.

Now, your dealership probably has multiple phone numbers it uses for tracking calls from specific sources. Make sure you search do unique searches with each of those numbers. It's very likely that most of your citation inconsistency is caused simply by phone numbers.

You want the SAME phone number on Google and citations. It's fine if you have multiple on sites like that allow you to add separate numbers for sales or service, but make sure the main phone number is the same throughout the web. That applies to all of your information, and we'll touch on that more in just a moment.

Once you've got your searches completed, use Whitespark to export that information to spreadsheets, make a new spreadsheet, and copy the information into a single file. Now the fun begins!

Doing the Work Manually Pays Off

So here's the deal: I love automation. It saves time, money, and is just plain simple. The problem? Sometimes it just doesn't work. And if you're in the business of providing a high quality service the way I am, or you just want to do what's right for your dealership, you've got to roll up your sleeves and do grunt work every now and then.

Before we get started, though, you need to get one thing done: deciding on the proper format for your citation information. Here's how that works.

These two citations are not the same:

ABC Motors of Rindge

1234 ABC Drive SW

Rindge, NH 03461

(123) 867-5309

ABC Motors - Used Car Superstore

1234 ABC Dr.

Rindge, NH 03461

(123) 867-5309

You need to stick with a single format. No exceptions!

Why Manual is the Only Way to Go

In the case of citations, doing it manually is really the only way to ensure everything is correct and that the job actually gets done. Citation management and creation services, such as Moz Local and Yext, are often slow and sloppy because they have to connect to third party sources, which often already have your business's information, which can lead to duplicate listings on a lot of sites.

Instead, you're going to go through and manually claim (and edit) each and every listing that Whitespark provided you. This will not be a fast job, so you need to come up with a game plan. Whether that's tackling ten listings per week for the next month or two, working over the weekend, or coming in to work early every day until it's done, make sure you stick to your plan.

Some sites have an extremely simple process of claiming, while some make you call and jump through hoops. Every site is different.

Once you get started, add the login/password for each site [that has one] to the master spreadsheet you created earlier. You don't want to lose those, just in case you need to update this information down the road!

Focus on Mentions and Links from Local Sources

You might be thinking to yourself: what's the difference between links from a local newspaper vs. a car blog?

Context.

Google knows the relevancy of content better than you might think. For instance, it knows that a link to a car dealer website on a site about rare African birds is completely irrelevant, and that a link to a car dealer on a blog about cars is completely relevant.

For a local site, such as a newspaper or independent blog, the context is clearly local. You're located in a certain city, the paper covers that city, and the content on the page likely mentions that location.

If you're doing any outreach or linkbuilding, try to spend more time focusing on local sources. Whether that means sending out press releases about events or news from your dealership, or connecting directly with local writers who might be interested in covering an automotive-related story, take action!

Whether it's a mention, which is known as an unstructured citation for local SEO, or an actual link, Google sees that as another indicator of the legitimacy of your business.

Conclusion

Don't overthink these tasks. They may be filed under the advanced category of local SEO, but the actual work is simple (but tedious). If you can successfully accomplish this, and work on building new citations, your dealership will be ahead of the curve and likely start ranking better than ever before. 

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

As Google and other search engines change, SEO changes along with it. One of the biggest changes to SEO recently was an increased focused on local rankings.

Completely separate from organic rankings, local rankings are special packs of businesses that show up for specific keywords. The purpose of these packs is to make it easier for users to get quick information about local businesses.

This information often includes name, address, phone number (NAP), reviews, and a link to the business's website. If your business is doing things right, it will show up for all sorts of locally-focused keywords that will send you more and more visits from ready-to-buy users.

But even if you are showing up, that doesn't ensure you'll always show up or maintain your current rankings. A focus on local SEO keeps you ahead of the curve, and prevents competitors from getting an upper hand on your business with their own campaigns.

Local SEO: Put Simply

SEO is optimization for organic results. Local SEO is optimization for local results. As stated above, local results are business-focused and completely separate from organic results.

