Car dealers are usually a year or two behind the internet trends. Some companies are taking advantage of that fact.

Doing search engine optimization for auto dealers is difficult, as the market is extremely competitive. Selling search engine optimization to car dealers makes doing the SEO seem like childsplay.

Since the beginning of the world wide web, the automotive industry, car dealers in particular, have been a year or two behind the trends. Whether it is their reluctance to let go of the “glory days” in the 80’s and early 90’s or simply a lack of time to devote to understanding the technology, car dealers seem to be the last to know when it comes to the internet.

This creates problems for those selling SEO services. There are so many companies out there who are selling services that are not adequate to use against the highly-competitive world of automotive marketing. Here are some “smoke and mirrors” tactics that are currently being used to get dealers to sign on the dotted line for “snake-oil SEO”:

Myth #1: Thousand of Indexed Pages are Necessary

It has become a catch-phrase for website providers who create separate pages for each individual car.

The Pitch: “Search engines read web pages like we read books. They give more weight to websites with thousands of pages than they give to websites with dozens of pages.”

The Truth: In many industries, having thousands of pages available for “long tail searches” (covered later) for individual items is a good thing. People look for “round blue widgets in ireland” and having a page for that is good. People do not search for individual cars, which leads to the next myth…

Myth #2: People search for individual cars or by VIN

The Pitch: “Pick a car from one of our dealers. If you type in the VIN (vehicle identification number) you will see a ton of listings to the website. Competitors don’t list their vehicles like this.”

The Truth: In the automotive industry, people wanting a new or used car will search for “minneapolis toyota” or “used cars oklahoma city”. They do not search for “used toyota camry in minneapolis”. According to Overture, here are the searches from January:

“used toyota camry minneapolis” – 28
“toyota minneapolis” – 32,430

Real humans search for dealers. They do not search for individual cars. They do not search by VIN. They do not search by model year unless they are looking for reviews. The search for dealers when they are ready to buy a car.

Myth #3: SEM Certification Means Better SEO

When I first heard of this, I was appalled. Some providers use their Google Certified Reseller and their Yahoo! Ambassador badges as indications of their search engine optimization prowess. This couldn’t be seen as anything other than a lie.

These certifications are nice, as they mean that someone at the company took the time to learn what Google and Yahoo! wanted to teach about their Pay-Per-Click, sponsored results programs. They have no SEO benefits. There was a company that promoted their “inside track” to search engine optimization using these badges in a press release.

Yahoo! certification costs $50. Google requires a certain spend on Adwords. They both have eBooks and tests that are required. They have NOTHING to do with search engine optimization for natural listings. Sadly, most dealers do not research what the programs are really about.

Myth #4: Flash Websites cannot be optimized

The Pitch: “Our templates are completely HTML. They don’t look as good, but the search engines prefer no flash.”

The Truth: There are ways to allow the search engines to read flash. Even more importantly, most automotive websites that are built with flash technology are built with enough HTML content to give the search engines all that they need.

* * *

There are so many more tactics used on car dealers, but this is a good start. In today’s ultra-competitive automotive marketplace, it is so important for dealers to look at examples and to check more websites than the few that the SEO companies provide.

A company with 5,000 websites is bound to have a few that were optimized. It’s in checking some of the other 4,995 that car dealers can keep from falling for the smoke and mirrors.

Guest Posting by J.D. Rucker
J.D. is an automotive search engine optimization specialist
Original Post on PromotionWorld

Last week, Google added a few new features to its Local Business Center. This is the place where any business with a physical location can go to essentially plant themselves on Google Maps. If you have not already done so, get your dealer listed in Google Local. This has clear SEO benefits for local search.

1. Sign up for a Google account www.google.com
2. Go to Google maps  http://maps.google.com/maps
3. To the left of the map you will see link for Add/Edit Your Business. This will take your to the admin portion of google local. Use the link for “Add a new business”.
4. Enter your dealers name and continue.
5. You  should then see your dealer name from a list of possibilities, if
   not, use the option “  My business doesn’t appear here”.
6. From here you can fill out or edit your dealer information.

