Author Archives: Ananth Godavari

New Off-Site SEO Strategy for Car Dealers

imageThere is a new social media site called pinterest.com that recently has gained a lot of popularity among social media sites. According to a recent study conducted by Cambridge, pinterest is driving more traffic to your main business website. In some cases dealers have seen an increase of over 400% traffic generated from pinterest.

Pinterest is a social media site just like facebook where you can load or Pin Images, like, follow and share. Obviously a strategy is needed for businesses to use pinterest. If you simply add images you would not see any difference in the traffic patterns, but if you add your business images along with not so selling type of content you are likely to get more traffic to your main websites.

I believe, as part of Automotive SEO strategy car dealers should load model pages and link them back to the landing pages on their main website.

According to Google, consumers visit 18.2 different sources before they make a buying decision and if optimized correctly, pinterest can be one of those 18.2 sources to influence Automotive ZMOT.

Automotive Advertising Network, with its strong offsite SEO strategy has started to use pinterest for car dealers as part of generating more traffic to the dealers main website.

AAN also helps dealers to collect reviews from happy customers while they are still in the dealership after they buy a new or used vehicle or service their car.

Along with pinterest AAN will be generating more traffic to dealers main website.

If you already are an AAN member please see your account manager and see how you can leverage the new social media wave with Pinterest.

Contact AAN to become a member and leverage strong Automotive SEO strategies for a low monthly price.

Limited Retargeting on GDN expedites Mobile Apps

According to Jeff Ward-Bailey’s article on The Christian Science Monitor

Google spent much of last week dodging criticism from Apple users about its online privacy practices. But when Microsoft got involved this week, that’s when things got really interesting.

Users of Apple’s Safari browser recently claimed that Google was violating their privacy by circumventing a mechanism the browser uses to disable tracking.

Here’s what’s (apparently) going on under the hood: by default, Safari disables third-party cookies, nuggets of code that companies can use to identify users returning to a site they’ve visited before, or to track what other sites they visit. Safari can accept cookies if a user explicitly gives permission, but Google’s ad platform reportedly used a workaround to mimic approval of its cookies.

 

We all know the Do Not Call law had dramatic impact on the telemarketing industry, the browser cookie privacy laws is expected to put a huge dent in the ability to build retargeting audiences. We are not sure how fast and how big this dent is going to be due to the privacy filters.

With this recent uproar dealers would need to expedite the roll-out of branded mobile apps and Automotive mobile websites. The apps provide a direct communication channel with customers.

With email delivery rates low and privacy concerns on the rise, mobile apps are a strong way to have two-way communications with your customers.

As part of the delivery process or service process dealers can encourage smartphone owners to download the dealership’s custom app right in the store.

Automotive Advertising Network will start offering Mobile Apps and Mobile Sites exclusive to AAN members during 2nd Quarter 2012.

AAN is a one of a kind Off-Site Automotive SEO platform with built in in-store review platform helping dealers to gain higher visibility for their online internet marketing campaigns.

In-Store Reputation platform for Car Dealers

Car Dealers embrace In-Store Reputation Management Platform developed by Automotive Advertising Network, that was unveiled at the recent 2012 NADA and 2012 DMSC conferences.

The Automotive Advertising Network is the industry’s first content syndication and search engine optimized network designed to promote car dealers’ inventories on national, regional, local and specialty sites. Now AAN members have the ability to capture reviews while customers are still in the store finishing up the buying the process.

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The in-Store review platform along with the syndication services for inventory and content is considered to have a heavy influence on Automotive ZMOT.

The AAN helps dealers dominate ZMOT by owning multiple AAN created web assets and syndicating consumer reviews so that no matter where the consumer looks, an AAN client is always top of mind and top of results pages.

About the Automotive Advertising Network

The AAN is the industry’s first optimized, dealer-centric network with no third-party ads, designed to promote car dealers’ inventories on national, regional, local and specialty sites.

