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Auto dealer websites need to have a separate, mobile version of their site, plain and simple. Here’s why:
- Over 73 million people were mobile web users in 2009, a number that is expected to almost double by 2013.
- According to a study by Neilson, mobile Internet usage is increasing by 30% each year.
- Google has a separate search engine index for mobile content. Since there are far less mobile sites online, your mobile site will rank higher and easier than your traditional dealership website. Google rewards older sites, so the sooner your dealership gets online with a mobile site, the better.
- A recent study by Chitika, a search-based online advertising network, found that “users on mobile devices are 45% more likely [than PC users] to enter a local query than users on non-mobile devices.”
- One out of five Americans is on the mobile web on a daily basis.
Car dealership websites aren’t designed to be viewed on a mobile screen. They are too big, the links your customers are most likely looking for aren’t in plain view, and many dealership sites will take too long to load.
Mobile users are typically looking for something in particular (searching), not browsing like they often do when using a computer (surfing). The focus needs to be on getting your dealership customers the information they are looking for, as quickly as possible, which means the information shown to your customer has to be different if they are visiting from a mobile site than when on a computer.
If your auto dealer website provider doesn’t provide your dealership with a mobile version of your site, find out why. You could be missing out on valuable local leads and an opportunity to give your customers a positive online experience, regardless of how they visit your website.
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Everyone wants the videos they make to go viral, meaning they get spread around the Internet, sent from friend to friend. Viral videos can give your auto dealership a huge increase in brand awareness and buzz, huge marketing benefits and an increase in car dealer website traffic with little cost.
One recent example that was ALL over Twitter and the news websites on Wednesday is the Old Spice Dude’s proposal video. For the cost of making this viral video, Old Spice has been able to get their brand name in front of millions of people.
Viral videos can do great things for auto dealerships and their brand awareness–but the question always remains, how do you get your dealership’s videos to become viral?
There is no formula for what makes a video go viral, and I think that is really important to remember. There are, however, guidelines to follow if you want to stand a chance:
You must capture attention within seconds. No one is going to pass something on to their friends if it isn’t funny, shocking, surprising, or engaging within the first few seconds. You’ll lose their attention, point blank.
It has to tie to your brand. If you make a video that goes viral, yet has no tie or mention of your dealership or brand, all that marketing buzz and exposure will be lost. Sure, everyone might be talking about the video, but if they don’t connect that video to your car dealership, you’ve lost a huge opportunity.
Finally, be honest. Don’t try to make viewers think the video was made by a third party if it wasn’t. Promote your hopefully viral video on your dealer blog, through email lists, and on your dealership’s Facebook page. People want to be entertained, but they don’t want to feel cheated or lied to.
Now that Google’s search engine update, Caffeine, is live everywhere, a lot of people have questions about how it will impact search engine results, and more specifically, what car dealers can do to better optimize for this update.
I wanted to answer both questions, so let’s start with how Caffeine will impact search engine optimization in general. Caffeine is an update to Google’s indexing system. In other words, Caffeine helps “all content (and not just content deemed ‘real time’) can be searchable within seconds after its crawled” according to Google’s Matt Cutts. Now that Caffeine is live, your web pages will make it from Google’s search engine crawlers to the actual search engine result pages more quickly.
The answer to the questions of what auto dealerships can do to better optimize now that Caffeine has arrived is nothing. Nothing, that is, that you aren’t already doing to optimize your car dealer website.
Word from Google is that this update to their indexing system doesn’t make any of the crawling, indexing, or ranking factors any more or less important than they were before. It does make content available in search engine results more quickly after being crawled by Google’s bots.
Auto dealership website search engine optimization (SEO) best practices still apply: proper keyword research, individual inventory pages, proper website structure, regularly updated content, and video optimization, just to name a few. If you have any questions about how to properly optimize your car dealer site for Google and other search engines, ask your SEO or marketing vendor for more information.
Search engine optimization can be a complicated process, especially since Google is rumored to use over 200 factors when determining how high (or low) your car dealership website ranks on their result pages. While most people attribute successful SEO to things like keywords, meta tags, and external links, some SEO vendors forget about the importance of internal linking.
Internal linking is just another way to help Google, or other search engines, tell what each page on your car dealer website is about. Essentially, internal links are those that go from one page of your site to another (external links are to another site). One reason internal links are a valuable focus for your SEO efforts is because you can control the text that is linked (anchor text), an important aspect of SEO for your dealership site.
Another benefit of internal linking is that is helps create a content silo for your auto dealership website. Search engines look at the internal linking structure (which pages link to which, the anchor text used) to not only learn what each page is about, but also to help judge the quality of the site. A well maintained content silo on your auto dealership site can be an extremely valuable part of your SEO efforts.
Make sure your dealership site has internal linking that is well-planned and effective. If it doesn’t, ask your auto dealer website provider why. It’s an important part of a well-rounded search engine optimization strategy for car dealers.
I wrote on Friday about the changes Facebook has made to their landing tab capabilities for non-authenticated businesses, and today I want to let our auto dealer customers know a couple of ways to get around this blow to small business social media and Facebook’s marketing capabilities. Just to make things clear, your car dealership page will still be able to create and use custom tabs on your Facebook page, however you cannot designate one of them to be the first tab visitors land on anymore.
One way to customize the content your new Facebook visitors will see is to change your profile picture. Consider adding text or an image that directs people to the tab you would like them to see. Some examples are “Click on the Sweepstakes tab to enter” or “Watch our video greeting on the Welcome tab.” This way your dealership Facebook visitors will see the call to action you create regardless of the tab they land on when first reaching your page.
