The Super Bowl has concluded for yet another year and for those of us within the automotive industry it sure was interesting to see the various automotive commercials that Toyota, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Audi, and Lincoln created. As we grabbed for more nachos while football took a break and the anticipated Super Bowl intermissions commenced. This year there was a strong winner, a motor company that made great strides to appeal to their demographic and put the driver first. The winner hands down for this year’s automotive Super Bowl commercial goes to… the Chrysler Group.

Marketing has changed. The consumer has been exhausted of the over selling and underwhelming performance that commercials continue to serve us, we want guts and glory, (not too far off from the Ram slogan) we want to get down to the heart of what matters to us, which is us…and our families.

Shallow commercials are for decades past and though each of the automotive companies made great efforts in making unique car commercials that touched on emotions; from happy, silly, exhilarating to humorous; Chrysler went for the heart strings.

Emotions have always been important within Marketing, but never more than now. Within a social world of emotionally sharing our thoughts and opinion’s in real-time across the world has emotional targeting been so relevant.

Each viewer knows that it is a car commercial, that their aim is to sell you a car or truck. However, the meaningful thought will override its intended purpose. Instead, it will evoke us to connect with the brand through its heartfelt connection it makes by emphasizing on our hard work, dedication and strong love for our families instead of just highlighting its vehicles.

Chrysler made the vehicles in both the Ram and Jeep commercials a part of our lives instead of forcing them within and made stories we could believe in because we live them, or know someone who does.

Making commercials that are about the people who ride in the vehicles instead of about the vehicle and showing their support to those we hold close touches on the roots of America; from our Farmers to our troops, those that help us eat and others who keep us free, that is what meaningful marketing looks like.

[Heart felt image via heartwallpapers]

There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

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Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

Anyone who has been involved in automotive internet marketing for a while knows that despite all of the fancy new techniques and intriguing social platforms, search engines remain the most important source of relevant traffic to your website and physical dealership. It has replaced the phone book, augmented the map, and is the place that the majority of your customers go first when in the market to buy a vehicle.

We also know that organic search is still the dominant traffic driver, but with the rise of mobile devices and Google’s favoring of Google Local listings over organic (and in some cases, paid search), there is a lower percentage of clicks to websites from organic searches than ever before. This trend will continue, but not nearly fast enough to worry; well-optimized sites that were seeing over 80% of their traffic coming from organic search are still seeing over 75% today, so mobile is changing the game at a good pace. There may come a time when organic search is much less relevant, but that day has not come quite yet.

One trend that is rising quickly is the trust factor in Google’s organic listings. People understand Google and Bing much better today than they did even a year ago. They realize that the organic listings are ordered based upon importance, authority, and relevance. They are starting to trust that Google and Bing are excellent filters against the “spammy” pages out there and they believe that ranking high organically is not something that can be easily manipulated the way it used to be. Quality on the search engine results pages (SERPs) has improved dramatically over the last couple of years. Regardless of whether they know about Google’s Panda or Penguin updates isn’t important. They’ve seen the improvement and as a result they use Google and Bing to determine real relevance.

Take that comprehension a step further and you’ll start to see what Google and Bing have hoped for over the years and are finally achieving. They both have always viewed their organic rankings as a trust-building tool. That’s how they’re able to sell ads, by having a product that the people trust. They’ve reached that tipping point and in many ways organic search has become as much of a public relations tool as a pure traffic driver.

When people do searches and see an unexpected result in the organic listings, they are intrigued. We’ve seen results like the one displayed above generate the type of traffic increases that we do not normally see with “expected” high ranking results. In this case, the dealership in question that’s ranked #1 for “Milwaukee Chevrolet Dealers” is well outside of Milwaukee. There are plenty of Chevrolet dealers in Milwaukee, but the fact that Google ranks a dealership in Fond du Lac at the top is telling.

It’s the people’s understanding of search that is really at play here. They know that the ads are ads – pay to play, so to speak. They know that the local listings are based upon proximity to them (if on a GPS-enabled mobile device), their area (if on a WiFi connection), or the city in which they searched. They know that Google selects the “winners” based upon some authoritative algorithm that they don’t fully understand but trust based upon the hundreds or thousands of other searches they’ve done over the years.

Consumers widely consider a search engines top ranked results to be the most relevant and authoritative pages on the web. ~ Website Magazine

Ranking high on search engines is no longer just about getting traffic. It’s a true PR play, now.

