Automotive SEO

Dealers seeking to initiate a content publishing strategy on a low budget can leverage many FREE content publishing websites to build relevance, links, and search visibility.  For many car dealers, having an Automotive SEO road map may be new but it is an important part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

Each website listed below allows “content” to be published and that content can come in the form of text, videos, photos, or even PDF brochures from your OEM.  When published properly, these websites can also provide valuable inlinks back to your primary website.

Here is a list of third party sites that allow relatively unrestricted content publishing:

1. Press Releases – www.prlog.org and www.free-press-release.com
2. PDF Brochures – www.slideshare.net and www.scribd.com
3. Videos – www.youtube.com, www.vodpod.com, and www.metacafe.com  
4. Business Directory – www.cardealerwiki.org and www.brownbook.com
5. Business Platform Marketing – www.MerchantCircle.com
6. All Purpose Blogs – www.blogspot.com and www.posterous.com
7. Automotive News Posting – www.topix.com
8. Automotive Inventory – www.CarDealerWiki.org and www.Craigslist.org
9. Expert Articles – www.eZineArticles.com
10. Google Places 

Now you may be asking why Google Places is in the top ten when most people don't consider it a content publishing platform.  However, for car dealers, their Google Places business listing is viewed hundreds or thousands of times a month. 

Since Google Places allows photos and videos to be posted, it is remarkable that over 80% of car dealers have not fully utilized this content feature.  Your Google Places listing should be fully leveraged with content, keywords, and of course the paid Google Tag feature.  Make sure your Google Places listing has all five video spots loaded.

If you have any questions about this top ten list, I'm here to help.

Wikipedia made popular the technology used on many "wiki" websites which allows for web pages to be created and edited without requiring HTML programming knowledge.

The largest "wiki" website for the automotive industry is http://www.CarDealerWiki.org. This website is a great resource for dealers embarking on a Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign and also for dealers who want to syndicate their used car inventory.

CarDealerWiki.org is a free website that is for employees of car dealerships, vendors of the automotive industry, and related automotive service and news providers. Getting started with CarDealerWiki is as simple as creating an account and completing the sign-up form.

It is recommended that you register with an email account from your business and NOT from Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail. Once your registration is approved, normally within 24 hours, you can claim your dealership profile page and create powerful content and backlinks. Email accounts not associated with a business website will not be approved to reduce spam.

Automotive SEO Link Building

One of the most powerful ways a car dealer can increase the search authority of their website is to build quality backlinks from well respected websites.

The more links a dealer has pointing to his relevant website content, the higher that page will rank in the search engines. Think of links as "votes" to your website pages.

It is a challenge to find free websites that allow car dealers to post original content and create backlinks on a variety of keywords and phrases. CarDealerWiki is one of the best websites to assist dealers with content publishing and backlink building.

In fact, the site has a number of automated features that make content generation and link building very easy, some which are shown below:

1. You can drop in your RSS feed from DealerRater.com (view example)
2. You can drop in your RSS feed of new car inventory (view example)
3. You can drop in your RSS feed of used car inventory (view example)
4. You can drop in customer testimonial videos from Youtube
5. You can drop in your RSS feed from your blog

Capital Ford Lincoln in Canada has a very detailed profile page and sub-pages that integrates their inventory, videos, and their blog posts. Take a peek by visiting their page at: http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Capital_Ford_Lincoln.

Used Cars Advertising on CarDealerWiki

CarDealerWiki.org also supports the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) data feed so members have direct access to their inventory with searchable RSS parameters so they can create used car marketing pages for any make or model.

The architecture of CarDealerWiki.org really empowers car dealers to build links to their Vehicle Detail Pages.

This is a significant competitive edge that is little talked about in the industry. Not all website providers provide a properly formatted RSS feed of car inventory, those those that do, can really leverage this website.

Midway Motors in Kansas created a Used Car marketing page for Hillsboro Kansas and the cars shown on this page http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Hillsboro_Used_Cars provide not only more visibility for their cars but also links back to their main dealership website and Vehicle Detail Pages (VDP)

CarDealerWiki Pages Index in Google

The key with any SEO campaign is to see if Google is respecting the content and links generated from a third party website and in this matter CarDealerWiki.org is a superstar.

Take a look at the screen capture below for a search on the phrase "Nissan Altima Marlboro". Marlboro Nissan operates a dealership in Marlboro Massachusetts and the content pages he created on CarDealerWiki is helping to defend his PMA.

You will see that CarDealerWiki has two listing on Google Page One. In fact, 90% of this page is filled with search results that Tim Martell, Internet Marketing Director and founder of WikiMotive has implemented for his store.