After you have edited your information, you now need to confirm your dealer for Google to authenticate. Google provides 2 ways of doing this (I recommend the phone call – it’s faster).

• Receive a phone call at the number provided
• Receive a postcard at the address provided

Once you have authenticated your dealer, it usually takes about 3 weeks or more for Google to go live with your new or edited local business listing. Google even allows you to add coupons to your listing; I usually rotate a service department special coupon.

If you’re paying big bucks to a vendor for your dealership website SEO and they have not already done this or informed you about this, ask them why.

The Internet Sales Manager at our Toyota dealer had pointed out to me that my Mercedes dealer website was indexing in the top 5 positions on Google for “Hagerstown Toyota Camry”. She was astounded and upset at the same time (I thought it was funny). She kept trying to get out of me how I could get just one of my used Toyota’s to index just as high as her Toyota website, but that’s another posting.

While I was on Google, replicating what the Toyota ISM had seen, I found something interesting. A small 3 form search box showed up with Location, Make and Model. This is the first I had seen this search form. It’s obvious that Google it testing different ways of tying google base into their search. Take a look;

Once you submit your search criteria you are taken a more advance google vehicle search with result listings and a corresponding map for the location of the vehicle.

Getting your vehicle inventory into Google base is something you should seriously look into if you’re not already doing so. Cars.com, Automotive.com, ebizauto.com and a few others out there have some direct feeds to google base. If you have the knowledge, you could set up your own feed as well..it’s free! Consumers can also subscribe to the RSS feed, letting know when new listings appear!

Get your dealership website listed these main online business directories.

Do yourself a favor and take the time and the small amount of money to get your dealers business information and dealers website listed in these top business directories (especially if you are publishing a new website with a new URL). It can help prevent your website from being sandboxed in the beginning and can help with your overall dealerships website (SEO) search engine indexing.

UPDATED: Sept 3rd 2009

Google Directory – Powered by the ODP
Submit: http://directory.google.com/

Yahoo! Directory
Paid submission review $299.00  (Renewed Annually)
Submit: https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/express/intro/

Best of the Web
Paid Submission $99.95 USD (Renewed Annually) or $299.95 USD (One Time Fee)
Submit: http://botw.org/helpcenter/submitcommercial.aspx

GoGuides
Submit: http://www.goguides.org/info/addurl.htm

ODP – Open Directory Project – dMOZ
Submit: http://dmoz.org/add.html

Don’t forget to submit and optimize your dealer listings on Google Maps as well!!

Remember, when you are listed in a top directory, the directory is ofcourse linking to yourdealers website. This is considered high-quality link and is very good for your overall link popularity or Page Rank, which is an influential factor when it comes to ranking in the search egines.

I had a nice conversation with someone the other day and we were talking about how it’s so easy to get all these acronyms mixed up. You read an article in one magazine that talks about SEM and the next article you read refers to what seems to be the same thing as SEO. I myself have even been guilty of using different acronyms but not necessarily clarifying with the right terms.

So, I thought I would put together a few of the common acronyms to help clarify. I know these might seem elementary and obvious to many of us but it’s easy to get confused or just forget sometimes.

So lets review;

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
The term used to describe the technique of preparing your dealerships website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimizing a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process. This can also be referred to as Search Engine Positioning (SEP). Some companies commonly include SEO under the same umbrella as search engine marketing (SEM).

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):
The act of marketing your dealership website via search engines, whether this be improving rank in organic listings (search engine optimization), purchasing paid listings (PPC management) or a combination of these and other search engine-related activities (i.e. local listings, the new Google local coupon or link development). SEM is not always include SEO, so be sure to clarify this when you are speaking with an SEM vendor.

Cost-per-Click (CPC) or Pay-per-Click (PPC):
This is where an advertiser (or you the dealer) pays an agreed amount for each click a consumer makes on a link leading to your dealers web site. This is also known as “Paid Placement.”

Organic/Natural Listings:
Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings, CPC and PPC). Instead, your dealer’s website appears solely because the search engine has deemed it editorially important for your web site to be included. There is where your dealers’ website SEO comes into play.

There you have it. If anyone would like to share some thought or comments, please do so.