While many of the same organic rankings factors apply to local rankings, there is specialized work that must be done to boost rankings.

The most important local-specific ranking factors include:

• Number of/Quality of Online Listings (YellowPages, Yelp, Foursquare, etc.)
• Accurate and Consistent Online Listings (Does this information match up from listing to listing?)
• Accuracy and Consistency of NAP (If things have changed, they need to be updated across the web.)
• Google My Business Page Signals (Keywords in Title, Categories, Information Accuracy, Reviews)
• Physical Location (Where your business is located plays a big role in these rankings.)

Understanding Local Ranking Factors

Unique local ranking factors are fairly simple to understand when compared to traditional, organic ranking factors. While there's a lot that goes into the rankings, getting your business on the straight and narrow is not as difficult as traditional SEO.

Online Listings a.k.a. Structured Citations

Your business is likely listed on YellowPages.com, Yelp, Foursquare, and many other locally-focused sites. These listings are often referred to as structured citations when talking about local SEO.

The quality of these matters just as much as quantity. By having your site listed on top sites for your industry, as well as major sites like those listed above, your citation profile will be in great shape.

Google My Business Page + Reviews

Your Google My Business page is the heart of your local SEO campaign. This is what's attached to your Maps listing, and the page that contains all of the information consumers want to know about your business at a glance.

A great My Business page will have a title that contains keywords people will be searching for to discover new businesses in their area. For instance, if I ran a used car dealership called "ABC Motors," I'd want to describe my business better than just ABC Motors, right? A great way to do this would just be to put "Used Cars" after the name of the dealership. (E.g. "ABC Motors - Used Cars")

From there, you want to ensure your main My Business category is set to "Used Car Dealer." You can then list your categories, such as "Car Dealer" or "Auto Repair Shop." When adding categories, Google will provide suggestions to help you maximize this feature.

Reviews are also an extremely important factor, as they not only can help boost local rankings, but improve website CTR (click-through rate) and increase in-person visits. (If you're out and about, would you choose to visit the dealer with a 4.5 rating and 100 reviews or the 3.0-rated dealer with only 10 reviews? Pretty obvious!)

A model review profile on Google My Business will have a 4.0 or higher star rating, a large number of reviews compared to other listings, and a regular flow of new reviews being left across the web.

Physical Location

Your location is a huge factor in Google's local results. These are based on your business's proximity to the centroid, which is the city center according to Google, or proximity to the individual searcher.

This factor gives a big boost to businesses located near the centroid, and those located near heavily-populated areas. What this means is, those located miles outside of their target city, or those located in a less-densely populated area, will likely rank lower than those favored by Google's proximity-based factors.

That puts your business at a slight disadvantage, but focusing on citations and organic SEO factors can help you outrank competitors at locations Google favors.

Next week I'll discuss ways you can fix issues with your local presence and give advanced tips for local SEO success.

Many of you may be scratching your heads, trying to think of a way decreased number Facebook Page Likes could actually improve your Facebook marketing. This seems like it would create the opposite...right?

In reality, Facebook decreasing page likes will make the likes that remain more meaningful, and in turn, create a better platform for you use for marketing.

How so?

As you may have heard, Facebook is getting rid of some Page Likes from people with voluntary inactive and memorialized accounts. These are Facebook profiles that are either no longer in use due to choice or of people who have passed on. Either way, they are not adding any value to your current page likes status.

Facebook has already taken a stance on declining overly promotional posts to prevent spammy advertising. They’ve also created a Facebook relevance score to help Facebook Ads users determine the quality of its overall performance.

Facebook decreasing page likes correlates with its goal of creating a better experience for its users; a consistent theme for Facebook changes in 2015 thus far.

So Why Am I Freaking Out Over the Loss of Facebook Page Likes?

It is natural to wonder how many page likes you will lose on your Facebook page and concerned about how it will affect your Facebook marketing strategies but the truth is, there’s no need for alarm.