You can also search for a Fiat Dealers in the USA with a term like "Fiat Dealers USA" and you will see that CarDealerWiki.org is on Google Page One for this national search phrases.

Type into Google "Regina Ford Service" and you will see CarDealerWiki.org on Google Page One for a dealer created service page.

 Be Creative - Just Get Started!

The power of CarDealerWiki.org is that car dealers can create pages for new cars, used cars, service, parts, and warranty repairs in their local markets. Well formatted content pages can link back to the dealer's primary website to enhance the search authority of their main website.

Since dealers need more search visibility and links and content are a part of that solution, I encourage all car dealers in the US and Canada to create an account and get started building out content on CarDealerWiki.org for their dealership.

If you are a website provider or an SEO Consultant working on behalf of a dealership, you can assist your clients on CarDealerWiki.org as well. Register with your business email address and complete your profile and your one login can be used for all your clients. Now get to work!

Did you know that by default, Google Places is setup to market your car dealership only within a 20 mile radius of your dealership?  Do you sell and deliver cars to consumers more than 20 miles away?  Well of course you do!

However, many of the Google Places listing that I check for car dealers are NOT setup properly for their business. This impacts the number of times a dealership's Business Listing will appear in search results. For some dealers in metro areas, their Google Places listing will show over 15,000 a month. With this in mind, anything that could increase the visibility of your local business listing should be embraced.

As I stated above, Google Places service area DEFAULTS to a 20 mile service radius around the business address. This is one of the most important setting on your Google Places listing because it sets the geographic positioning of the consumers you serve. Car dealers routinely deliver cars to customers that are outside of a 20 mile radius of their business. With this is mind, dealers should inspect your service area settings in Google.

Google Places Allows Customized Service Areas

Dealers that have physical locations near bodies of water will find that a simple radius setting is not the most accurate map of their service area. In the screen shot below, Harris Auto Group in Canada is located on Victoria Island. If they left their Google Maps service area radius set at 20 miles, which is the default, they would not cover Victoria which is a major market for the island.

Fortunately, Google Places will allow you to enter in specific town names to create a polygon that covers the areas that the dealership serves. In the photo above, you can see that the shaded area was created by inputting the towns in the "List of Areas Served".

Don't Expand The Radius Too Wide

I encourage dealers not to abuse this setting and show unrealistic service coverage maps. I have a feeling that Google may penalize anything that would be contrived as scamming the system. I would say that a 50 mile radius for most dealers is reasonable. So take a minute and look into your Google Places service area setting and see if it has been set too conservatively.

Also, while you are looking at your Google Places listing, make sure that it has:

• Five great photos of customers taking delivery of cars or your work in the community. Kill the building photos.
• Five great videos. Three customer testimonial videos, one welcome video, and one service video.
• Proper categories that describe your business. There is a category for every OEM brand
• Make sure one category you select is "Used Car Dealer"

If you have any questions on Google Places, just type in your question below.

It has been a few months now since Google has integrated Google Places data and "star reviews" to Google Page One organic search results. The impact of this change can best be seen for broad shopping phrases like "Bradenton Used Cars" or "Baltimore Honda Dealers".

Since this change occurred, I had never witnessed examples where the "block" of Google Places enhanced listings was interrupted by non Google Places listings. To date, I had documented cased where you can have normal organic listings before the Google Places "block" or after the "block" but until now, the section of listings was unbroken with traditional organic listings not associated with Google Places.

In the example below, the "red" block of Google Places listings are interrupted by the "green" block of non-Google Places listings.

Democratic Page One SERP's

Today I saw something new; Page One results were mixed with enhanced listings from Google Places and normal organic listings. The former "block" of Google Places listings was interrupted by normal organic listings. In this case, one of those results was an exact matching domain to the search phrase queried, shown in yellow.

The boxed area in RED are listing associated with domain names that are included in Google Places. The areas in GREEN are organic listings on domains not associated with Google Places. I am very glad to see this SERP because it reinforces my belief that microsites, non-primary dealer websites, will still be effective and visible is common automotive search phrases.

Google Places Is Not The Only Defense

There was some fear that only domains listed in Google Places would dominate organic search results but this example shows that Google is tweaking their formula still. In the example above, you can see how a business PRIMARY website that appears in Google Places can be enhanced with additional microsites and marketing websites, if they can be optimized for popular local search phrases.

Creating a website on www.bradentonusedcars.org is a good application of a dealer microsite for a local city search phrase for used cars. I'll keep an eye out for the changes in organic search results but it looks like Google is still refining the SERP model. Third party advertising platforms, like www.usedcars.com which is shown above, should be happy with this update to the SERP display.