Over the next couple of weeks I will be going into more detail about how social media is utilized as an SEO tool for car dealers. We will go over some of the various components that we've been "playing with" over the last couple of years (and ramping up tremendously in the last few months) that have yielded some incredible results. This will be a Driving Sales exclusive.

Google and Bing have both acknowledged their use of social signals in their search algorithms. This is different than the sheer link-building aspect of social media. Social links are viewed very differently than standard website links. Twitter, for example, uses the "nofollow" attribute on their links and shrinks them. Two years ago, this made them relatively-worthless from an SEO perspective. Today, there are ways to use Twitter to push your pages over the threshold and achieve better rankings for individual pages and the entire domain in general.

That's just Twitter, and it's not the most important social site anymore when it comes to search rankings. I'll go much more in-depth here on Driving Sales about how they work and what you can do to improve your search rankings as a result, but in the meantime please check out this infographic by CMO that breaks down how some of the biggest social networks can be used for SEO and other things.

Click to enlarge.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be going into more detail about how social media is utilized as an SEO tool for car dealers. We will go over some of the various components that we've been "playing with" over the last couple of years (and ramping up tremendously in the last few months) that have yielded some incredible results. This will be a Driving Sales exclusive.

Google and Bing have both acknowledged their use of social signals in their search algorithms. This is different than the sheer link-building aspect of social media. Social links are viewed very differently than standard website links. Twitter, for example, uses the "nofollow" attribute on their links and shrinks them. Two years ago, this made them relatively-worthless from an SEO perspective. Today, there are ways to use Twitter to push your pages over the threshold and achieve better rankings for individual pages and the entire domain in general.

That's just Twitter, and it's not the most important social site anymore when it comes to search rankings. I'll go much more in-depth here on Driving Sales about how they work and what you can do to improve your search rankings as a result, but in the meantime please check out this infographic by CMO that breaks down how some of the biggest social networks can be used for SEO and other things.

Click to enlarge.

This is a topic that has been covered many times before. Often I see blogs get started but eventually abandoned or automated with scraped content from other sites. I'm going to take another stab at this, only this time I'm making my plea in video format.

Below you'll see the first video in the series, "Driving the Point Home" where I go "off the cuff" on various topics pertaining to automotive internet marketing. We already have several videos recorded and will be posting them from time to time on Driving Sales.

There are 4 primary reasons but be sure to pay closest attention to the last one. I don't know how else to convey how important it is to have a humanized component in the dealership's marketing strategy. Hopefully, this will be enough to spark some creative juices and the gumption necessary to stay consistent with blogging.

This is a topic that has been covered many times before. Often I see blogs get started but eventually abandoned or automated with scraped content from other sites. I'm going to take another stab at this, only this time I'm making my plea in video format.

Below you'll see the first video in the series, "Driving the Point Home" where I go "off the cuff" on various topics pertaining to automotive internet marketing. We already have several videos recorded and will be posting them from time to time on Driving Sales.

There are 4 primary reasons but be sure to pay closest attention to the last one. I don't know how else to convey how important it is to have a humanized component in the dealership's marketing strategy. Hopefully, this will be enough to spark some creative juices and the gumption necessary to stay consistent with blogging.

Google takes a lot of heat in the tech world for being too powerful, potentially evil, and undoubtably ambitious. It comes with the territory; rarely can a company attain the level of complete domination within an industry the way that Google has owned search for years.

Bing is still valid as is Yahoo by default, but the reality is that the general population trusts Google results as an authority. Everyone has had seemingly-impossible-to-answer questions that have been instantly, almost magically answered by the Big G.

It's for this reason that ranking near the top for competitor cities is one of the highest value SEO goals a dealer and their SEO vendor can have. It's a core to KPA SEO. Here's why:

Let's say you have a competitor in Jaredville 30 miles to the north. The city is medium sized but the Miltsch Auto Group has the market cornered and they have the only Ford point in Jaredville. Just about everyone in town knows about Miltsch Ford.

When people want to buy a vehicle or have their Ford serviced, chances are they're going to search Google for "Miltsch Ford" or "Miltsch Auto Group". Those people aren't your targets. It's the people who do the search for "Jaredville Ford" or "Jaredville Ford Dealers" that you want.

Why? Because since they know all about Miltsch and may have even done business with them in the past, when they go to Google to search for "Jaredville Ford", they're looking for an alternative. They're looking for you or whatever dealer is ranked near the top for that search.

People trust Google's opinion and we ask it all the time without noticing. If you're in the top 5 (preferably #2, of course) for the terms "Jaredville Ford" and "Jaredville Ford Dealers" you have an opportunity to not only sell more cars but to also keep a deal from going to your competitor.

Defend your own backyard as much as possible. Once you're set in your own city, start going after your competitors. It's this type of strategy that will separate you from the other dealers in the area and can have a dramatic affect on your numbers as well as their numbers.

Google takes a lot of heat in the tech world for being too powerful, potentially evil, and undoubtably ambitious. It comes with the territory; rarely can a company attain the level of complete domination within an industry the way that Google has owned search for years.

Bing is still valid as is Yahoo by default, but the reality is that the general population trusts Google results as an authority. Everyone has had seemingly-impossible-to-answer questions that have been instantly, almost magically answered by the Big G.

