Google Page One Management (GPOM) Strategies

A recent article here on DealerRefresh.com written by Alex Snyder entitled Is Edmunds Stealing From You? has generated a tsunami of comments and reactions from the automotive community. For some automotive professionals, the tactics recently used by Edmunds using Checkered Flag MINI’s brand was a revelation on the topic of online brand leakage Edmunds** and a number of other websites have been leveraging car dealer trademarked names and/or business names for financial gain.

I wrote a whitepaper entitled “Your Online Brand is Leaking” in response to the outcry from dealers. I posted the paper online for car dealers to read and distribute throughout their 20 groups and professional networks. (Download White Paper)

** According to a recent post by Edmunds on DealerRefresh.com, they have stopped Adwords campaigns that were targeting dealership names.

SEO Based Lead Generation

The practice of using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques on car dealer business names and locations to position lead collection websites on Google Page One is not just limited to the automotive industry. Consumer review portals and online business directories are just two other business models that create search optimized profile pages for company names, which often run Google Adsense to generate revenue. These sites generate revenue from ad networks, as well as by selling leads to aggregators such as Dealix.com, Detroit Trading Exchange (DTX) or Reply.com.

Edmunds is not the only company using SEO to generate traffic to their website. Dealers are questioning the ethics of their lead generation partners that use their brand name to collect consumer car leads which in turn they sell back to the dealers.

Owning Google Page One

Among the many comments on Alex Snyder’s post was one from Tim Jennings, Internet Director at Tom Sparks Automotive in DeKalb Illinois. He coined the acronym (GPOM) which stands for Google Page One Management. This refers to a business process to eliminate websites that are leaking your brand equity on Google Page One (GPO) for searches on your business name or locale.

How many of the 10 free listings on GPO you own?

The example above shows that 7 out of the 10 listings for “Millington Ford” are potentially taking leads away from the dealer on MillingtonFord.com.

Go into Google and type in your business name and click to search. Count how many websites appear on Page One organic search results that you don’t control. Complete the chart below to document today’s GOP listings:

Position	Website Name/URL	Friend or Foe
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Identify the sites that are not “brand enhancing” lead collection or advertising websites for example. A good GPOM strategy will push these lead collection websites off of Google Page One search results.

Paul Rushing, Automotive SEO Consultant, has stated many times that consumer review websites should not be allowed on Google Page One for searches on your business name. I have come to see the wisdom of this statement because your competitors can place Google Adwords on your own review page and draw customers away from your business.

Confused? Take a peek at your business listing on InsiderPages.com or MerchantCircle.com and see the Google Adwords ads running. These advertising hotspots can be targeted by your competitors to run their ads and drain your brand’s equity.

When You Don’t Implement GPOM – You Leak

Car dealers need to protect their investment in their brand; it is their multi-million dollar asset. Dealers need quality, first party consumer car leads to run their business.

Without a GPOM plan they are:

• Buying leads that they should be getting for free.
• Enabling their competitors to buy leads generated by their brand name.
• Allowing consumers to be distracted from their initial search goal

I have outlined in this white paper an effective GPOM strategy that all business owners, even outside of the car business, can implement themselves. If past data is a reliable predictor, about 20% of business owners reading this will follow these recommendations and implement their GPOM themselves. This will be the best single investment of their time this year.

Another 30% will call my Automotive SEO Company or another SEO professional and ask them to implement an effective GPOM program. These business owners don’t have the time or confidence to implement the strategy since it’s not in their core competency. The other 50% of business owners reading this will do nothing right now. It will be placed on a list of things to do and may never get done. Your competitors hope that this is the case.

GPOM Challenges

If you follow the steps to implement a GPOM business process, you will see over the next few months that the parasitic lead collection website will be pushed off of Google Page One. Every local market is different, but there are a few exceptions to the GPOM strategy that will make it difficult to own Google Page One just for your brand and with content you control.

These exceptions do not preclude success; they will just need a professional firm that can deal with the sticky organic search listings that are hard to make go away. The GPOM also covers strategies that are normally part of an Internet Reputation Management program when negative press is on Google Page One.

Here are some things that will make owning Google Page One for your name difficult:

• A federal or state lawsuit or a government action that includes your company name and posted on a government website.
• An active listing on “ripoffreport.com.”
• Your dealership has a common name like “Midway Motors” and there are multiple businesses across the country that share that name.
• A highly publicized news article on a local news website that has received high traffic for a long period of time that has your business name in the title.

If you don’t have any of these issues in play, then implementing a GPOM process will be successful.

GPOM Action Plan

The key to an effective GPOM strategy is to understand that Google in its simplest form is a Text Matching search engine. When you search for something on Google, the page that is displayed is called the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Google’s job is to find best matching assets for your search phrase which can be text, videos, photos, news articles and even music clips.

So you need to place assets online that match your business name, exactly. Once these assets are loaded to online websites, you will need to add links from other sites that point to these assets. You will also attempt to drive traffic to these assets through social media, blogging and SEO strategies.

A word of caution, do not fall into a trap of creating a 20, 30 or 50 social media or business directory accounts that you will not keep up to date. There are services that automate the creation of accounts that can be opened with your company name. Accounts that are created and are left unmanaged provide zero Google Page One value.