AAN is a comprehensive digital marketing and branding platform that utilizes proven practices in Search Engine Optimization (Automotive SEO), inventory advertising, social media and content publishing to advertise and sell dealer inventory.

Using these proven SEO strategies, the AAN helps dealers establish high quality, exclusive leads for less money, translating into higher closing ratios and lower costs for the dealers.  Plus, unlike traditional third party lead collectors, the dealer’s own inventory-listing pages are free of competing ads. 

The AAN has changed the playing field for dealers who have typically had to compete with national third- party lead providers who have long had an advantage on the search engines because of their national footprint and corresponding search authority.

For more information on becoming a member visit our website at http://www.automotiveadvertisingnetwork.com or give us a call at 732-450-8222

Automotive Microsites – A Major Influence on ZMOT

Until recently dealers and dealer website vendors have thought Dealer Microsites are an important tool for Automotive SEO. Generally Automotive Microsites are created for a specific reason, for example to appear high in SERPs for a targeted keyword or to focus on a particular dealer topic.

And its true that Microsites if done correctly can provide these benefits. There is an additional benefit that these Automotive Microsites provide. They become a part of Automotive ZMOT influencers.

According to Google on average consumers would visit 18 different sources before they decide on what brand of car they want to buy and where. On top of it the most common search queries are related to Price, performance and styling.

If the microsites created for dealers answer these questions and are keyword targeted at the same time, chances of these sites appearing among the 18 different source is high. This means consumers are most likely to come across your assets online than your competition’s assets.

This is very important to capture the online audience.

If your online reputation far exceeds than your competition than the likely hood of a consumer shopping for their next car in your dealership is higher.

Automotive Microsite ZMOT Strategy

An Automotive Microsite done to be part of ZMOT influencers need to have content that addresses Price, Performance and Styling of the brands they carry. It needs to target the most competitive keyword in their market and GEO-Target.

A microsite also needs a strong linking strategy for the keywords it was created for.

Having relevant content, answering common questions, strong linking strategy and keyword rich content makes the microsite appear strong in search results and becomes a part of the 18 different sources that influence consumer to shop at your dealership.

Automotive IRM influences ZMOT

There are other ZMOT influencers, dealers online reputation being the most important factor that need to be constantly monitored and improved. Google Place reviews, AAN Reviews, Yelp, Dealer Rater etc. are some of the places where the dealer need to concentrate on. It is important to have positive reviews to demonstrate the experience a consumer will likely have when they visit your dealership.

In summary, to sell more, dealers need to have to have an effective online strategy that includes microsites, positive online reputation, inventory, content and review syndication. Automotive Advertising Network provides all this for a low monthly fee.

Call us at 732 450 8222 and we will demonstrate how AAN can help you in providing more online resources to help in the ZMOT process for a car dealer.

Dominate the Zero Moment of Truth with Automotive Advertising Network

According to Google’s data, on average a car buyer visits 18 different sources before they make a decision on what car they want and where to buy. An automotive dealer marketing campaign should include strategies in which the dealer online assets appear in more places.

Dealers need to invest time, effort and money to make sure the most popular questions are answered for the prospective consumers on different sources where the consumer is likely to come across during their ZMOT process.

imageAccording to Google the most important questions are related to price (64%), vehicle performance (44%) and styling (37%). Content should be written around these topics and published in places where consumers are likely to see. Obviously the content need to be optimized for search engines to capture as many places in searches as possible.

Assuming a consumers are educated on price, performance and styling, the other thing they would look for is where to shop for their next vehicle.

Online Reviews play an important role in providing a consumer an idea of the experience they would have when they visit the dealership. If dealer’s online reputation is great, you can expect more sales.

Google place reviews play an important role in Automotive ZMOT. And dealers need to put extra effort in making sure their online reputation is excellent. The best time to obtain a review is while the consumer is still at the dealership after they purchased their vehicle. This also gives the dealer an opportunity to reconcile any potential negative reputation that they might get from a not so happy customer.

