How to avoid the wrath of Google
Building Online Relationships
If you have spent more that 5 minutes talking to me over the last several years I have probably jumped up and started preaching about how you can be successful on the Internet. My rant just about always includes a reference to Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” and more specifically on the “Circle of Concern” and the “Circle of Influence”. To be successful on the Internet you don’t need the newest and coolest tools, you need to build relationships. This may sound strange, but think about it for a second. The most successful Internet entrepreneurs have become so by giving to their communities. Whether it be valuable products, advice, or just information they give and give and give. Just like you can’t make a withdraw from your bank account until you have put money in, [Read more...]
10 Content ideas for your automotive website or blog
Now that dealers are getting into blogging one of the top 3 questions that I get from dealers is what content should I put on my site. Although this is really a personal preference here are a few ideas. Maybe one will work for you or at least spark an idea that fits you and your dealership. two things that I would recommend is no matter what content theme that you decide on that you use a conversational tone and stick with your topic. [Read more...]
The secret to conversion is connecting the dots
Converting web visitors into leads on your car dealership website
Conversion isn’t near as mystical as it is made out to be. Just like SEO there are some basic principles that when applied just work. For the same reason wheels are always round and have no need to be reinvented so to is the techniques that work for conversion. This video will show you how [Read more...]
Creating a Satellite-Site Strategy
How many times have you heard that you need to have a plan before doing anything online. Well here is your plan, this is a complete strategy on creating satellite sites for strong SEO. The end result will increase your main website’s search strength, add value to your customers and your community all while increasing your POD score. Make sure that you are signed up for email updates to get the how to make a free social website with WordPress series as well as other special content that we will send out from time to time.
Automotive SEO has evolved [Read more...]
The Basics of SEO as a Foundation to building a Site
Plan your website or microsite with SEO in mind
When you build an automotive website or microsite it is important to have a basic understanding of SEO. Don’t worry it isn’t near as difficult as you think. SEO follows principles that we see everyday. Even the file system on your computer has the same structure that you want to follow. [Read more...]
White hat or black hat seo – the acid test
What is white hat and black hat SEO?
The Internet presents the ability to make money or get 15 minutes of fame to anyone with a computer. With the Search Engines being the main source to these ends. Optimizing websites and taking measures to get to the top of the Search Engines is a big deal. There are several ways to accomplish this goal some less ethical than others, or Black Hat. Black hat refers to techniques that are used to help fool the algorithms of the Search Engines. White hat is to design a website with good navigation for users with valuable content (which is also good for Search Engines).
So here is the SEO acid test
If you are going to use a technique that is intended to get more visitors to your site, ask yourself one simple question: Will this add value to the visitor? If the answer isn’t a strong yes then rethink what you are doing.
Automotive Ranking Reports for Free
Automotive Keywords using Rank Checker
Just like any marketing campaign, there are several aspects to creating good SEO. For me it has always started with finding something that could be measured. Since the automotive industry is a very specific niche I created a specific list of keywords several years ago to target. After monitoring the effectiveness of these words with analytics it became pretty apparent that the longtail keywords had the highest conversion. Especially when they landed a person on a list of vehicles relevant to their original search. So in other words if a person types in “Toyota Camry Denton” and lands on a page that displays a list of Toyota Camry’s there is a greater chance of that person spending time looking through the site and picking up the phone or filling in a form. I have always likened this to “walking the lot” with a customer.
So over the years I have spent a lot of time fine tuning our inventory platform to do just that and as an added bonus found that a website that ranks well on several pages for a variety of searches has great strength for head of the tail searches also.
From 4 years ago when we first deployed this technology to now a DealerTrend site usually ranks number one and two for every new model the dealer carries with zero backlinking effort. Now that there is more and more competition, especially in dense markets it is time that dealers start understanding how to backlink to there sites.
This video and the spreadsheet below is the first step to learning how and why to backlink to your site. It will give you a good picture of what your site is doing well for and where it needs help.
I have also included the video from Aaron Wall from SEObook.com that explains the Rank Checker tool in more detail. There is also a link to the page where you can download the SEObook.com toolbar that includes Rank Checker and a few other plugins that we will be using over time.
Longtail search
Matt Cutts and Longtail Search
In this video Matt Cutts discusses a new update to Googles algorithm as it relates to longtail search. With our long time focus on longtail we have been seeing a steady increase over the last few years in how people search so this comes as no surprise.