There are all sorts of opinions and strategies that have been pulling away from SEO over the last year. Many have said that SEO is dead. Others say that it can no longer be done. The truth is that SEO is extremely alive, growing in prominence, and more challenging than ever. The last part is a good thing. As companies start falling off the SEO bandwagon due to failures to adapt to the changes, strong SEO strategies are emerging that can make a greater impact than ever before for savvy and discerning dealers. Those who want to truly succeed are embracing SEO for the traffic as well as the PR. Don’t get me started on the reputation management aspects of SEO. That’s for another article.

Anyone who has ever owned a Facebook page knows the value of Facebook Insights when used correctly. Most new Facebook pages could use the valuable insight when first starting out but what some do not realize is there is a stipulation.

In order for any new Facebook page to gain access to their free Facebook Insights to gain analytical data that can and will help target your audience and assist in providing you with marketable information to share with team members as well as use to market on an array of platforms, you first need 30 likes.

This might seem easy, since the average Facebook person has more than 150 friends, but you will be surprised at how difficult to get people to like a Facebook page and stick with it. Although Facebook profiles and pages use the same platform they are meant to be used differently in the intent that a Facebook page will attract more people to your business.

Therefore, if you have a brand new Facebook page and are unable to access your Facebook insights it may be because you do not have enough people who have liked it just yet.

Go ahead and mark this down as the unpopular answer to the common question of the day. When people ask me what the secret sauce is in any truly successful search marketing program, whether through search engine optimization or PPC, my answer is never greeted with enthusiasm. The answer: manual effort.

People always want the path of least resistance. They want to hear about the easiest way to make something successful while putting in the least amount of effort. Unfortunately, the answer to the question regarding search has been made the least popular answer in marketing. Between Penguin, Panda, and other things that are happening with the Google algorithm, the ideas that used to drive SEO in particular have changed from the automated processes and systems of the past to the labor-intensive manual efforts of today.

In PPC, much of the same has been happening, though not nearly as clear as with SEO. There are still many automated PPC services and programs that work well, just not as well as the manually monitored and adjusted systems. In many cases, particularly for those who work with thousands of keywords, the automated systems still make sense overall. The time it takes to tweak such campaigns manually is often too much as the improved results may not even be noticeable.

Back to SEO. Google rewards manual effort. They like content that has been written thoughtfully with the visitors firmly in mind. They do not like spun or syndicated content. The do not like bulk links that took no effort to get. Links that are earned from high-value sources are golden; one link from a respected and relevant publication is more powerful than a thousand low-effort spam links. They like social signals that are organically generated. Real people sharing real content with their real friends – that’s much more powerful than bulk retweets or +1s.

If you want to mix the right ingredients to make the perfect secret sauce, you have to be willing to put in the effort or pay someone else to do it for you. Any system that is “turn key” or “autopilot” will fly your search marketing right into the face of a mountain. Turn your targeting computer off and use the force if you want to destroy the Death Star.

As with any site, the more exposure received the better it is for your brand, in particular organic exposure. Organic is content seen by people on the site and is numbers or views that are not inflated with fake or irrelevant accounts. Although once upon a time where views came from didn’t matter, today in social media it does, and knowing what tool can help you gain exposure without hurting your brand is a valuable lesson to learn prior to using any tools.

Images have gained in popularity in 2012 and is continuing as we begin 2013, it most certainly looks to be a trend that is yet to fade into the past as visual content is not only popular by social users but by the algorithms within social networks as well as amongst image sharing niche sites like Pinterest.

Businesses have caught on to the latest trend in sharing images and are using them to relate to users on social sites but it has also become a terrific way to share your brand as well as products on sites like Pinterest, since they make it super easy for businesses by providing another way for people to click to your desired site in which images are being hosted.

Pinterest has done wonders in particular for blogs and for websites who have taken interest in creating supporting pages and picking proper images. Knowing how to properly categorize your pins and label your boards imaginatively along with a well written social description explaining the board, will help create a strong page rank for your board, since every board does and can have one.

With that said, it is not always easy depending on others to repin your pins and in some instances promoting pins can help further your reach.

An image promoting site, Reachli, helps content creators and sellers of goods measure their visually shared content with an array of tools. With the ability to promote through campaigns using Reachli not only will you be able to extend your brands reach but more importantly be able to scale the types of images that best suit your audience and hone in on those skills to strengthen your strategy and further your image sharing not only on Pinterest but elsewhere as well.