Lately, reading the dealer magazines has been nothing short of annoying. I swear every article is about Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

I took this quote from an article in the recent issue of Dealer Marketing Magazine, “There’s a reason why so many vendors are actively promoting Search Engine Marketing to dealers – J.D Power and Associates reports that in 2005, 90 percent of all Internet new vehicle shoppers used a search engine.”

I believe there’s another reason it’s so highly promoted; it’s an easy and quick way of playing the dealer out of money. The magazines are shoving search engine marketing down your throat every opportunity they get. I’m NOT saying SEM isn’t important; however, you need to have some understanding of SEM before you get into the game and sign your dealer up with a vendor.

It’s too easy to be sold on search engine marketing if you don’t understand it. I’ll sometimes play dumb when an SEM vendor calls just to hear their pitch. I can’t tell you how many times they use tricks to try and show me how my competition is found when the consumer does a search with our dealer name and town in it.

Many of these vendors will assure you they are going to get you top placement in the Search Engine results (in the paid listings of course). You should be aware, though, that showing up at the top of the paid listing does not result in higher conversion on your website. It might help your CTR (click-through rate) but that doesn’t mean you are getting a targeted audience. An SEM vendor can quickly blow through your ad budget by spending $2.00-$3.00 or even more per click to get you top placement. But again, are you targeting the right customer; and even more, are you targeting the customer that is in the right phase of their purchasing process? Many people click on the first thing they see regardless of whether or not it’s relevant. Or they think that if it’s at the top it must be what they are looking for. A large majority of consumers using Search Engines don’t know how they work nor do they know the difference between natural and paid placement. The next time your parents are on Google or Yahoo, ask them which ads are paid and which ones are free. I bet you get the deer in the headlights look!

SO, before you sign up with a vendor, here are some very important elements I think you should consider before choosing a search engine marketing vendor for your dealership.

1.  Which other local or competitive dealers are using the same vendor?
You might want to be careful here. If you’re using the same vendor that your competition is using, this could give that vendor the ability to drive up the Cost Per Click for some generic keywords. I have also seen some vendors use the same descriptive text for two different dealers.

2.   What is the message/copy they are using in the description area of your ad?
This copy is just as important as the page on which you are landing your consumer and the message needs to be consistent with the landing page. If your ad reads “Price Quote on a 2006 Mercedes C230 Sport Sedan,” I recommend landing that customer on a Quick Quote form for a Mercedes C230, not the Home page. If you decide to use a company that another dealer in your area is using, be sure they don’t use the same copy in your ads that they are using in the other dealers’ ads.

3.  Where are they sending your consumer traffic? Are they sending all of your customers to the Home Page, specific pages within your site or do they provide you with exclusive landing pages?
If you’re a customer looking for a Honda Accord V6, and you click on an ad for Honda Accord, would you rather be taken to a dealer’s Home Page or a page that has relevant information regarding the Honda Accord, such as Honda Accord inventory and/or a Get More Information or Pricing? Statistics show that landing your customer on a page for the specific content they are searching for will result in higher conversion.

4.  Are the pages to which your vendors are sending your consumers converting (are the consumers filling out a contact form or calling the phone number on that page)?
If your pages are not converting, this could mean several things. To list a few;
1. You’re not targeting the right audience with your ads.
2. Your page is not relevant to the ad or to what the customer is searching for.
3. The page on which you are landing your customers is not built for effective conversion.

5.   If the vendor builds specific landing pages, do they “Brand” your dealer in the page or are they making your dealer anonymous?
I believe in branding your dealer on your landing pages. If you’re going to land your customers on anonymous pages (not knowing they are dealing directly with your dealer), I have found that you’re almost forced to use some type of price persuasive call to action to convince your customer to give up their information, making your page and dealer all about price and not having the opportunity to make some money (this is what the lead providers do for us). This leads to number 6.

6.  What is the overall message or call to action they are using to persuade the consumer to give up their information?
Is price your primary focus? Maybe you’re a volume dealer and it doesn’t matter. But maybe you’re a dealer that still likes to make some profit on the front end and you want to convey a different message other than price to persuade the consumer to deal and buy from you. Price Quote is the easy way; why do you think all the 3rd party lead companies use this form of call to action? We all know, though, “Price Quote” does not always provide the highest sales conversion!

