Automotive SEO

The leader in Automotive News is now subject of a breaking news story.  The automotive industry and social media circles were buzzing early this morning as WardsAuto.com announced their partnership with Jared Hamilton on the upcoming 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit.

Today a press release was published announcing that WardsAuto.com, an industry leader in Automotive News and Data Analysis, has partnered with DrivingSales.com to promote the upcoming DrivingSales Executive Summit.

The second annual automotive conference for owners and executive managers will be held at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas from October 18-20th.

Forward thinking members of the automotive community now have two important "must attend" conference in October with the other being the 9th Digital Dealer Conference. The two conferences are very different in format and target audience but members of your dealership should be attending both events.

The addition of Wards Auto as a automotive advertising and marketing engine behind the 2010 Driving Sales Executive Summit will greatly increase the visibability and awareness of the event. Wards will be handling sponsorships for the event as well as advertising the event via banner ads on WardsAuto.,com and their email list.

The finalized speaker agenda for the 2010 Driving Sales Executive Summit will be posted on the event website.

Who Should Attend?

I recommend that dealer principals and General Managers consider adding the summit to their October agendas and register early. You can get a glimpse at the 2010 agenda by reading the official press release below. You can also see last year's agenda on my blog: 2009 Driving Sales Executive Summit.

The 2010 event is two days instead of just one and will have more breakout sessions and industry experts and keynote speakers.

Wards Auto Official Press Release

WardsAuto.com is partnering with an automotive conference that has quickly established itself as a premier event for innovative dealer principals and managers. The DrivingSales Executive Summit presented with WardsAuto.com will be held Oct. 18-20 at the Encore luxury resort in Las Vegas.

Attendees of the second annual event will include the nation’s most successful and forward-thinking dealer operators. The summit provides a setting for that advanced group to learn about and discuss new strategies for driving dealership sales.

The summit starts with a “30,000-ft. view” of the latest trends touching the auto industry, then drops down to a “15,000-ft. view” of how leading dealership innovators are using intelligence from these trends to develop new ways of doing business.

Completing the event are roundtable sessions at which participants discuss implementing specific aspects of cutting-edge plans to enhance their operations. Registered attendees are welcome to submit some of the summit’s topics of discussion.

Topics are voted on up to a few weeks before the summit to ensure relevance and timeliness. Established conference topics include:

• Price compression. How are progressive dealers handling online pricing and still maintaining vehicle gross profits?
• Social Media. Despite the hype, what is the return on investment? The conference will look at real-life practices at dealerships, not just social-media marketing theories.
• The Evolving Finance Office. Top dealers will discuss and debate what they are doing to stay ahead of the curve in this profit center.
• Location-Based Media Applications. New technology allows users to share their location along with a real-time stream of data. How can dealers use this as a marketing opportunity?
• Fixed Operations and the Internet. Online marketing for fixed operations is one of the largest opportunities for dealers since the advent of their websites. The conference will explore this next frontier in digital marketing.

For more information and to register, go to http://WardsAuto.com/DrivingSales.

Press Release Source: http://wardsauto.com/ar/partners_drivingsales_100726/

Applications for the 2010 Automotive Search Marketing Architecture (ASMA) study, underwritten by PCG Digital Marketing (PCG), are now available to automotive website design companies.    

The annual study and awards recognize the best automotive website platforms for automotive digital marketing strategies.

Automotive website companies are encouraged to contact Carrie Hemphill, ASMA Award Coordinator, to request the application and data entry forms via email.

Deadlines Announced 

Participants in the 2010 ASMA Awards must submit their application by August 2, 2010.  The completed ASMA data form with all survey data completed is due by August 27, 2010. 

The 2010 ASMA will be expanded to include survey data for mobile applications, chat, video technology and iPad applications.  

The 2010 study results will be announced at the 9th Digital Dealer Conference which will be held in Las Vegas from October 12-14th.  A special ceremony for the award winners will be conducted during the conference luncheon sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing; a leader in automotive advertising and digital marketing. 