Being able to measure your efforts when sharing images in particular can help you not only connect further with like-minded people but potential customers as well and knowing what works and what doesn’t helps businesses weed out the unnecessary and instead use social sites for purposeful efforts and attain information that will make using those sites for your brand more beneficial.

Currently Reachli targets Pinterest but may expand in the future for more niche sites that target visual sharing into their insights. Reachli is ideal for your brand to be able to scale and strategize using measurable feedback that can help you target your audience better, which will then in return make for better connections when using social media.

[Cats and Bacon image via infographr]

No, no. Not Martin Short. Short, as in not very long.

Bloggers have been told for a long time that the longer and more detailed the title, the more likely it will be that people will click on them. We have seen quirky titles popping up for a long time and they definitely have an extra clickability factor to them that shorter blog post titles do not. However, the singular benefit does not compensate for the negatives associated with longer titles.

First, the shorter the title, them more search engine optimization clout it has. Google and Bing look to title tags as one of the most important onsite factors when determining rankings. It's a mathematical scale - the longer the title, the less "juice" each individual word and character has when it comes to SEO.

Second, shorter titles are more likely to be shared on social media. Call it psychology, call it "too long to retweet" fear, call it whatever you want, the stats show that blog posts with longer titles get shared less often than shorter ones.

Finally, and this is arguably the most important thing to remember, shorter titles that get to the point are better for getting the focused reader. It's true, longer titles are more likely to get clicked, but your real blog visitors are more interested in getting to the point and staying focused on their goals rather than getting to see how clever the blogger was in their posts. That's not to say that you shouldn't be creative with your titles or that longer titles are against some arbitrary rule. It's just that all too often bloggers will extend their titles because some blogging expert told them to get wacky. If you don't need to get wacky, don't do it.

You're reading this post right now so something about the title compelled you to read further. That's a good sign. If you can recognize the importance of having titles that get to the point, then you can appreciate the abilities that shorter titles have for SEO, sharing, and focused interaction.

Search engine optimization in the automotive industry isn’t hard, which is why it surprises me how often companies choose to use shortcuts rather than to apply proven and acceptable white-hat techniques. It’s a problem that has been on the rise more in the last year than ever before. The reason for it is simple: true search engine optimization requires manual effort.

Large vendors prefer to avoid this because they feel it isn’t scalable. Smaller vendors scramble to assemble the manpower necessary to make it happen. It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s possible to perform search engine optimization at a scalable level that delivers real results for dealers. Identifying those who can bring you the results is as easy as answering five questions.

Before we get into the questions, it’s important to note one important omission from the list. You’ll notice that I did not include, “Do they have examples of dealers ranking well for challenging keywords?” If a vendor has more than a handful of clients, they will have examples of strong rankings. It’s inevitable. There are too many poorly optimized websites out there. A list of examples of clients who rank well is something that every vendor can provide. We’ve even seen occasions where websites that we have optimized on other website platforms are used as examples by that website provider.

Here are the questions that can truly help you make an educated decision.

Is Their Solution Centered Around Unique Content?

The Google Panda update of 2011 specifically attacked websites with duplicate and/or low-quality content. The automotive industry was not terribly harmed by this as most dealers have variations of “spun” content on their sites. Relative to other websites in the same realm, most dealerships are equally harmed by the lack of truly unique content, which means that the bar is set low to achieve higher rankings.

Vendors that do the same thing may not be hurt by this type of content, but they certainly aren’t helping. Building unique content pages on a monthly basis is a differentiator that only a handful of vendors utilize. Look at examples of their website SEO. Copy the first or second paragraph of the HTML content on the page. Paste that into Google and search. If you see a lot of websites that have the same basic content but with small changes such as the dealership name and city, you’ll know that their content is not unique enough to be a differentiator.

Do They Automate the SEO Process?

All of the old tricks of the trade are dead. Google and Bing have more brainpower behind fighting blackhat SEO than all of the blackhats combined. One of the worst potential offenses that both Google and Bing despise is automated SEO content.

There is no system today in or out of the automotive industry that can fool the search engines by generating pages based on actions from a feed. In other words, if a vendor is automating page creation by “spinning” content with different cities or models, they are going to be hurt by this practice. Some dealers have learned this lesson the hard way. This type of blackhat SEO isn’t just ineffective – it’s potentially dangerous.