7.  Will your website vendor work with the SEM vendor you’re choosing? – Very Important!!
Some websites do not have the ability to place the necessary code in your web pages for tracking and analytics purposes. Ask your potential vendor about the difficulty of adding their tracking code to your website.

8.    Does your vendor provide statistical reports?
If your vendor cannot produce reports for you…look elsewhere. Here are a few things you want to look for;

• CTR (Click through rate) for every Ad Listing and the text that is being used in that ad (the title and description).
• Position of your ad when it was clicked on and if a conversion took place
• What you are spending per click for each keyword and keyword phrase
• Conversion rates for each keyword or phrase
• Day of the week click. Are you customers clicking more during the weekend or the weekdays? Optimize your budget accordingly.
• A list of other dealers who are showing up for the same keywords.

I have had vendors in the past who didn’t want share this information with me because they were afraid that I would use the keywords that they had “optimized” for my dealer and learn how to do it myself. Whatever. I dropped them like a brick. (I’ll keep that vendor’s name to myself.)

So be careful before signing up with an SEO vendor. Do your homework so you can hold them accountable and be sure to get your reports on a monthly basis.

Sign up with a vendor that is going to work WITH you and not just for you. And get involved! You wouldn’t send that $5K newspaper ad to the printers without approving it would you?

A Toyota dealer in Los Angeles wants Toyota USA to help curb what he calls “abuses of online marketing by some competing dealerships”. Apparently some of their competitive dealers are buying their dealerships trades name in the search engines and believe the practice is diverting shoppers looking for his dealership to a competitor’s store.

(Click here to read the Full Article in Automotive Magazine.)

I agree, this can divert the shopper. However, I’m not sure if there is anything that can or should be done about this (other then retaliation).

I have heard through the grapevine that several Manufacturers have been talking about getting strict with their dealers practicing this BUT what can they do about 3rd party websites doing the same thing? Is the manufacturer going to be able to police this as well? What about if your buying leads from Dealix, and Dealix is buying leads from the website that is bidding on your dealers trade names, and your competitive dealer is buying that lead from Dealix..WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? Just because it’s not direct…you’re basically contracting another company to run SEM on competitive dealer’s keywords then buying that lead. I just don’t see how you can police this.

My current opinion is to keep it open. As long as the dealer is not using your actual dealers name in the text of their ad, I think it’s ok. It’s no different then a dealer renting a Billboard right down the road.

Take a look at this…I did a keyword search on Google for “Hagerstown Mercedes Dealer”. You can see..#1 and #3 are my competitors (I’m in the middle) and since they are in the top positions, this reflects a high CTR (click through rate)..meaning people are indeed diverting from their original search and clicking on my competitors ads.

Note: Sorry for the Blacked out text but I do have a few secerts I like to keep to myself, HAHA..

I could get mad about this but it’s the game. I recommend setting up a separate campaign for your trade name keywords and having selective copy in your ad to better focus the customer towards your ad, what they came looking for anyways. MORE IMPORTANY..statistics show that “natural listings” have a higher conversion, so BE SURE that your dealers website is number 1 or more in the natural listing for these keywords as well!!

What do you think is fair?

Take the poll and be sure to share your thoughts and comments!

Could your local competitive dealer be clicking on your ads to dwindle down your budget?

Could you be a victim of click fraud?
Is PPC advertising already doomed?

As search engine marketing (PPC) gains more and more popularity for dealers, there are many things you need to be aware of before dumping thousands into this avenue of advertising.

If it’s this easy for a competitive dealer to click away at your ads (costing you money with every click). What about the vendors that you contract for your search engine marketing? I’m not accusing any vendors of doing this but it sure does make you think.

If you’re already advertising or considering PPC ads on Google, Yahoo or any other search engine, this is a must read!

Click here to read the Article

I’ve taken notice to a few articles lately in the dealer magazines about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for your dealership website. Most of the articles are very broad, and only touch lightly on what it takes to be successful to achieve high rankings in the organic listings of the search engines. I’m going to take it one step further, explain in a little more detail and direct you to a few tools that will help you with your own SEO.