I have created a set of tasks that I recommend business owners implement over the next 30-60 days to control all ten Google Page One organic listings.

For this article, I am going to use a fictitious car dealer brand called “Frank Herbert Toyota” which is located in Dune, Arizona. You would just insert your brand name any time this name was used. Insert your city name whenever you see “Dune” used.

GPOM Step One:  Buy Exact Matching Domain Names

Go to Godaddy.com or a registrar of your choosing and purchase all domain names that are exact matches, as follows:

• www.frankherberttoyota.com
• www.frankherberttoyota.net
• www.frankherberttoyota.org
• www.frankherberttoyota.mobi

The other domain names that include .info, .biz or .us I normally do not purchase because these domain extensions are rarely seen on Google Page One. For many car dealers, the first domain name is most likely already in use. The .mobi domain can be used for mobile websites; check with your dealership platform vendor to set that up.

If you want to take this one step further, purchase domains that highlight different profit centers in your business and also place a WordPress CMS website on these domains.

• www.frankherberttoyotaservice.com
• www.frankherberttoyotaparts.com
• www.frankherberttoyotasale.com

Sub-Domains Are Also Powerful

You can also create blogs on sub-domains off your website. Sub-domains have the extra benefit of being associated with your main URL which is already indexed and respected in Google.

An example of a sub-domain would be: http://blog.frankherberttoyota.com

Sub-domain blogs are often best done in consultation with your primary website vendor or a consultant because of the setup required in creating a sub-domain.

GPOM Step Two: Set up WordPress CMS Websites on New Domains

On the newly purchased domains, set up WordPress CMS Websites (blogs) and have them customized to match the exact look of your dealership website. This creates a consistent “brand” look when someone finds these sites.

The WordPress websites should have navigation links back to your main website. You can see an example of a skinned WordPress website that looks like your primary website below:

Primary Website: www.midwaymotors.com

WordPress Blog/Website: www.midwaymotors.org

Using Your New Domain Names

• On the www.frankherberttoyota.net website, you can talk about your dealership, OEM News, helpful hints, etc.
• One the www.frankherberttoyota.org website, you can talk about your charitable work in the community, promote non-profit events in your area, showcase the charitable work of your employees.
• On the www.frankherberttoyotaservice.com website you can highlight common service tips, schedule service appointments, display service coupons, etc. You can also feature service custom testimonials and make your case why servicing Toyota cars at your dealership is the smart choice.

You will want to add new blog posts every week for a few months to gain respect by Google. This is an easy way to fill-in Google Page One with great content that is brand enhancing. When you set up WordPress, I recommend that you install HeadSpace2 plug-in to optimize your posts for Google search. Also install the Sitemap XML plug-in to generate a Google compliant sitemap file.

When set up properly, you can expect at least 1 organic listing on Page One to be occupied by your .com, .net and .org websites. In many cases, you might actually see two listings from your primary “.com” website so this would give you an added boost of Google Page One (GPO) dominance.

GPOM Step Three: Load Up Videos and Images Featuring Your Dealership

Create a video that welcomes consumers in your market to your dealership. In many cases, you can use an old TV commercial or create a video using a flip-cam for now.

Load this video up into at least three video websites that include YouTube.com, MetaCafe.com and Vimeo.com.

You can obtain a full list of video websites that can help with your Automotive SEO strategy, in this PowerPoint slideshow: Automotive SEO Strategies.

When you load up the video, the title of the Video should be YOUR EXACT DEALERSHIP NAME, in this case “Frank Herbert Toyota”.

Do not add any other words in the title. In the video description field, start with the words that match your dealership name.

For example: “Frank Herbert Toyota is located in Dune Arizona and sells new and used Toyota cars in the greater Phoenix area.”

In the tags field, add your dealership name and variations of the name like this: Frank Herbert Toyota, dune Arizona Toyota, Toyota dealer Dune Arizona

When you load the same video up the second and third time, change the description and tags so they are not an exact match.

Do the same with photos of your dealership and load them up on www.Flickr.com with the same strategy, to ensure that you have both videos and photos coming up for searches on your dealership name.

John Marazzi Nissan

The screen print example below shows that John Marazzi Nissan in Naples Florida has used this strategy to add video assets on GPO when you search for his dealership name. The videos help push off lead collection websites and sites they do not fully control.

In fact, his GPOM strategy has yielded 100% control of his organic listings!

GPOM Step Four:  Create Facebook and Twitter Accounts

Create a Facebook Fan Page that uses your business name, but keep in mind that you will need to have 25 fans to get a custom URL. The custom URL is key to your GPOM strategy.

The default URL is very long and hard to use on email signature blocks or in email. When you get enough fans, you can convert your Facebook fan page URL to something that is short and sweet.

I recommend that you create the custom URL to be an exact match of your business name so the Facebook Fan Page looks like this:

http://facebook.com/frankherberttoyota

If you have an active Facebook Fan Page, you will most likely see this on Google Page One within 30-60 days. This will most likely always stay on Google Page One for your name.

