A Contrarian’s Perspective on SEO for Car Dealers.
Most blogs about the auto industry fall into one of two categories: those about cars and those about SEO. Search Engine Optimization is one of the fastest growing areas of marketing, and with good re…

In my almost 12 years now of managing web sites and internet marketing, I have yet to see any tool, method, philosophy, tricks, camoflauge, or anything else come even close to the power and clarity of good customer service – this includes honesty, respect, being forthright (that means aggressively transparent), caring and interested.

It does not matter what you sell, but to sell well and sell consistantly (which translates into longevity, or business “Building”), you must at all costs build a relationship with that other human being who is looking into trusting you with their time, their money and maybe even their future (will they be able to make the payments, will they turn into long time customers, etc.).

So many things are at stake above and beyond what someone says about us on a blog. When you reduce the effect that a blog statement made by one person, who probably is not going to become a customer anyway, has on our business, as compared with giving your full attention to those who are already customers, or who just walked in the door, then you’ll start seeing things in perspective. And I know for a fact that your sales will go up.

Crap happens and there is nothing you can do about it! Oh wait, maybe there is… maybe going the extra mile, sending that extra email, making that extra call, showing real concern and warmth and putting the customer’s concern above my sales numbers might even prevent that “flog” from happening in the first place!

I don’t want to appear cynical here, so forgive me if I do. I simply want to make the point that if we give too much attention to the negative, it WILL hinder the positive.

Most of the online businesses who started posting customers comments, both good and bad, have seen sales INCREASE. Honesty is ALWAYS rewarded on the internet, because it’s the one place people expect you to be real. If you are not, you are misusing their trust and they will have nothing to do with you, or any fake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU&mode=related&search=

While I was working with the http://www.homenetinc.com/ Inventory system, I tried to get them to see the value in making their platform RSS ready.

See the video and see how nice it would be to establish a RSS channel to a shopper.

Nice!
Joe

Social bookmarking is one of the services that we offer as part of our different packages. It can really work if done properly to help get websites ranked well.

An angry consumer Flogging you is not a problem until a NEW shopper looks for your name in a Search Engine and sees the moaning and groaning. But! Not all Flogging will make it to the front page.

You can battle flogging BEFORE it becomes a problem with SMART SEO. If you have a great Search Engine Guru in your camp, you’re site is raked very well with search engines AND if your site is filled with lots of good information, you can defend yourself by “out ranking” the irate flogger… there by burying them into the lost (rarely viewed) pages of google.

G’Luck,
Joe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmakemoneywithkassper%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F2007%2F08%2Fsocial%2Dbookmarking%2Din%2Dplain%2Denglish%5F13%2Ehtml

Joe

Andrew:
Edmunds is doing something like that. It is moderated and requires approval. I sent a couple of tests — one legit, one semi-legit but spammy (as if written by the dealer), and one that was clearly a bashing that was poorly written.

The legit one went through fine. The spammy one was edited to remove a link that I tried to sneak in. The bashing was heavily edited, but the ratings (zero across the board) stuck.

Overall, I was extremely impressed. It would be a massive undertaking that would fall under many catch-22s. First, to generate income, it would have to accept advertising without accepting dealers. That would be a problem, considering the IT and moderating manpower required. Edmunds is making nothing, perhaps losing money on the venture, but they don’t mind because it’s just a value-add to them for traffic. They are already considered “neutral” so they can do whatever they need to do to draw traffic.

********

Laura:
Great link. Nancy Miller (Wired Mag Editor) is someone whose opinion I respect.

********

Jeff:
I like your choices. I just hope you have the time or a budget. To make it work (which it definitely can and should) will require some planning, hard work, and babying for a while. Consider professionals (unless you are a pro-blogger, of course) or plan on at least a couple of hours a day, 5 days a week, just to do the bare minimum to get it built.

*********

Ryan:
You know I’m a supporter of your work. Keep it up!