Numbers are no longer as relevant as they once were in the early days of social media.

Instead, as a business, you need to refocus your time and energy on using platforms that can provide an ROI for your business. And Facebook is trying to help you do just that!

How are Decreased Facebook Page Likes Going to Improve My Facebook Marketing?

As Facebook decreases page likes, it will actually help your ability to target users, and will provide you with quality insights that will be more relevant to you now than ever before.

For instance, if your Facebook page likes consists of 500 voluntary inactive accounts or memorialized Facebook profiles, then your reach, engagement and time is worth nothing. Because in the end these users are no longer engaging with your page; they’re just empty numbers.

You might as well not even have a Facebook page if all you’re focusing on is page likes.

You need the number of Page Likes you have to be of active people on Facebook in order for your page to mean anything to Facebook, or more importantly, your business.

No matter how many page likes Facebook takes away from your page, know that it is only going to increase the quality within insights that can be used for better targeting within Facebook Ads, Facebook Posts and improve your knowledge about your demographic.

Your Audience Data is Your Key to Success

A number is meaningless if you cannot use it for your own gain. You need actual people to have success on Facebook or anywhere else for that matter. Having free audience data provided to you within Facebook Insights can help you determine your strategy, your next move, and how to target people that can (and will) purchase from you.

As you begin to see your numbers decline over the next few weeks, keep in mind that you are not losing people. Instead, you’re gaining more insight into your true audience.

That will be more beneficial to you, and make your time spent marketing on Facebook even more valuable.

***

You can watch me and Amanda Ryan provide Social Media tips every Thurs. at 3:30pm EST on Auto Dealer LIVE.

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

There are a few essentials to a great automotive SEO strategy: an up-to-date website, relevant content, and solid on-page optimization. You can go really far with just that, and there are plenty of sites that do.

But where do you go from there?

Throughout this series, I've given away a lot of advanced, automotive-specific SEO knowledge that dealers can implement in their stores. And in this post, things won't be any different!

If you want to take your dealership's SEO to the next level, these are the companions your strategy needs.

Brand-Focused Blogs

For dealers, a blog offers a simple, yet highly effective way to generate content while creating signals to your main content, which is focused on generating authority and rankings for high-value keywords.

To increase relevancy, it's best to separate your individual brands into individual blogs. You can provide higher volume brands (like Jeep, example) with more content than low-volume brands (such as Chrysler) without letting the low-volume brand content get lost in the mix.

The key to dealership blogs is to produce content that ties into, or expands upon, the content you're publishing about your products and services.

A great example is your new car models.

If you're a Jeep dealership, it's obvious you'd want to promote the brand's bestseller, the 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee. You'd start with a longform, information-heavy page about the vehicle on your main site.

From there, you supplement that with blog content about the Grand Cherokee. You could write about the history of the vehicle, break down the trim levels in an easy-to-understand format, or present the latest news about the model.

There are endless possibilities with a blog, and the more you utilize it, the better your results.

Social Media

Over the past year, a lot of people have claimed that social media activity doesn't help SEO. The idea that likes, shares, tweets, and other social actions affect search rankings is called social signals.

Google's Matt Cutts has stated that the company does not treat activity on popular social media sites any different than regular websites. What that means is, Google can't track activity that isn't public.

But what that also means is, it does track public activity and that activity has an affect on rankings.

When your content is shared by people with public accounts or pages with a lot of authority, Google notices.

With that in mind, you should be creating social media-friendly content that people really want to read and share with their friends!

Link Building Efforts

Link building is one of the most mysterious parts of SEO. Many marketing companies hide their strategy behind a wall of buzzwords, as if they're hiding a strategy as sacred as the Coca-Cola formula.

In reality, this is how simple link building can be:

1. Produce amazing content.
2. Find sites that link to similar, relevant content.
3. Sell your content as being valuable to those sites. (Don't be pushy, though!)
4. ???
5. Profit. (By getting more and more links from high-quality, relevant sites and seeing your rankings increase.)