According to Google “If your business received a review that you don’t agree with, we encourage you to use business owner responses to reconcile the situation with the customer. We know a negative review can be frustrating, but we believe that engaging with a customer to address his or her concerns creates the best environment on Google Places. “

AAN (Automotive Advertising Network) has tools and technology to address and be a big part  of ZMOT influencers. With content syndication across 100% automotive websites addressing the most common consumer questions, in-store reputation management tools and, Review Syndication across 100% automotive search optimized websites, AAN provides dealers a way to influence car buyers ZMOT.

Google Page One Assets for Automotive Dealers

Dealers who have competition and lead grabbers appearing on Google’s page one results for their name need to fight back. Its important for dealers make sure and have an excellent strategy for counter the page one situation.

As part of Automotive Advertising Strategy can signup for Automotive Advertising Network membership and can get help.

As a recent example of how it works, Infiniti of Mission Viejo needed more dedicated assets on page one for their name. AAN created a subdomain on their name off the national site cardealersale.com. Then high ranking AAN network assets are used to build valuable and authoritative content and links back to the newly created automotive microsite. Google bot immediately recognized the new site, off-site SEO content and backlinks and positioned the dealer microsite on page one for their name.

Below, you can see the power of AAN and how dealers can leverage the AAN membership.

If you are looking for a Page one strategy you can contact us and we will demonstrate how the network can help you achieve you organic SEO goals using your inventory, SEO content and the power of AAN.

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Mobile Inspector Will Shake Up The Auto Industry

Brian Pasch loves to discuss digital marketing strategies with industry peers and when he sees an opportunity that can benefit the larger automotive community he is compelled to write and share.

Today, to the potential surprise of his readers, he is not writing about search marketing. He is writing about technology because he is very very excited about a new product that creates an innovative process for vehicle inventory inspection and merchandizing.

A dealer’s inventory is the primary eCommerce connection with consumers. Dealers make an significant investment to locate, appraise, purchase, recondition, and market used cars.

The physical infrastructure, human resources, insurance, financing, and marketing costs represent a large risk that dealers willingly take.

However, the attention to detail given to inspect, photograph, and merchandize their used cars on their website often does not reflect the massive investment dealers undertake to be in business. I see a costly disconnect in the auto industry on attention given to vehicle merchandizing.

You can read the rest of the article on Dealer Seo site here.

Automotive Dealer SEO and Google Related

As of August 16th 2011 evening, Google started showing Google Related for websites (I could only see a few as of now). Automotive Dealers will have a great impact on their web assets due to this.

imageGoogle Related for Automotive dealers seem to have 4 elements to it. A map, Google Reviews, Related Places and Related Searches. Although I am all for showing a map, I am not sure the other aspects of Google Related will have a positive impact on a dealership. For instance if a dealer website has a low star count, as a potential buyer I would in a second go to another place to shop for a car.

Dealers Need IRM Strategy even more now with Google Related.

imageDealer who do not invest in their IRM strategy are the ones that will get hurt most. A low star count means you lost the customer even before they read through the content on your website.

Being proactive and getting your customers post positive reviews in Google Places is the best way to get past this hurdle.

A dealer with low start count or recent low star counts need to investigate each incident and make sure have a good process in place to make sure unhappy customer reviews are limited or eliminated, especially since its easier to get bad reviews rather than good ones.

The related places tab at the bottom also shows star count for your competitors, If they have better start count, I would go shop in their dealership.

So its important not only to watch your counts but also your competitor counts, and provide best service you can to limit bad reviews and low star counts.

 

Automotive SEO and Google Related

It also seems from the Google Related bar, the related searches (last tab) shows various search results, in the searches I performed, I was looking for Toyota service in Sanford NC and I got related searches to show up for buying a new Toyota and/or a listing of Toyota dealers in the area. I believe Google will be refining the related searches even more to show more relevant results to the users. Evidently it very important to have more assets on page one for the keywords you wish to appear. This way Google Related Searches will always show more of the dealers listing and competitors.

