Google is integrating Google Places (maps) with their organic listings to have a seemless search experience for users. It brings two major points to the top of mind for dealers:

1. Organic SEO, which will now power maps, is extremely important (even more important than it was before.
2. Reputation management and reviews are going to be more visible than ever before.

Watch the Automotive SEO video below for a brief overview of the changes and what they mean to you.

Perhaps the biggest mistake that dealers and their automotive SEO vendors make when tracking their results is to focus solely on your own websites. Knowing where you stand is important, but knowing where your competitors stand can influence your strategy and help you make decisions about what to attack, what to defend, and what to leave alone.

Unlike pay-per-click marketing, SEO is not an unlimited endeavor. With PPC, a dealer can target hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of different variations of keywords. This is because your only limits in PPC are budget and relevance. If you are willing to spend enough money and focus on keywords that are low-bounce and relevant, you have no concern over search volume for a keyword. In other words, you can throw in keywords that 5, 3, or even 0 people search for in a given month because if the keyword gets no clicks, technically you don't have to pay for it.

In SEO, you have to be more focused and strategic. You must go after bulk keywords, but you have to prioritize regarding which to point your focus. In SEO, the "juice" that you can throw at various keywords is finite. To try to optimize for too many keywords results in not successfully optimizing very many of them at all.

Whether you do it manually or using software, watching your competitors moving up or down in particular searches can help you identify the right automotive SEO strategy. Below are some tips that you can use that have helped make TK Carsites' clients successful:

Identify Your Threats with a Standard "Health Check"

While most (if not all) automated SEO evaluation programs are limited in their ability to create actionable data, there are come basic factors that you can check to find the obvious threats.

• - SEO Quality Score: While more scoring systems are flawed, they can give you a basic overview of how you and your competitors MAY be doing. There are no tools that can give you the full and accurate picture you need, they can help you by pointing you in the right direction.
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• - PageRank: Google has made it clear that PageRank (PR) is an indicator that in and of itself cannot determine who should rank or who shouldn't. With that said, most SEO firms still look at PageRank as one of the factors. You can check the PageRank of your site and those of your competitors through various PR checking websites. There are also Google toolbar options (particularly on Firefox and Chrome) that will check every page that you visit.
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• - Indexed Pages: Do NOT fall into the trap that more is necessarily better. Having hundreds of spammy indexed pages circulating through your website will do more harm than good. Still, it's an important factor and can give you at least a little understanding of where your competitors stand.
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• - Backlinks: Every time a website links to your website, it loosely counts as a "vote" in the eyes of a search engine. Quality is more important than quantity, so having 2000 links may not be as meaningful or effective as 5-10 high-quality links.

You Versus Your Competitors' Rankings

Diligence is the key to successfully staying on top once you get there. The search engines, particularly Google, can turn on a dime and send the rankings into flux. You may feel safe one day, then less than a months later a competitor is ahead of you.

Whether utilizing software or doing it manually, you can see moves being made that could turn into a threat.  The software above is one that we use to keep tabs on our clients' rankings as well as their competitors rankings.

It can be done without software but can be very time-consuming.

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In the next post, we will take this topic further and discuss why it's important to track competitors and what you can do to have a positive influence on your own rankings.

Part of my job as the Marketing Executive for TK Carsites is putting together our weekly webinar series to train dealers on the latest and greatest techniques being used in car dealer Internet marketing and other disciplines. With JD Rucker and other experts on our team, one would think that we get most of our data, particularly regarding social media, from various gurus and strategists that we talk to regularly.

If one thought that, they would be incorrect as our primary source for learning how best to position automotive social media is through you - the dealers in the field. Experience in the trenches is always more valuable than what can be learned theoretically in a classroom, from a white paper, or in a book.

Below, I've listed a few basic tips that one can learn from other dealers. The point here is that if you really, really want to understand how Facebook can work in the automotive industry, your best resource is other dealers. See what they're doing. Is it working? Can it spark unique ideas that you can implement?

Yes.

We are compiling a list of good Facebook dealers right now. If you know anyone (yourself included) who is doing innovative things with Facebook and demonstrating success, please let us know. We'd love to feature you or them.

Now, on to the tips...

On Facebook, People Love Facebook

The only common thread that binds everyone who is active on Facebook is just that... they're active on Facebook. Talking ABOUT Facebook is an easy way to develop engagement in a non-threatening, universally acceptable manner.

This technique is especially effective for smaller pages with under 1000 people liking it as sharing Facebook data on Facebook itself can get a higher percentage of people involved.

Customize Your Landing Page

It cannot be said enough. When sending people who are not currently liking you to your Facebook page, they should land on a custom page. The chances that they'll "like" your page (become a fan) is nearly double than when you send them to the default wall.

Focus on Your Manufacturer's Brands

You have to assume that most of the people who like your page are local and interested in the manufacturers you represent. Become their resource for both local content as well as national manufacturer content.