In 2009, nine companies out of the 35 included in the study received ASMA awards.   The award is the most prestigious industry award for website design companies. 

About The ASMA Awards 

The ASMA study seeks to assist car dealers with evaluating automotive website platforms and integrated marketing tools.  The 2010 ASMA Awards will include a comprehensive grid of website features, tools and architecture of all vendors.  The report is the industry's only comprehensive comparison of automotive digital marketing website technology.  

Each year, over 50 automotive website platforms are considers for SEO compliance, data integration, user interface, and search marketing visibility.  in 2009, only 35 were included in the ASMA report and only a fraction receive an ASMA award for excellence.  

All of the companies included in the 2010 ASMA study are given the opportunity to submit their most recent examples of technology for review.  This year, the participants can also elect to conduct a two hour presentation of their website and marketing technology to the ASMA review team.  

For additional information, contact: 

Carrie Hemphill
ASMA Coordinator
PCG Digital Marketing
732.450.8200

www.asmaawards.org 

2009 ASMA Award Winners

Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing participated in an expert panel on the topic of Automotive SEO and automotive digital marketing strategies at the 2009 DrivingSales Executive Summit.

In the photo below, Brian is joined by Jared Hamilton, founder of www.DrivingSales.com and co-panelists Paul Rushing and JD Rucker.   The three SEO panelists have been known to differ in their opinions on best practices for Automotive SEO so it was a popular session for industry watchers and attendees.  No fights broke out on the stage to the dismay of some who had hoped that bringing these three powerhouse together would create some playful sparks.

The DrivingSales panel format offers automotive executives to ask questions on various topics and get straight answers in front of their peers. This year the 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit will have an expanded program which will allow the best car dealers in the country to tap into the experts in attendance.  The conference also provides executives the opportunity to partcipate in targeted round-table discussions with industry experts.

The agenda for the 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit can be found on www.drivingsalesexecutivesummit.com . The expanded program will allow subject matter experts to assist dealers with innovative strategies in sales, digital marketing, social media, sales and fixed operations .

Leaders in Automotive Retailing

The most progressive automotive executives from around the United States will be attending the DrivingSales Executive Summit. The annual conference, scheduled for October18-20th, will also feature nationally recognized keynote speakers who are experts in social media, sales, marketing and management.

Automotive retailers who are looking to interact with these innovators as they share case studies covering best practices in automotive advertising, digital marketing, branding, sales and fixed operations head to this annual event. Based on feedback from last year's event, the 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit is scheduled to span two days.

The executive meeting ground is truly the "un-conference" as it breaks the traditional trade show mold. The topics presented and the event agenda are created by the votes of automotive dealers and not the the vendor sponsors. The result is a laser focused automotive marketing and leadership think tank that has no peer.

Brian Pasch is scheduled to attend the 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit on October 18-20th as well as be one of the breakout session presenters. The daily breakout session will feature case studies on best practices in the automotive industry. PCG Digital Marketing, a leader in automotive digital marketing and search optimization, will be sharing a case study based on a group of highly successful PCG clients. The case study format forces all presenters to "be real" and authentic and to cut down on the traditional trade show sales presentation.

DSES Conference Invitations

The annual conference attracts to the top executives from the automotive retail, automotive social media and digital marketing, and automotive advertising industry. The conference is unique in its format in that it is geared for dealer principals and executive management. The DSES conference speakers and the subject matter that will be presented are specifically geared to decision makers.

The 2010 Driving Sales Executive Summit is by invitation only and the first round of invites will be mailed at the end of July. The top car dealers across the country will be receiving invitations like last year as well as dealers recommended by the DrivingSales.com community; the leading social network for car dealers.

The 2010 DrivingSales Executive Summit will be held at the Encore hotel, in Las Vegas Nevada. DSES organizers have negotiated an excellent package for all attendees to enjoy the luxury of the Encore, at a very low rate. When registering for the event, please notify DSES if you will be staying at the Encore and they will book your reservation for you. For additional information visit: http://drivingsalesexecutivesummit.com/

On the eve of the 4th of July I wanted to wish my readers a have happy holiday weekend. I also wanted to give my readers a 4th of July gift that can prevent their digital marketing strategy from crashing. That's right..crashing in the worst of ways!