It's for this reason that ranking near the top for competitor cities is one of the highest value SEO goals a dealer and their SEO vendor can have. It's a core to KPA SEO. Here's why:

Let's say you have a competitor in Jaredville 30 miles to the north. The city is medium sized but the Miltsch Auto Group has the market cornered and they have the only Ford point in Jaredville. Just about everyone in town knows about Miltsch Ford.

When people want to buy a vehicle or have their Ford serviced, chances are they're going to search Google for "Miltsch Ford" or "Miltsch Auto Group". Those people aren't your targets. It's the people who do the search for "Jaredville Ford" or "Jaredville Ford Dealers" that you want.

Why? Because since they know all about Miltsch and may have even done business with them in the past, when they go to Google to search for "Jaredville Ford", they're looking for an alternative. They're looking for you or whatever dealer is ranked near the top for that search.

People trust Google's opinion and we ask it all the time without noticing. If you're in the top 5 (preferably #2, of course) for the terms "Jaredville Ford" and "Jaredville Ford Dealers" you have an opportunity to not only sell more cars but to also keep a deal from going to your competitor.

Defend your own backyard as much as possible. Once you're set in your own city, start going after your competitors. It's this type of strategy that will separate you from the other dealers in the area and can have a dramatic affect on your numbers as well as their numbers.

Last week at SXSW, we had the privilege of seeing some of the latest and greatest in search and social that was, quite frankly, a whirlwind of knowledge that we rarely experience at conferences. There's normally a good amount of information at conferences but the sheer bulk of usable data pertinent to the automotive industry made me wish at times that we brought more than 4 KPA people down to Austin.

With that said, there were tons of tidbits of data that I will be sharing over the coming weeks, but one of the most important came during Danny Sullivan's talk with Google's Matt Cutts and Bing's Duane Forrester. They covered so many points that it will require multiple blog posts to bring to light, but one reinforcement piece that struck me was the passion behind all three of these search giants when discussing 301 redirects.

In the automotive industry, it's hard to get vendors to create 301 redirects especially when converting from one website platform to another. The URL-naming-conventions from one provider to another differ greatly and changes can often lead to hundreds, even thousands of broken links. In the automotive industry, we very rarely notice them because it has become a standard amongst most vendors to create a custom-404 which either redirects to the homepage (example) or calls up a set page (example) such as inventory to present regardless of what the URL string was.

This is fine, but it's a bandaid. According to all three on the panel, getting your vendor to put in a 301-redirect when changes to a website are made is akin to asking someone for permission to cross the street. It's a no-brainer. It has to be done, particularly in an industry that is so reliant on search engine traffic.

We'll be discussing more of our takeaways from SXSW in the coming weeks, but cleaning up the basics will put your dealership website on the right track to success.

Last week at SXSW, we had the privilege of seeing some of the latest and greatest in search and social that was, quite frankly, a whirlwind of knowledge that we rarely experience at conferences. There's normally a good amount of information at conferences but the sheer bulk of usable data pertinent to the automotive industry made me wish at times that we brought more than 4 KPA people down to Austin.

With that said, there were tons of tidbits of data that I will be sharing over the coming weeks, but one of the most important came during Danny Sullivan's talk with Google's Matt Cutts and Bing's Duane Forrester. They covered so many points that it will require multiple blog posts to bring to light, but one reinforcement piece that struck me was the passion behind all three of these search giants when discussing 301 redirects.

In the automotive industry, it's hard to get vendors to create 301 redirects especially when converting from one website platform to another. The URL-naming-conventions from one provider to another differ greatly and changes can often lead to hundreds, even thousands of broken links. In the automotive industry, we very rarely notice them because it has become a standard amongst most vendors to create a custom-404 which either redirects to the homepage (example) or calls up a set page (example) such as inventory to present regardless of what the URL string was.

This is fine, but it's a bandaid. According to all three on the panel, getting your vendor to put in a 301-redirect when changes to a website are made is akin to asking someone for permission to cross the street. It's a no-brainer. It has to be done, particularly in an industry that is so reliant on search engine traffic.

We'll be discussing more of our takeaways from SXSW in the coming weeks, but cleaning up the basics will put your dealership website on the right track to success.

One of my favorite activities when searching for quality content on the internet is to go to Pinterest to find videos, images, and infographics worth sharing. One in particular stood out this morning and I explored this infographic heartily. Once done, I went back to see who to attribute; lo and behold, it was Driving Sales' new Director of Product Strategy Eric Miltsch who popped it up on my Pinterest stream!

In this graphic, the timeline, trends, terms, and tidbits come to life and show us where the industry has been. Knowing where we came from can help guide our future and as the automotive SEO world continues to grow and advance, having this historical understanding can be an amazing reference.

Click to enlarge.

(Via: Killer Infographics)

One of my favorite activities when searching for quality content on the internet is to go to Pinterest to find videos, images, and infographics worth sharing. One in particular stood out this morning and I explored this infographic heartily. Once done, I went back to see who to attribute; lo and behold, it was Driving Sales' new Director of Product Strategy Eric Miltsch who popped it up on my Pinterest stream!

In this graphic, the timeline, trends, terms, and tidbits come to life and show us where the industry has been. Knowing where we came from can help guide our future and as the automotive SEO world continues to grow and advance, having this historical understanding can be an amazing reference.

Click to enlarge.

(Via: Killer Infographics)