Does Their Keyword Strategy Meet Your Individual Needs?

The most powerful SEO in the universe is worthless if the proper keywords are not targeted. The foundation of any strong SEO service is keyword selection and maintenance. It’s not just about picking out the right keywords in the beginning. It’s about enhancing the keyword selections based upon needs, changes in the industry, and expansion of the keyword reach.

Ask potential vendors to send you their onboarding or launch questions. This document should ask you what cities, new vehicle models, and used vehicle makes are most important to your dealership. There’s no way to put together a proper keyword strategy without having an understanding of the individual dealership’s competitive landscape. Only the dealer knows this information. Any vendor can make an educated guess, but you know your competition and opportunities better than anyone.

Do They Employ Inbound Link Strategies to Enhance Rankings?

Links are not dead. Automated and low-quality links are dead. That happened last April with the Penguin update when some dealers saw their rankings drop quickly.

Google and Bing both still give a lot of weight to inbound links. The difference now is that quality greatly trumps quantity. In fact, Google is making it detrimental to have low-quality links pointing to you. Employing a content-centric link-building system is the best way to make a positive impact on your search rankings. Without links, content alone does not have the power necessary to achieve the more challenging “money keywords” that are based on your make and/or model and city. You won’t be able to rank at the top for terms like “Milwaukee Chevrolet Dealers” with content alone.

Do They Rank Well With Their Own Sites?

A great chef cooks well at home as well as at the restaurant. It’s a shame that so many claim to have the best automotive SEO available without having the ability to get their own sites ranked for terms like “automotive SEO”. How does that make any sense?

Do some searches pertaining to keywords the prospective vendor would hold important. If they are truly good at SEO, they will certainly apply their techniques on their own websites. If they can’t get their own websites ranked well, how are they supposed to help their clients reach the top. After all, “automotive SEO” is a much more challenging keyword than “Milwaukee Chevrolet Dealers”.

Again, automotive SEO isn’t hard. It requires effort, proper strategies, and the ability to keep up with the rapid changes that are happening at Google and Bing. If you aren’t completely satisfied with your rankings, it’s time to find other options. Once you have those options gathered, ask these five questions. The answers will help you determine whether they’ll be able to get you higher rankings or if they’ll have your rankings tanking.

It’s this simple. When given the choice between being ranked in the top 5 for good keywords or being ranked #1 for a great keyword, I will (after asking for further qualifications and some examples) almost always opt for the former. Search has changed dramatically in the last couple of years. As a result, above the fold for many is normally better than at the top for a few.

In reality, it isn’t that simple. You’d have to look at all of the factors to make an educated decisions. This general rule, however, works a vast majority of the time. The reason is based upon search habits. People trust Google and Bing to be a guide but not necessarily to be 100% accurate. In the past, the clicks for the top-ranked listing received the lion’s share of the clicks. #2 got fewer but still more than the rest, and so on, and so forth.

This is still the case for very specific searches. For example, if someone searches for “Dell” and dell.com is at the top, it will get over 90% of the clicks. However, for searches that are more general, the ones where the searcher is looking for options such as “Seattle Dodge Dealers”, the gap in clicks between #1 and #5 is minimal. In fact, there are times when the #2 or #3 listings get more clicks than #1.

People doing these general searches are looking for possibilities, not to have a definitive answer. Searching for “Seattle Dodge Dealers” gives them options. From there, they decide which to click on based upon reputation if they know the dealerships, the listing titles, descriptions, and position on maps when appropriate. The look at reviews, domains, and even previews in some cases. The point is this – being “above the fold” is the first goal. Moving up to the top is the second goal.

Some might wonder why we would only shoot for being above the fold. In most cases, the effort it takes to get a site moved up from #5 to #1 is about equal to the effort it takes to get several keywords into the top 5. It isn’t that dealers shouldn’t strive to be #1, but they shouldn’t do so at the detriment of getting more keywords driving traffic to the site. From experience, we’ve seen where the benefits are highest for dealers.

Step 1, get as many keywords into the top 5 as possible. Step 2, once a good chunk of the possibilities of valuable keywords are in the top 5, it’s time to circle back around and push those listings up higher. It’s not as glamorous as focusing on getting a few keywords to the top and forsaking the rest, but it’s definitely more effective in the long run.

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(Originally posted here)