Sticking with our 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee example, let's say you created the most comprehensive page about that model. You took cues from other sources, but went above and beyond to provide readers with the ultimate resource for information about the Grand Cherokee.

The problem with amazing content is, without promotion, it can't live up to its true potential.

Here's how to solve that:

1. Identify content that ranks for keywords you're targeting.​
2. Use Moz Open Site Explorer or another backlink analyzer to discover sites linking to that content.
3. Reach out to those sites with your content, informing them that you've got the most up-to-date information. Don't ask for a link or make it seem like you're doing them a favor. Simply let them know your page exists.
4. Track this outreach in a spreadsheet and start building relationships with the sites that respond positively.

Don't get me wrong, this is a lot of work. But now that it's been laid out for you, it doesn't seem that complicated, does it?

Feel free to ask any questions about any of the topics presented in this post! Next week, I'm going to tackle the new and confusing subject of local SEO!

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

As a website and business owner, you can do whatever you want with your website, as long as it's not illegal. But in order to rank on Google and reap the profits associated with organic traffic, you have to abide by their quality guidelines.

What are Google's Quality Guidelines, though?

Google's Quality Guidelines are a set of principles the company presents to website owners and administrators to give them a better idea of the qualities that Google looks for in a great website.

It's in Google's best interest to send users to pages with the most relevant, high quality content that also provide a clean user experience.

Without that, Google's own quality and user experience would be called in question.

So far, however, Google has been the most successful of all search engines at accomplishing this, and that's why their share of the search market is so high and why search marketers follow the company's actions so closely.

All business owners should look over the guidelines thoroughly and do their best to get their sites in order, but to make things easier for you I've put together a list of guidelines that are most likely being broken on today's dealership websites.

Create Pages with Descriptive Content

There's a major epidemic on most dealer websites: a lack of content.

Apart from standard content, such as homepage content, About page, service page, and other generic pages, there are more than a handful of pages on your average dealer's site with little to no content to describe the purpose of the page.

Many of these pages include loan forms, service forms, and other embedded applications that interested visitors would use to send you their information. Users know the purpose, but search engines can't judge a page based on embedded forms and applications from third parties. You need to explain the purpose of the page!

Not only will that help improve rankings for those pages, but users will also be presented with more information and be much more likely to convert.

On the flip side of this issue, you also need to create more content in general. With structure and a set internal linking strategy, you can start generating leads from quality content pages, as well as from the increased rankings you'll see as a result.

No Keyword Stuffing

Where some dealers lack content, others feature downright horrible content. One quality of really horrible content is keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing is an attempt to manipulate rankings by repeating a keyword unnaturally throughout a piece of content. Oftentimes, the practice is used around content that's not even contextually relevant to the keyword itself.

Many dealers still practice keyword stuffing as a way to grab traffic quickly for a variety of keywords without putting in the time and effort necessary to create unique, quality content.

Google doesn't beat around the bush with this practice:

"Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context."

No Reciprocal Linking or Paid Links

Years ago, exchanging links was a fairly regular practice. Find a site similar to yours and ask them if they'd link to you if you linked to them.

The problem with this is, Google uses links as a ranking factor, and found reciprocal linking to be a massive problem invading the overall quality of its SERPs (search engine results pages).

Businesses that still practice reciprocal linking today expose themselves to serious Google penalties that could seriously damage their online presence.

In addition, many dealers still participate in paid link schemes (some unwillingly thanks to shady marketing companies). A paid links is a any link, generally site-wide and keyword-rich, that is purchased from a site with the intent of manipulating Google's ranking algorithm.

Google has penalized many sites for these practices in the past few years, and even implemented an algorithm update (Penguin) to further dissuade it.

Don't Copy Content from Other Sites

One of the absolute worst practices that you can adopt as a website owner or marketer is copying content from other sites.