There is an opportunity here to keep people coming back for more and (perhaps more importantly) sharing your page with their friends. Be interesting, informative, and a resource for your customers.

Great Banners and Avatars

There are few things more annoying than spending time, money, or both on an excellent banner for your Facebook page, only to realize that the avatar (which pulls from a portion of the banner) doesn't look right.

In the example above, the banner extends well below with more information about the dealership, but a nicely proportioned square section of the banner fits nicely within the avatar area as well.

Ask Universal Questions

Perhaps the most challenging thing for many business owners to understand is the reasoning behind going "off topic" with their questions and comments on their wall. While most engagement should have some relevance to your business, brand, or geography, it doesn't hurt to ask universal questions every now and then.

Don't forget that in many cases people can see when their friends are interacting somewhere. Having the opportunity to pull in these friends to visit your page is quick, easy, and can at times be (gulp) fun.

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We will post more tips soon, but don't forget to check out other Facebook pages as well. Our list is just getting started but it already has plenty of automotive-related Facebook pages from which you can draw inspiration.

Have fun!

As most know now, Yahoo! will be changing their search interface to Bing in the coming months. It can theoretically happen by the end of August, though most say it won't happen until late October and there is still a chance that it will have to be pushed off to next year if the transition isn't smooth.

The implications to both paid and organic search are tremendous as many companies focus only on Google for their SEO efforts and only do pay-per-click through Google Adwords. With projections for the new, combined search of Yahoo!, Bing, and their partners ranging from 28%-39% of total search, it is no longer something that anyone can afford to ignore.

Below are some findings that we've made over the last year that have helped our dealers stay on top of Bing. Use them wisely - ignoring "the other search engines" in the coming months would be a big mistake.

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SEO for Bing/Yahoo

Like Google, the current Bing algorithm gives heavy preference to links. The difference seems to be in the weight of low-value links versus high-value links. Google has a tendency to give at least a little weight to more common links such as directories and obscure social bookmarks while Bing focuses on higher-value blog, strong social media sites, and general web properties. This could be by design or it may be a side-effect of having a less-frequented directory.

In other words, the combined search traffic of Yahoo! and Bing may shift this closer to Google's bulk style once the overall search traffic increases for the Bing platform after the Yahoo! integration. Then again, it may not.

An example of this is in the search for "Automotive Social Media". The #3 website on Bing, Hasai, is ranked #39 on Google. There is only 1 link pointing to Hasai.com with the anchor text "Automotive Social Media" but it was a high-value, high-PageRank link and by itself propelled the site (which really has little to do with automotive social media other than 1 article) to the top on Bing.

• Takeaway 1: Links from aged, authoritative blogs and major social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, and Tumblr hold more weight in Bing than in Google (even though Google LOVES these links as well)

Google is very quick at indexing pages. When they officially launched Google Caffeine earlier this year, the effects were instantly felt and measurable. Pages that may have taken days to index were being found in hours (even minutes) and the spiders seem to crawl more often when a page is updated regularly.

Bing's algorithm gives less weight to fresh content but takes the value of the content more into account. It favors proper saturation of keywords using "natural speak" and seems to pay no attention whatsoever to meta-descriptions or meta-keywords for ranking purposes.

• Takeaway 2: Content is still extremely important for Bing, but updating the same pages seems less important than adding new ones.

URL structure and the presence of keywords in the domain, sub-directory, or sub-domain name has always been important to Google, but it appears even more relevant to Bing. Searching for "Automotive Website Design" shows that #2 on Bing is automotive-website-design.com.

We couldn't find this website on Google at all going back several pages.

• Takeaway 3: Include keywords in your URLs whenever possible.

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PPC for Bing/Yahoo!

This part is easy. IF you are using PPC as part of your marketing strategy and IF you have the available budget, you should be ready to include Yahoo! and Bing in your budget.

On the other hand, if you have a low budget for PPC, you may want to consider SWITCHING from Google to Yahoo! and Bing. The cost per click will be lower on them and the exposure, while still only around half of Google, will be something that you can get more bang for your buck if you do it right.

Regardless, you should always consider PPC as a supplement to strong SEO and maps listings, not a replacement.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this. I hope it helped.

Map listings on Google and other search engines are gaining in importance every day. Once a small source of traffic, they have blossomed over recent months to be exceptional traffic-generators for car dealers.

Clicks

Maps generate clicks. It's that simple. It can be said that having the proper SEO, maps, and PPC strategy giving a dealership the "triple threat" on the search engine results pages can dramatically increase the potential for that dealership to get search traffic.

Tip #1: Make certain your listing is linked to your website!

It seems simple, but a surprisingly high number of dealers do not log into their local business listings to put in the right information, including the website attached to the listing.