Even though I am on vacation in Paris tonight, I am burdened to share some shocking things that I have witness in the past month. 

In the past month I have had the good fortune to create a digital footprint analysis REPORT for three larger dealer groups that are in the top 25 in the nation. All had a similar problem. They were heading down a path that would have imploded their digital marketing campaigns and cost them tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The gift is the knowledge that these large dealer groups had missed. They became too busy on moving forward to remember a simple basic fact. Without their domains, their digital marketing strategy would run off the tracks. The same domains that they have used in radio, TV and print would go up in smoke.

Today's 4th of July gift is to renew your primary marketing domains for 5 or 10 years. You see, these extremely successful car dealership groups had multiple primary domains that were expiring in 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, and if I didn't alert them, they would have most likely expired.

Setup A Domain Renewal Email Address 

This happens all the time. Why? Because car dealers have a high turnover in IT related careers. The email addresses associated with domain renewals are likely pointing to an employee that doesn't work at the dealership anymore. So the first part of this holiday gift is to setup an email address for domain renewals that is copied to key executives. For example: domains@abcford.com which would go to the dealer principal and key managers.

The second holiday gift is to show you how easy it is to find the expiration dates of all your domains. Once you have audited all your live website domains, go and renew them for at least 5 or 10 years. If you let them expire they will be snatched up by poachers than can redirect all your traffic to any site they want. 

When Domains Get Hijacked It Is Expensive 

If you think you can fix this with your attorney, just ask how much it would cost you to have your primary domain going to a blank page or worse. These domain poachers will extort money from you and you have little recourse if they just park the domain to a blank page. Every month I hear of anyone business who is paying to get their domain back.

While the dealer's domain is under new ownership, email can be cut-off. Imagine the costs.

Am I being a bit dramatic? Yes. Is it justified? Yes

I will not disclose the names of the prominent dealers that had expiring domain names but it can happen to anyone; no matter how big or successful you are. They were extremely grateful that I told them about the problem.

So, what about you? When was the last time you checked all your active website domains. Take this gift and find out right now.

Domain Expiration Date Tools 

There are some easy ways to get the expiration date of your domain but one free tool I like gives you ALOT more interesting information. This information can detect some other errors that dealers are unaware of like 301 re-direct that are missing. If you don't understand what that means, don't worry because there is a second gift that I will offer ADM members.

For each domain that you have in production, go to www.websitegrader.com and type in your domain name and click on "Generate Report". It will take about 90 seconds to complete the full analysis which has a wealth of information. When the report pops up on your screen take a minute to print it out.

Look on the report for Section E, to see when you domain expires as shown below:

If the domain that you test is a critical domain used for your dealership, renew it for at least 5 years. If you don't know where you purchased the domain, you can lookup the registrar information easy enough.

The report provided by Website Grader has some interesting data but some of it can be misleading because HubSpot is trying to sell you their SEO services. 

Another Fourth of July Gift 

Once you run your key domains, if you have received low scores for any of your domain names, I'll review your reports and create a full digital footprint report for your dealership or dealer group. My website shown in the image above (www.dealer-seo.com) has a score of 99.9....I tried to get a perfect score but fell short. :) 

We can review my findings together on a conference call. The report I prepare will provide some eye-opening data that can help improve your search visibility and online success. Send your Website Grader reports to brian@pcgdigitalmarketing.com in one email and send me your contact information. You can print them as a PDF or just send me the link to the report. 

But regardless if you take the second gift, the first gift is a MUST to accept and response to immediately. Your dealership cannot afford to allow their critical domains to expire and get hijacked.

For those of you who follow this advice, if you have discovered that you owned domains that would expire in less than a year, add your comments below. It will be good to see that this is an industrywide problem that everyone needs to check and that other car dealers  have found this to be true with their own domains.

 
Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

http://twitter.com/automotiveseo

http://www.dealer-seo.com