I don’t mean quoting sources, product descriptions, or specifications, either. I'm talking about copying an entire page from another site and publishing it on your own. Not only is it a bad practice, but it can be considered copyright infringement.

By creating original content, you're better able to stand out from existing content, and are much more likely to rank for keywords related to your target topic.

The Takeaway

Consider this post a wake up call and audit your site for issues that could hurt you down the road. No one sees a Google penalty coming, but I can assure you that you'll feel its impact when it happens.

Be sure to also read through Google's entire Quality Guidelines so you can know what to look for and enforce best practices on your dealership's site.

Have a question about Google's Quality Guidelines? Let's get a discussion going in the comments below!

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

Over the past three weeks, I've dropped a lot of SEO knowledge on dealers. The ultimate goal with this series is to take SEO and relate to the ins and outs of the car business.

Most companies hide behind a vale of secrecy when it comes to SEO, leading businesses to believe that there's some kind of secret sauce that marketing companies have hidden away.

Well, if that were true, I'm about to give away my recipe.

Here's how to create your own content strategy from the ground up.

Aligning Content and Goals

The problem with most dealership content is that it doesn't really align with the goals of the dealership. What are the goals of every dealership?

Sell more cars!

Which car could you be selling better? What's the most in-demand car in your area? The answers to these questions will help you focus on the topics that will impact your dealership the most.

Now, you know which cars are selling well and which could be selling better. The big question is, does user search data align with that? Let's consult Google Adwords to find out.

By using the Keyword Planner tool, you can discover which vehicle from a particular brand is getting the most search traffic. You want to base a lot of your content around the highest volume vehicles so you can grab a share of that traffic, which extends to longtail (unique) searches as well.

Think About Authority More Than Selling

It seems like the opposite type of mindset when your goal is to sell more cars, but writing copy that is all about "coming on down for great deals on the 2015 Acme Acmobile" won't win over search engines.

Your goal should be to make your site an authority on the models you sell.

And that doesn't mean just re-posting OEM vehicle descriptions and specs. (That would be duplicate content!) It means meticulously researching each vehicle, taking cues from content on other sites, and creating new, original content that is better than everything else out there.

You want to be an authority on theses vehicles because Google and search engines love information. These companies want to send their users to pages with the best information, and if you're not giving that to them, why should they send you free traffic in return?

Executing a Simple Content Strategy

Again, there's no secret sauce to creating a content strategy. Plenty of resources are available online to get you off the ground running.

The only difference between most content strategies is execution.

Some sites do it better than others because they employ a great company, while others struggle because they've settled for less.

As long as you're dedicated to going the extra mile, you'll see results. There are no shortcuts in SEO anymore. It's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

The Strategy

Content should be thought of in a tier system. Tier one is your main content page. It should focus on a dealer-related keyword, such as "NH Ford Dealer" or a model/service-related keyword, such as "Ford Mustang Boston."

These pages should be long, information-heavy, and designed to build an association between your site and the keyword (along with many other related keywords).

From there, tier two encompasses content meant to generate interest in your products. "How to Choose Between a Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro" is a great example of content that you'd use to build interest in the Mustang, while adding to your authority on that topic. You'd want to integrate keywords into these posts and link to the relevant tier one page.

While tier three should be scaled slowly, it's a powerful way to generate more content and increase traffic to your dealership's site. Tier three content can be blog posts, infographics, or videos that have mass appeal.

For instance, news about the Ford Mustang would be a great fit for tier three content.  Google and other search engines love fresh content! Google calls it "Query Deserved Freshness." By writing about big news related to the Mustang, you're telling Google that you've got your finger on the pulse, which further builds your site up as an authority.

Start Slow if Plan is Internal

SEO is not something you pick up one day and then drop the next.

Search engines are about as close to a living thing can get online, as SEO strategies change with updates. 

So don't go trying to conquer the world on day one.