• What are your customers typing in the Search Engines when they are searching for your dealership website or product?
• What keywords should you target?
• Once you have these keywords, what do you do with them?

Perhaps you are a Mazda dealer in the state of Maryland. What are shoppers typing in the search engines to find a Mazda dealer in Maryland? Use the Overture Keyword Tool Google Keyword Tool to help you with this.

Here I searched the keywords “Maryland” and “Mazda”.

This tool can give you an idea of what keywords or key phrases you should be considering in your title, description and onpage text.

I don’t recommend one-word keywords. If you sell New and Used Mazda cars in Maryland then the keyword “cars” is not going to work. People searching for “cars” might be interested in new cars or car insurance.

The right “key phrases” will bring you visitors that are truly interested in the Mazda product. You must use keyword phrases that are common enough that people actually use them, but unique enough to generate highly qualified, targeted traffic that increases your sales.

So what do you do once you have your keyword phrases? Lets look at the following;

Lets start with your dealership websites’ VERY important “Title”. The title of your dealerships website shows up at the very top of your browser window. If there is not a lot of competition for your targeted keyword or phrase, I’ve seen great results by just making changes to title tags.

Here is a not so good example of a title tag:
Bob Smith Mazda: Baltimore, new, used, certified, car, truck, suv, dealership

I would recommend something like this:
Maryland Mazda dealer / John Smith Mazda :: Baltimore, MD 21740

Description – Your dealership websites description is also very important. You want to include the right keywords and phrases here while also keeping in mind that this is the text that many search engines use to describe your site in the listings. Try to use some persuasive wording here to convince the shopper to click on your link while also incorporating your targeted keywords.

Here is an example:
John Smith Mazda dealership offers the Lowest price on a HUGE selection of New or Used Mazda’s. View our full Mazda inventory and specials for the RX8, MPV, Mazda3, Mazda6 or Miata of your choice.

Meta Keywords – Don’t waste too much time with this.. most search engines do not look at these keywords anymore but if you have time to create some, go ahead and do so. It does won’t hurt.

Example:
Mazda dealer Maryland, Baltimore Mazda dealer, Mazda cars, Mazda trucks, Mazda dealership, new, used, Tribute, Miata, Mazda6, Mazda3, B2000, MPV, parts, Baltimore mazda, Baltimore maryland, bodyshop, mazda service

On Page Text – This is the actual text writing that you place on your homepage and sub pages. This could be your welcome text. I’ve noticed that many dealer website providers do not provide an area on your homepage for text.

Within your text you want to use your targeted keyword phrases, BUT don’t over do it. Ultimately you want to be at a 2-4% keyword density (I’ll touch more on this later). Also..If possible, there are a few tags that you want to use in the HTML coding of your content.

Search engines like content that appears in “header” tags, yet very few dealer websites actually use these tags:
<h1>Header Text</h1> and <h2>Subsection</h2>

There is also the use of the “strong” tag:
<strong>Keyword Phrase</strong>

Here is an example with the use of proper HTML tags within your text:
<h1>Maryland Mazda Dealer</h1>,<strong>John Smith Mazda</strong> located in Baltimore, MD. We service all the major cities including Towson, Perry Hall, College Park and Gaithersburg.

<h2>New and Used Mazda’s<h2> with the Lowest Pricing, Large selection and monthly specials.

Remember, try not to get too spammy with your keywords or phrases. Too much can be worse than not enough. Never use more than one <h1> tag per page. Use your Homepage to target customers looking for your dealership name or a City/State Mazda dealer. You can focus on other keywords for your individual models (Mazda3) on your Mazda3 details or inventory page (if your website provider will able you to do this).

Be sure to keep an eye on your keyword density (though not as important as it used to be). Keyword density is the number of times a keyword is used on a web page divided by the total number of words on the page. You want to have a density of 2-4% (each search engine has different tolerances).

You can use to track your keyword density with this Keyword Density Tool.

Please make use of the “comments” link below for any questions or of course comments.