I had to call into to them to get the hidden page names for our Credit Application, Specials, etc..so that I could link. This is why they are a huge SEO nightmare. After I did massive SEO work on the sites we were much better. But this is an issue that a big Dealer Webdesign Company should know better about.

Dealerskins backend site manager is very archaic. The site editor is very limited for anyone with any kind of basic HTML experience. Their design optons would be good for a dealership who is looking to update from a site built in 1995, but if you are looking anything “cutting edge” you might look elsewhere.

Ultimately, you get what you pay for so be careful.

e-mail or 248 514 1115

One more point I wanted to share. Usedcarking(dot)com sounds like it is not a franchise dealer. If I was to look for a service department or a new chevy, I would not click on your link and if I did by accident, I would click back since I would think you are not a franchise dealer, simply a note lot.

So, although content is king, your marketing message needs to be tailored to what your customers are expecting to find. I see at least one third of my traffic to be service related and I get more new car leads then used car leads (although I get more used car searches). Probably because they can see the price for used cars, they have to inquire for new cars…..

Hope that makes sense.

True. If you look at only that it means absolutely nothing. My point was simply that the more pages the search engines know about, the better.

But first regarding your site and fxchevy(dot)com being better. Do you mean the number of leads or the amount of traffic you get? Cause I really think you should get more traffic then them. Problem lies maybe in your conversion ratio? You have to admit that your main entry page is not exactly what your dealerships’ customer is expecting (do your know your bounce rate for this page? number of visitors that exit on the first page they see). Do you know your monthly unique visitors, unique leads, unique phone calls? and do you know the same for your competitor, fxchevy? let me know and we will see whether my point makes no sense.

Back to my point in my earlier post, my current provider has their website hard code inventory pages, so instead of having a page called dealer(dot)com/inventory.aspx?item=5 my site will create a page dealer(dot)com/2008_acura_tsx_vin_used.html and since google’s algorithm looks at how often site content gets updated, having your inventory pages indexed is very important and helps your overall rankings.

Now all these fancy pants dealer website providers create fake content that is the same for each dealer and thus will not help your rankings. My provider is guilty of this too. You have to be the one to add the content if your provider allows you

Back to TKcarsites, their inventory is iframed into fxchevy and thus this does not help their site with search engine rankings and actually only helps getauto(dot)com that lists their inventory (just right click on their inventory tool and click properties in the dropdown). definately something they can see big results with if they change.

That said, I do agree that those numbers are not an accurate reflection of how you rank, it is simply a tool to help you improve. I would love to analyze the data from fxchevy(dot)com and usedcarking(dot)com to see where your problem is, if you think you have one. You can email me at oscar (at) goodosnacura(dot0com

PS. My site provider has problems too (too slow, too few pages, not flexible enough, etc……) but I get more traffic and higher conversion then with earlier providers.

The “site:” searches on Google can be very valuable if the site was built correctly from the start. I did a quick analysis of your site and found that there is one major flaw in your design that would not allow great ranking even though you have a lot of pages cataloged. Also, with regards to fxchevy, the main factor that is having the greatest influence on the search ranking is something that is most likely being done by a 3rd party company and not TK.
They have a ton of external linking which is enhancing their relavance. This is most likley done through a local PR firm. If they were using a web vendor that cataloged better on Google and combined that with his external linking, he would really dominate that market.

James Kovacs
http://www.clickmotive.com

Example:
site:usedcarking.com = 5,120 pages
vs.
site:fxchevy.com = 14 pages
(a local competitor by TKcarsites)

The TK site totally crushes my usedcarking.com site (WTG Jim Rucker!) So… the number of pages indexed only gains leverage IF the site has SEO engineered into it from the ground up.

I’d bet ya 5,100 of usedcarking.com pages are in goog’s dungeon (supplementals).

Joe