You can also direct your Facebook traffic to the intended tab by linking to it. Each created tab has its own URL, so when you link to Facebook from your auto dealer website or in your emails, include the link to the intended tab.
If you have questions about your car dealership social media campaign, contact the DealerOn marketing department. We have the tools, knowledge, and insight to help auto dealers remain successful while marketing online, no matter how many changes occur.
Looks like Facebook isn’t just pulling the privacy rug out from under its many users, it’s also changing the way small businesses, including most auto dealerships, can use the social media platform. Previously, Facebook allowed all business pages to create a customized landing tab that visitors would see when visiting your auto dealer’s page. Facebook has announced that now only “authenticated pages” will be able to use a landing tab. This means that a “page must have greater than 10,000 fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager” in order to be considered “authentic”. Pages that don’t fit into those categories will not be able to use landing tabs anymore.
This latest change is in addition to the introduction of Community pages. These are pages designed to be “the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic.” Wikipedia information will be shown, but Facebook is looking for users to contribute information as well. This could create a problem for small businesses as it could potentially limit the amount of control your dealership has over its brand. These pages aren’t controlled by a business or brand, but by Facebook and user content.
Your car dealer online marketing vendor should be able to help your dealership understand these and other changes in the social media world. I’ll have a post up Monday on ways your car dealership can get around these restrictions on using a landing tab for your auto dealer Facebook page. Please call us at DealerOn (877-543-4200) if you would like more information regarding how to get the most out of your dealership’s presence on Facebook or other social media outlets.
Have you noticed that when you use Google or other search engines the results page is showing different types of media, like video, images, local info, and web search, all on one page? This is being referred to as blended search, and it is showing up more and more on search engine result pages. Blended search gives your auto dealer website the opportunity to use search engine optimization across multiple channels to have more entries rank well.
When things like images, video, and news items show on page one of Google’s search results page, your car dealership has an opportunity to rank in all of those categories. SEO for images means using keyword-rich alt image tags and surrounding the image with descriptive, relative text, among other things.
The SEO efforts for video are similar to those for images. Since search engines have a difficult time “reading” what an image or video shows, adding descriptive text near the video and even captions for the video can help.
For news, make sure your auto dealership is creating search engine optimized press releases regularly. This way, when your dealership or relevant keywords are searched for, your car dealer press release (linking back to your website of course) will have a chance to show in the results.
Search engines like Google seem to be going full-steam towards blended search, and auto dealer websites that ignore this will be left behind. For more information, contact DealerOn’s auto dealer search engine optimization department. I also found this webinar to be helpful when trying to understand the importance and relevance of blended search: Search Results, SEO and the New World Order: Blended Search 2010
It can be easy for ISM’s to forget that not everyone has the fastest Internet connections or the biggest monitors when looking at their auto dealer website. In order to maximize the power of your dealership website’s calls to action, inventory links, and specials, try using the Google Browser Size tool.
This webtool allows you to enter the URL of any website. Once the site loads, Google places an overlay showing the percentage of Google visitors that have their browser window set to a size that would allow them to see your site. For example, here is the homepage of a Boston Nissan dealer:
In this screen shot, you can see the areas on our homepage that Google visitors can see without having to scroll. For example, the area in the orange section and over to the left can be viewed by approximately half of Google’s website visitors.
It’s important to have your calls to action, lead forms, inventory links, and other high-traffic links showing to as many website visitors as possible. You can use this Google tool to ensure as many people as possible are able to convert to a lead without having to scroll on your site.
While this information shouldn’t be treated as scientific, it’s a good tool to help check how viewable your auto dealer website is by the average Internet user. Keep this in mind when doing any website design work.
It seems like everyone is telling auto dealers that they NEED to have a social media presence; if they don’t, they are only missing out on sales and exposure. Well, according to a recent study from the market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies, “they” are right.
Over 1500 consumers were surveyed, and the majority said they were more likely to buy from and recommend business that they followed on Twitter or were a Fan on Facebook:
What really struck me were the answers of some participants when asked “What does it say about a brand if they are not involved with sites like Facebook or Twitter?” Some of the answers were:
- “If they’re not on Facebook or Twitter, then they aren’t in touch with the “electronic” people.” (Female, 55-59)
- “It’s EXPECTED that a company have some digital face–whether it’s on FB or Twitter I don’t know–but they need a strong electronic presence or you doubt their relevance in today’s marketplace.” (Female, 50-54)
Social media isn’t the end-all solution to increase your dealership’s sales and exposure, but this study shows why your auto dealership needs to have a presence on sites like Facebook and Twitter. If your dealership doesn’t have the time or expertise to run these types of online marketing campaigns, look into an auto dealer online marketing vendor.
Auto dealer search engine optimization is one of the most important things when it comes to the success of your car dealership website. Without it, most of your potential car buyers wouldn’t be able to find your site online. This is why your dealership website vendor needs to be well-versed in SEO, and be able to educate their dealership clients.
Avoid changing the keywords and SEO text on your dealership website. When you have questions or if you disagree with what is being placed on your site, it’s important to have a discussion with your SEO vendor. There may be a bigger plan than what you see, or your SEO vendor may have been mistaken about keywords your dealership wants to target. This is also true of other vendors that may want to change the SEO aspect of your site.
Of course, auto dealers should be (and are) in control of the search engine optimization on their dealership website. Your SEO vendor should respect the changes you wish to make, help to educate you if they disagree, and be able to explain why they are doing what they are. This is a huge part of being a SEO vendor, and I discourage dealers from partnering with any vendor that doesn’t abide by these practices.
