Autoxloo Blog » SEO

Dealership Internet Marketing – Location, Location, Location

Donna Kopotic — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:00:28 +0000

Search continues to be an evolving and controversial topic among dealerships. A “search” lead is a valuable, pre-qualified lead, because a searcher is demonstrating “intent” and “specific interest” when they search. On the other hand, dealerships have had mixed results with search campaigns, and many have spent thousands of dollars monthly on SEO consultants, with varying degrees of success.

AutoXloo continues to evolve our website architecture to be search friendly. Our detailed vehicle descriptions are structured to be relevant to search engines, and helpful to car shoppers. For car shoppers using Google and Bing to search for vehicles locally, our dealer websites naturally provide excellent search relevancy. And car shoppers love our vehicle description reports, available on all AutoXloo websites. AutoXloo’s technology can help dealerships make giant strides in achieving good search results without having to spend thousands of dollars on SEO consultants.

The “up and coming” online opportunity for dealers is the mobile market. Mobile is big and will be bigger than most of us imagine. It is the fastest growing Internet platform in the market today. Smartphones represent 50% of all phones sold, and represent a fast growing and evolving platform. Coupled with GPS pinpointing of location, the opportunities presented by barcode scanning of QR codes, there are interesting possibilities for strategically driving qualified leads and customer engagement. Talk to AutoXloo about the products we offer that support mobile initiatives by dealerships.

The most underused and most cost effective search tool available to all car dealerships is Google Places (previously Google Local). A complete profile built here can improve Google Maps visibility (1^st page search results), provide better organic search results, and relevant information to your customers. Google Places supports customer feedback (testimonials), which are viewed as more credible and trustworthy than any other information you can provide. Integrating a proactive solicitation of customer feedback from happy customers at the point of sale, is the most effective and cost effective thing you can do. This single action improves Google search ranking and provides helpful information that other prospective customers WILL read.

When we work with dealerships, we encourage an attitude of “decide, implement, adjust”. There is no magic bullet online – it’s an iterative process and there is no one size fits all. Choosing what’s right for your dealership and trying and measuring different tactics helps in developing an effective long term strategy.

15 Google Interview Questions That Will Make You Feel Stupid

Donna Kopotic — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:58:14 +0000

Google search plays an important role in the Internet strategies of the dealerships with whom AutoXloo works. If you have a few minutes, take a look at questions asked during Google interviews.

Search Optimization By Vehicle & By Dealership Location

Donna Kopotic — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:13:39 +0000

An aggressive search strategy is important for lead generation today and mandatory for the ongoing success of your dealership. Search optimization should focus on

Search ranking optimized by vehicle make & model
Search ranking optimized by dealership location (city, state)
Reporting and measurement to ensure your search investment is effective.
Traditional SEO companies will focus on onsite optimization through content development, metatags, title tags, and website structure and offsite optimization through link exchange, blog contributions, RSS feeds, etc.

I try to minimize the amount of AutoXloo commentary I offer in our blog, however, this is one area where we are delivering superior and more cost effective results than any other company out there. AutoXloo dealer websites are powered by WebXloo’s patented SEO Ranking Engine, which has proven to be one of the most reliable, cost effective methods for delivering systematic top search results for dealerships. We are getting first page Google and Yahoo search results in weeks, not months with this technology.

Importance of SEO for Dealerships

AutoXloo — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:47:53 +0000

Innovative dealers are finding their website to be the MOST IMPORTANT sales channel for their dealership. Beyond a compelling website, generating traffic to your website also is critical. Search is an important part of effectively generating traffic because customers using search tools WANT to see what you are offering and what you have to say. The very act of searching implies a need, or want, and guarantees a high percentage of these customers are actively looking for a new vehicle. Some important things to consider:

Only 1/3 of searchers click beyond the first page of search results on Google or Yahoo, meaning first page visibility is valuable.
70% of searchers use Google, vs. Yahoo or Bing, or other search engines. With that said, there is similarity in how Google, Yahoo and Bing rank search query results, so an effective Google search strategy should mean good rankings in Yahoo and Bing also.
You cannot pay to get first page organic search results, which means a well-engineered search strategy is critical to your success.

An effective proactive search strategy ensures customers will find your dealership before they find your competition.

Difference between SEO vs PPC

AutoXloo — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:40:36 +0000

The SEO or organic search is a holistic strategy that improved ranking on the left side of the google page over time. This is accomplished by starting off with a website that has built in the architecture needed to support your SEO effort. Many website companies claim to have excellent on site SEO built in, but when you start to dig a little deeper and ask the right questions you quickly find that very few have the knowledge and/or resources to change their existing structure to get the results the consumer desires.

Another important factor that is almost always overlooked by dealers is the need to continuosly add fresh relevent content to their website and/or microsites. If your value proposition is beneficial to the consumer no one will easily bounce you off the first page thereby your ranking remains intact.

The PPC is immediate but competitive in nature. Your competitors can buy the same phrases and therefore are able to bounce you off or down to the bottom the following day as long as they pay more money. It is important to note that Google rewards sites with strong on site SEO and relevant content .

For example; a website with a weak on-site SEO may pay $5.00 per click on a specific keyword or phrase, while a site with a strong SEO campaign may only pay $.75 for those very same keywords or phrases. You can easily see how it pays (literally) in the long run to go with a company that provides a strong SEO foundation on which to build your adversting campaigns.

In the end SEO is a function of time and PPC is a function of money, however they must both be done intelligently and with a strategic mindset in complementing your sales effort.