Phone Calls

If you are uncertain whether people are getting your number from maps listings, put in a unique tracking phone number. You should be doing this for every venue of advertising you have, but maps listings often get forgotten. DON'T FORGET!

Tip #2: Use tracking phone numbers.

You can't manage what you don't measure. Tracking phone numbers are the easiest way to measure your map's effectiveness.

Directories

Maps listings are relatively simple. Beyond editing your listing and making it as easy to find you as possible, you can increase your rankings on the various maps listings simply by getting your address indexed on various websites, particularly those that the search engines look to for location information.

Tip #3: List your dealership on web directories.

Reviews

Google in particular is putting adding more review sites from which it pulls it's data for star-rankings. The more reviews you get, the easier it is to manage your reputation online. An entire post can be written about reviews (and probably will be by JD Rucker sometime in the future) but know this tip...

Tip #4: The more reviews you get, the better your rankings on the maps listings will be.

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I hope you enjoyed this piece. Read more about TK Carsites on our Tumblelog.

Vane Clayton, an industry leader known for building profitable private and public growth companies joins TK Carsites, Inc. an Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, Social Media, and website design for franchised and independent auto dealers.

Orange County, CA (August 3, 2010) – TK Carsites, Inc. an Internet marketing provider for automotive retailers, announced today that it has appointed Vane Clayton as Executive Chairman. Clayton will oversee day-to-day operations with focus on client service.

“We asked Vane to join TK because of his experience in building profitable private and public growth companies,” said Richard Valenta, CEO of TK Carsites. “Our clients are the real winners as Vane’s top priority is enhancing our overall client experience.  I will be taking on an active role in product development, as well as in both the execution of SEO which we pioneered at TK Carsites in 2003, and in Social Media which TK Carsites has been involved with since 2007.  My goal is to put our focus on these two core products with JD Rucker, Director of New Media, leading the strategy.”

Clayton will also continue to serve as CEO of KPA LLC.  KPA is one of the few companies in the automotive industry that saw growth through the economic downturn with 3% revenue growth and 50% profit in 2009. Clayton’s financial success with KPA has been instrumental in securing growth capital for TK Carsites and the dual role of CEO of KPA and Chairman of TK Carsites provides Clayton with a unique industry insider’s role that few can match, serving over 4,000 automotive and equipment dealer and service companies.

“As a student of building profitable growth companies, I understand the dynamics of the marketplace – the need to introduce innovative products that help clients to compete,” said Clayton. “Optimizing an Internet Marketing Strategy for the retail auto industry through Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing, and websites designed for optimization of each department to drive a low cost of acquisition, is imperative. TK Carsites gets it. TK Carsites’ market leading products will be the solid foundation to serve more auto dealers with services that help them to grow revenue through leveraging a cost effective Internet Marketing strategy. I’m honored to be able to contribute to the success of our 4,000 clients.”

About TK Carsites, Inc.

TK Carsites, Inc. is an Internet marketing company located in Orange County, CA.  TK Carsites’ core products include automotive SEO, Social Media and automotive website design for auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada. Earlier this year, TK Carsites launched the Power SEO product. For more information, call (714) 937-1239. www.tkcarsites.com

About Vane Clayton

Vane Clayton is President and CEO of KPA, LLC since 2006.  He is also a member of the company’s board of directors.  KPA serves over 3,000 clients including the top 7 dealer groups, providing safety, environmental, human resource software and related services.

Prior to KPA, Clayton was President of ZOLL Data Systems, an enterprise software subsidiary of ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL). While at ZOLL, Clayton launched a highly successful, user-friendly .NET Tablet software application and acquired a human resource software solution to expand the suite of products offered to the ambulance and fire, public safety markets.  Clayton’s team of 55 software developers and a total of 100 employees were able to drive efficiency throughout the organization to increase the revenue per employee 50%, from $128K to $192K in 2.5 years, while revenue increased from $12M to $20M during the same period.

Prior to ZOLL, Clayton was co-founder, CEO, and board member of SOS Wireless Communications.  Under Clayton’s leadership, SOS raised $15M of Venture Capital and angel funding, while growing to 35 employees and 25,000 customers. Clayton also serves on the board of Ironclad (ICPW.OB) since 2004.  Earlier in his career, Clayton managed a sales team for Raychem ($1.7B in Sales), a division of Tyco Electronics driving sales of the EloTouch subsidiary from $19M to $30M in a twelve month period.

Clayton holds a B.S. in Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  Vane Clayton on LinkedIn

I was doing some research earlier this week on search engine ranking methodologies and came across a recent patent that was granted to Google this month.  The patent was titled "system and method for modulating search relevancy using pointer activity monitoring".   While I don't believe cursor movement would ever be a factor in rankings for obvious reasons, I do believe the search engine wars are continuing to heat up. 