Start with one brand and work your way up with a monthly schedule and plenty of time allocated to ensure quality. Once you've committed, don't go back; always move forward. If you're idea is to just "test" content and SEO to see if it works for you, don't bother starting.

Remember: this isn't advertising. You can't just throw money at it and get results. It's an ongoing effort, but the payoff is far superior to that of advertising.

The only question left is, do you want customers to find you or are you satisfied with trying to find customers?

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

January was a great start for car sales in 2015, making it a great time to be in this business! But while consumers are in the market and ready to buy, they first have to find your dealership. 

Now, every dealership gets foot traffic. You've got a giant lot full of cars after all, and you're hard to miss, unless you're in a poor location. The problem is, most car buyers aren't taking notes of the dealers close to them anymore and visiting them one by one to check out inventory. That entire process is online and can be done quickly and efficiently.

This means that being one of the first results car buyers see for high-volume keywords on Google, Bing, and Yahoo is a really important component to a successful dealership.

You can have great advertising and a great staff, but by not investing in your web presence you're only making it harder for ready-to-buy customers to find you. On top of this, you're simply making it easier for your competition to secure more and more leads from organic traffic, which are known to convert at the absolute best rates.

So what do you do if your website is underperforming while the market is growing?

Let's talk about that and then take action!

Your Website Provider/SEO Sucks

Not all website providers are equal, and most of you know that. But if your site is currently experiencing a dip in organic traffic, and I mean the type of dip that doesn't come up for air, you need to have a good, long discussion with your website provider and SEO vendor (if you currently have one).

Because while there are natural dips in organic search traffic throughout the year, there's no reason for a dip to last more than a month.

What that should be telling you is that you're losing your position in search results, and fast.

If your website provider and SEO company are giving you the runaround, start looking elsewhere.

Take some time to explore your options for website providers first. Whether that means asking in an industry Facebook group, in the comments of this posts, or checking out your competitors' sites, the first step is to identify a provider with a great reputation.

You Don't Have an SEO Strategy in Place

You all know what SEO is, but there's a lot of mystery behind it that makes a lot of dealers skeptical of the overall value.

Think of it this way:

SEO is advertising to search engines. In the same way you advertise your dealership on TV to build authority as a local brand, SEO is the way to show search engines that your site is an authority in your industry.

Without a strategy in place, however, you're not giving search engines a reason to give you authority. You need an optimized website, high-quality and relevant content, inbound links, and citations to set yourself apart from your competition to earn that valuable search engine authority.

You Lack Relevant, Quality Content

No matter what the situation is with your website provider or SEO strategy, content is essential.

Without content, search engines can't build strong associations between your site, high-volume keywords, and other unique queries that are semantically related to your business.

Think of Google like a shopper. If a shopper see two stores next to each other in a shopping mall, one with a sign that's inviting and gives an idea of what they sell and one with a vague sign that's not inviting or descriptive, which do you think the shopper would choose?

You need to produce the content necessary to help you build your own metaphorical inviting, descriptive sign for shoppers!

Have questions about dealership websites, SEO, or content? Let's get a discussion going in the comments!

Be sure to check out last week's post: How to Think About Keywords, Rankings, and Content in 2015

Negative reviews are often times regarded as one of the worst things that can happen to your dealership online, but in actuality, not responding to a negative review is even worse. Purchasing a vehicle is the second largest purchase your consumer is going to make and they will want to do their research online prior to buying.

On average, 10 reviews are read before your consumer makes a buying decision and research says 70 percent of consumers trust online reviews. It may seem that one negative review is harmless, but according to Convergys, one negative review can cost your business thirty new customers. To put this in perspective, if your dealership is not monitoring and managing its online reputation and has 10 negative reviews with no responses, it could mean that your dealership has lost 300 potential customers.

Negative reviews cannot be ignored for they will not go away; instead, embrace negative reviews as opportunities to prevent any potential damage from occurring. It is inevitable; reputation management needs to be a crucial part of your dealership’s online strategy.

