All Posts By

Acacia Grant

acacia.grant@dealeron.com'
In

Facebook’s “Like” Button Added to Inventory Pages

I wanted to let our dealership website customers know about a new feature designed to increase interaction on your inventory pages.  Dealers now have the option to allow their car dealer website visitors to “Like” a particular vehicle, sending the information to their Facebook account.

When your dealership customers click the “Like” button, the page title, URL, thumbnail gallery of all available photos and a link to the vehicle details page is sent to Facebook.  The button is available for both new and used inventory.

To see an example or to find out more information, contact your DealerOn account manager at 877-543-4200.

acacia.grant@dealeron.com'
In Mobile

Auto Dealer Websites Need a Mobile Version. Period.

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.

acacia.grant@dealeron.com'
In Video

Auto Dealership Viral Video Tips

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.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

acacia.grant@dealeron.com'
In Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization for Google’s Caffeine Update

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.

acacia.grant@dealeron.com'
In Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Internal Linking Helps With Car Dealer Search Engine Optimization

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.

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