Yes, Google still holds a commanding lead but the question is will it last forever.  Better yet, is the lead enough to ignore other search engines?  Bing and Yahoo have experienced impressive gains over the last year and I would not be surprised to see this continue.  Additionally, I firmly believe that no company, no matter how large, is unstoppable.   Take a look at Apple for example.   Everyone thought they were headed for the scrap pile in the 90s and now look at them.  

Most dealers we talk to at TK only care about how we do on Google.  When we try and demonstrate our power on Yahoo and Bing, there is simply no interest whatsoever. While I do understand the big focus on Google, I don't understand why people could care less about Yahoo and Bing.   I believe if you are betting it all on Google and ignoring the rest, you might want to think twice.  They are the leader by a long shot but they still only control 63% of the market.  That leaves 37% to Yahoo, Bing and the rest (yes, I can still do simple math).   If you want to maximize your effort in Automotive SEO, you should focus on the big three search engines.   37% is a huge number when competition is so fierce among dealers. 

Dealer Magazine released a report that ADP is purchasing Cobalt. From a corporate perspective, it puts a huge chunk of both the industry and the revenue under one umbrella, but what does it mean to individual dealers?

I've always been relatively critical of Cobalt, pointing out that they have never been able to optimize their own website to rank #1 on Google for their own name while being the website vendor for manufacturers during their worst sales collapses, but I've also always had a certain level of respect for them because pound for pound, dollar for dollar, they have a very respectable product.

Will this change with ADP at the helm? The good news is that John Holt is staying on as vice president of ADP's Digital Marketing Group: Cobalt, Dealix, and BZ Results. His leadership has built a juggernaut through innovations and sound business practices over the years.

The decision to keep Cobalt and BZ Results separate but under the same roof makes sense in some respects, but one has to question whether keeping tier 1 and 2 interests in mind with one hand will hurt the other hand focusing on tier 3.

What do you all think? Is this move going to be a good one for the individual dealers and dealer groups? Does this give them too much leverage for pushing down the destructive path (in my opinion) of making dealer websites more uniform, more vanilla? Will they be able to combine technologies and innovations between two of the trendsetting companies in the industry?

So many questions surround the deal. It's definitely a good deal for them and likely a great deal for the manufacturers. Where do dealers stand?

Over the years, the debate has raged over the priorities when it comes to search engine marketing. Most understand that search engine optimization and pay per click advertising are both valid sources of traffic for car dealers, but the disagreement comes up in regards to which is more important and which deserves the "lion's share" of the Internet marketing budget. Throw the local business "Maps" section into the equation and suddenly it's a 3-way-race.

We are looking for people within the industry to discuss this matter in an open forum -- friendly-debate-style.

If anyone is interested, please contact me here in comments or via email: jrucker@tkcarsites.com.

This article by John Quinones hits home with what dealers today need to survive from a mental perspective. * * * Strong minds understand that the mind must be exercised like a muscle and as the mind gains in strength it increases in value. As the mind increases in value it becomes stronger and sharper to be more creative and approach situations in a very positive manner always knowing it can always overcome negotiations within its self. Competition is within one’s own mind. Everyone has heard, "come on Johnny you can do it!" All you have to do is set your mind to it. Weak minds welcome compromise. Often you will be able to recognize by the response greeting you receive when you meet them. For instance you may ask “How are you?” The responses might be:

• "Can’t wait until Friday"
• "Can’t wait until 5:00 o’clock"
• "Hanging in there."

Weak minds are not happy with themselves so they settle for mediocrity. Strong minds on the other hand welcome challenge and are always looking to claim victory. The question is, "Which one are you?" Are you going to give in or are you going to stand and fight? It does not matter what you have done or accomplished in the past but more importantly what you do now and accomplish in your future. Sometimes we feel beaten up because of challenges and adversities we have faced in our lives. It is not what we do when times are good but more importantly what we do when times are bad. Are you going to head for the hills when things are tough or are you going to stand up and fight. “Uncertainty” often creates doubt worry and confusion. The strong mind attacks uncertainty with great vengeance and strength. The strong know when uncertainty is overcome, victory is won, and that is the moment the strong truly live for. When a sale is made and all the objections have been overcome the uncertainty is gone and victory is won! It is time to celebrate.

• Commit yourself to be a true Man or Woman of Valor. (Break through your fears and limitations)
• Be an outcome thinker (Live your dreams)
• Believe (Believe in yourself)
• Commitment (Commit to your outcome write it down and program it to your subconscious mind)
• Change your habits (Your habits may feel right but have the wrong outcome)
• Physiology (Positive Body Language)
• Peak State of Mind (Scale between 1-10 be a 10+)
• Harmony of your team (Commit to your new outcome and find willing helpers to help you along the way)

Man or Woman who say it can’t be done should not interrupt Man or Woman doing it. Make it Happen… * * * Read more about TK Carsites on our Driving Sales Blog.