According to Bazaarvoice, seven out of 10 reviewers said a response to a poor review from the business changed their opinion. This could mean that of the 30 customers lost by the negative review, a response from the dealership could save 21 of these relationships.

Responding to all reviews about your dealership is vital. Even if you see a review left by a customer you know and decide to call them to try to resolve the issue, you will still need to respond publicly online. Take care of your upset customer first, but always keep in mind of the potential customers who are researching your dealership with each negative review you respond to online.

Be proactive by having a reputation management strategy in place to retain customers and to obtain new ones. Consumers want to trust in the customer service you provide, online and off, and reviews help customers decide if your dealership is the right choice for them.

​

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

The best and worst part about SEO is that it's always changing. That means you have to always be on top of your game in order to be successful over time.

On top of that, it means you're always given a second chance to out-do your competitors, especially in the age of Google updates that threaten to penalize and shake up entire industry rankings.

But what if you don't do SEO on a daily basis? How are you, as a manager or business owner, supposed to make the right decisions when there's so much conflicting and outdated information about SEO out there?

To help you tackle this head on, I'll give you a quick update on keywords, rankings, and content to help you understand the best practices and strategies that will help you grow in 2015.

How to Think about Keywords in 2015

Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you that keywords are completely useless and that you've been wasting your time. They're still a very important factor in SEO, but they're also something most dealerships and SEO vendors need to rethink.

Instead of free-for-all over usage, which is considered keyword stuffing, use more natural language in the main body of your content.

For example, if your target keyword is "Jeep NH," you want to use that in:

• H1 Tag
• Title Tag
• First paragraph of your main text.

 But don't think that adding it 20 times throughout the page is going to make a difference.

A better way to utilize keywords throughout your site, and one that will actually pay off, is using phrases that are semantically similar to your target keywords when there's an opportunity.

In fact, apart from the optimization mentioned above, try to forget about keywords and just write really great content that someone searching your target keyword would want to read.

Think more about the context of keywords and you'll be better able to reach your target audience.

How to Think about Content in 2015

So now that you understand how you should think about keywords, let's dig into content. While it's one of the most important parts of SEO, it's also highly misunderstood.

My team and I have written extensively about content and how it relates to SEO over the past year, but I'll do my best to summarize the most important thoughts in this section.

Like keywords, content has changed. The days of being able to publish hundreds of pages with similar content in order to target 500 keywords are over.

Those who took the easy way out of SEO paid a huge price with Google's Panda update, which targeted sites that featured thin, valueless content (a.k.a. the kind of sites that regularly practice keyword stuffing).

The problem now is, how do you change your strategy without drastically increasing your budget?

You can't produce 1000-word high quality pages the same way as 300-word 'thin' pages, so something has to change.

Instead, you have to first prioritize what topics are most important to your business that can be deeply explored through new content efforts.

For instance, content pages for individual models are a great driver of targeted local traffic to dealership sites. But you can't just reword what's on the manufacturer's site or a site like Edmunds and expect to see results. You have to provide more than that.

Let's think for a second. If you're a customer searching for a specific model in a certain area, what are things you're going to want to know about that model?

You're going to want to get a basic understanding of the vehicle, and then have reasons presented to you that explain why you should buy it.

A great way to handle this on model content pages is to provide comparisons and reasons why the model is perfect for that region of the country or types of consumers (families, businesspeople, contractors).

Don't stop there, either! Look at how your competition, and even major automotive publications, handle their content. Try to find holes that can be filled to add more value to your pages.

Over time, this work alone tells Google and other search engines that you go the extra mile, and will make you stand out in a visitor's mind when their searching for cars in your area.

How to Think about Rankings in 2015

By now, we all know about the importance of search engine rankings. If you're the #3 spot for a keyword with 1000 searches, you're only going to receive the leftovers from the site at the top spot. That might vary, but it does pay to be #1.