 

So in summary it appears the strategy is 2 fold. One, to have good reviews and the other being strong Automotive Advertising in regards to Automotive SEO.

AAN can help car dealers achieve the objective of strong Automotive SEO that should include building geo targeted Automotive Microsites. PCG Digital Marketing Strategies can help in improving and retaining strong reviews. End of the day the dealer need to invest in Automotive SEO and Automotive IRM and keep up to date with changes Google is making and AAN can help.

Call us at 732 4508222 to talk to us and a quick demo of our services and tools and let us show you how you can benefit from these new changes.

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Google Related Searches for Automotive Dealers

Recently while searching for a laptop to buy, I already knew what I wanted to buy. It’s an HP Core I7 that was on sale in Staples. The zero moment of truth is I already decided not only what to buy but also where to buy.

Then I decided to test out Google and see if Google can give me the best deal in a reputed store for the laptop I am interested in for a better price. I typed “laptop” in Google. I noticed something very new showing up. Since Google wants to show the best results for my query, gave me options of highly optimized and ranking sites in my area to buy a laptop on page one. Staples is not one of them.

imageThen I noticed a new thing showing up at the top of the results and just below the paid listings. Google is now showing options to filter results based on the broad product search term I used.

What Google is actually trying to do is providing me with options to refine my search. A click on any of these options are automatically added to the search box and results are displayed for the new focused search.

Since many of my clients are auto dealers and have created numerous Automotive Microsites for dealers, I tried a few more searches for Toyota, Cars, Honda, and the results seem to be normal like old days. But when I searched for Tires, or brakes the related search option showed up.

As interesting as this seems, it appears Google started providing this option mostly for products, and is not being shown on actual OEM brand searches yet. But my gut feeling is very soon we start seeing Stores, Models, and even service centers for the keywords like “Toyota”

Impact on Dealer SEO strategies

Needless to say this will have a huge impact on organic SEO strategies for car dealers. My speculation is that Automotive Dealers who invest on the best Automotive SEO strategy now will benefit when Google opens this for other Automotive Search Terms.

imageThe trick seems to be on page one for these important keywords and right now the greater impact is on Fixed Ops Microsites related searches. Search for Tires or Brakes and you will see what I am writing about.

Members of Automotive Advertising Network have a unique opportunity that helps dealers achieve this faster with the network of sites. Dealers who understand the game changing rules of Google Optimization will be able to add custom links for these major keywords, that will help their link target rank higher and eventually when Google provides Related Searches for these terms your dealership will show up.

If you are interested in AAN and Content Syndication on Dealer Microsites give us a call for a demo at 732-450-8222.

Google Reviews Changed

 

Google has once again changed its position regarding reviews in Google place. It started dropping third party star count. This change is a welcome change for some dealers who have bad third party reviews but for those dealers whose reviews were better off with third party counts have to step up their game in getting reviews posted in Google Places from their Customers.

 

What can Dealers do to improve their review counts?

 

Automotive dealers need to have an in-store reputation management policy to manage Google Places. With a whole lot of smart phones on the market selling at considerably lower prices, dealers need to start using Android phones, iPhones, iPads etc. The Google Places app can be installed right on them.

Dealers can use Google Boost to spice up their PPC strategy. Boost is an up and coming strategic advantage which we have been discussing with clients.

Third party reviews are still important and will still be indexed and viewed by your prospective customers.

In-Store IRM Processes and Training

Dealers looking for direction on how to best adapt to these changes should start an in store reputation management process that include using 3G smart devices.

Dealers must set processes to identify consumers with Google accounts while they are in the dealership. 550,000 Android devices are activated a DAY and all have Google Accounts. Google empowered consumers can post reviews directly on Google Places, with their account, from a mobile device.

If you need help with in store training, processes, and strategy on reputation management, give IntelliFusion a call.

 

IntelliFusion Technologies is an Automotive SEO and IT company and AAN Reseller. For your automotive advertising needs send us a note or call us at 732 450 8222 and see how the Automotive Advertising Strategies are built for your specific needs.