You should also know that Google allows you to customize company fan pages now so that they can look more like your brand. We have just started to play around with this new feature.

Using Twitter

Creating a Twitter account and exact matching URL will be harder because of the limitation on the length of your username; 15 characters.

In this case, Frank Herbert Toyota is too long for a Twitter URL. You will have to decide how to select the best account name to help get your Twitter feed on Page One.

Car Dealerships, with shorter names like Midway Chevy, Bell Honda or Irvine BMW, will not have a problem creating an exact match for their Twitter URL. For some dealerships with an active social media plan, you could even have a Twitter feed for sales and one for service, if they have different communications objectives.

I have two accounts on Twitter:

• My personal Twitter URL is http://twitter.com/brianpasch
• My Automotive SEO tweets are on: http://twitter.com./automotiveseo

GPOM Step Five:  Create a LinkedIn Business Profile

LinkedIn.com is primarily a B-to-B website portal and very popular for businesses looking to hire new employees.

Dealerships normally do not leverage LinkedIn because they are a B-C marketing model, but this platform can be used to place your dealership in front of active business professionals. (That’s another paper in itself!)

Car dealers can create a company profile page, and when done properly, the profile URL will contain your company name like this:

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/pasch-consulting-group

In addition to creating this profile, you can add the RRS feed from your WordPress blog so that the page can list current sales, activities or events. I was recently surprised how well an event placed on the LinkedIn.com calendar indexed on Google Page One (GPO).

I added on my calendar the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp that will be held the day before NADA starts in Orlando, and when you Google “Automotive Marketing Boot Camp”, the LinkedIn event is showing on GPO.

A well set up Linked-In business profile page can yield great GPO results. This is due to the power of LinkedIn, an exact match for our company name in the HTML Title tag and our business name in the webpage URL address.

GPOM Step Six: Create a Free Blog on a Highly Ranked Website Platform

There are many websites that offer free web publishing tools or blogs that actually can generate Google Page One listings for your dealership name. One powerful free blogging platform is FastCompany.com which is a print publication that also has a strong online presence.

When you create a blog on FastCompany.com you can name the blog the same as your dealership name. Here is an example from one of our clients, Acton Toyota:

• http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/boston-toyota/acton-toyota-0

You will notice when you click through to this page, their Dealership Name is in the title as well as in the URL. This free blog allows Acton Toyota to post Toyota news stories, car tips, highlight new car models, and at the same time assist their GPOM campaign.

Other places that can have similar impact include www.squidoo.com, www.blogspot.com, www.scribd.com, www.biznik.com, www.vox.com, and www.gather.com. You just have to test which sites work best for your local market. You also have to make a commitment to write articles. If you don’t have that resource in house, get help.

You can see my personal profile pages on a few of these sites. These pages have been created to build visibility for my name and services. See how I used my name or my keyword goal “Automotive SEO” in the URL name below:

• http://biznik.com/members/brian-pasch
• http://www.scribd.com/automotiveseo
• http://automotiveseo.vox.com

Keep in mind that some of these websites run display advertising that can be controlled or eliminated for a paid account listing.

Ideally, if you create enough WordPress blogs, you will not need to go to websites that have paid advertising. Everything must be weighed in consideration of allowing a direct automotive lead capture website on page one versus a blog running potential automotive ads.

Also, Page One is a start, but what happens when you want to own Page One and Page Two. Thatís where sites listed above come into play. The more arrows in your quiver, the more you can defend your brand against predatory websites.

GPOM Step Seven: Publish Press Releases

Content that is placed on highly rated websites that have article that include your Dealership Name will be indexed by Google. Press releases are one such place to publish content that can appear on Google Page One quickly. There are many different press release websites that can publish your content. Fees range from free to hundreds of dollars.

I would suggest that you use press release services that do not run ads. One website that charges $25 for a press release post that does not display www.Webwire.com and the press release rank very well in Google search.

Notes about Yahoo and Bing

Yahoo.com and Bing.com should not be ignored in your Page One Management (POM) strategy. Different tools and strategies produce different results on each search engine, so you will find that Page One on Yahoo looks different than Page One on Google. By having a competent Page One Management (POM) strategy for all three search engines, you will be rewarded.

Summary

When your GPOM process is in place, you will start to see results in days, weeks and months at different levels. The great news about WordPress technology is that it is a free open source website development tool that is easily set up.

You DO NOT want to use the free hosting at WordPress directly. You will want to set up the GPO strategy websites on your own web host; try Godaddy.com or HostGator.com which will cost under $100 a year per website.

At the 7^th Digital Dealer Conference in Nashville, I made a statement which holds true in the recent discussion of GPO domination for a dealerís brand name.

Hiring a content writer in 2010 will be a car dealership’s most important hire.

I stand by that statement and this article is a clear indication of how a content writer can develop your online brand.

I encourage all car dealers across the United States to make a commitment in 2010 to own 100% of the organic search listings for a search on their dealership name.

About the Author: Brian Pasch is the CEO of the Pasch Consulting Group and an active writer for the automotive community. You can also reach Brian in his New Jersey offices at 732-450-8200 or by visiting http://www.dealer-seo.com