Instead of constantly worrying about rankings for a few specific keywords, why not split your focus and go after more achievable longtail keywords?

You don't want to disregard the high-volume keywords, you just want to diversify your efforts. Longtail keywords are also known for converting at a much better rate than high-volume short-tail keywords, so you may end up thanking me down the road!

Now, don't think that I'm telling you to just let go of those high-volume keywords. You want those rankings! However, if things aren't working out, try out a new strategy.

Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result won't work, especially not in SEO.

One of the biggest shake-ups over the past year, and something to think about throughout 2015, is local SEO.

Google's local map packs are a completely different beast when compared to organic. They have similar ranking factors, but there's an increased importance on citations (directory listings and brand mentions) and consistency of information, such as your business's name, address, and phone number, across the web.

If you haven't already, consult with your SEO provider to check in on the status of your local rankings and what they're doing to improve those over time. (Feel free to also ask me any questions in the comments below, and I'll do my best to help you better understand that aspect of Google.)

Navigating SEO is a DrivingSales.com exclusive series by Timothy Martell, CEO of Wikimotive. Each Friday, Tim breaks down ways dealers can improve their SEO and offers insight into how it will benefit business.

Ever wondered who or what your site's worst enemy is?

You're probably thinking about the dealership across the street who outranks you on Google (or maybe Google itself), but you'd be wrong.  Your site's worst enemy is your own dealership.

Now you're probably asking yourself, "How can our store be our site's worst enemy?" and ready to scroll down to the comments section to write an angry reply. I wouldn't blame you, but hear me out.

The reason is, your dealership is both your site's biggest enemy and biggest ally. In the same sense that you, as an individual, are your own worst enemy, your dealership has the ability to make or break its SEO.

"But how do I know if I'm helping or hurting my site's SEO?" is what you're thinking now. You can't just talk to your site and ask it if it's doing okay like you can subconsciously.  If you don't know what to look for, you're left out in the cold.

So in this first Navigating SEO post, I'll dive into ways you can identify SEO mistakes that may be holding back your site's SEO.

Getting Complacent with Current Status

 If your dealership's site is succeeding in search, you should feel good. Getting more organic traffic and conversions than your competition is the ultimate goal, so if you're already sitting pretty there's no shame in calling yourself #1.

The problem is, if you're not actively engaging in SEO, there's no guarantee that you'll be #1 tomorrow. Now, there's never a guarantee with search engine rankings, but Google, Bing, and Yahoo don't sleep. Your competition might be working on initiatives right now with the goal of claiming your #1 spot.

If you're not doing SEO, you're only helping your competitors​.

Be proactive and don't take any of your SEO success for granted. This field is always changing and if you don't want to be left behind, you have to always have your finger on the pulse, and you can't ever be satisfied or think that you've improved enough.

Forgetting the Human Element

Your real target with SEO is not the search engine crawlers who index your site, or the algorithms that rank your pages. The real target is the person who's looking for a car dealership in your area.

Car buyers don't care about keywords or links; they care about relevancy, value, and usability.

Is your dealership's site providing that right now?  Are you thinking about your site's design, load speed, navigation, and overall usability?

If not, why? These are issues that need to be tackled immediately because they affect everything from rankings to conversions. Make it a priority to get a website audit and have usability tests done to see where there's room for improvement.

Your conversion rate will thank you.

Thinking Results Will Happen Overnight

You can't buy more organic search traffic the same way you pay for targeted traffic through PPC.

To achieve growth from SEO, you need a plan, time, and consistent execution.​

The most important thing to understand about SEO is that it's an investment. Just like advertising, you're investing a certain amount of money to reach an audience. With SEO, you're investing a certain amount of money to make it easier for an audience to reach you.

You need the right team in place, but if you're going to invest in SEO in the first place, you have to give that team time.

With this mindset, you're better equipped to understand how SEO works and how it can benefit your dealership.

Like this post? Read Nagivating SEO #2: How to Think About Keywords, Rankings, and Content in 2015