When I started working with car dealers in 2005 on their SEO strategies, there was little a dealer needed to do in order to influence their search rankings.  

Most dealer websites did not have blogs so secondary blog sites (microsites) had to be created.  Dealers were not setup to create content let alone maintain a blog. 

Dealers needed outside consultants to optimize their website pages, since most website platforms came un-optimized out of the box.  

In 2005, the Wild West of SEO was taking dealers by storm.  They just didn't know if this "SEO Stuff" had any value. 

Social What?

Back in 2005 Google Places, Social Relevance, +1 Buttons, or Google+ did not exist and were NOT in the SEO equation.  In the early days I was focused on quality content, microsites, off-site links, and creating strong flows of qualified traffic.  SEO Consultants did a majority of the SEO work for dealers.

Back then, the SEO tactics were the responsibility of the SEO Consultant.  SEO "experts" were tasked to create "magic" and get dealers on Google Page One.  

Those days are gone.

Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a shared responsibility.  It is critical that dealers know that the cheese has moved.

Automotive SEO Is Maximized As A Team 

Today the "organic" search results consist of Google Places, videos, blogs, social media, and of course website pages.  The SEO strategist today needs the cooperation and participation of the dealer to influence local search rankings.

If a dealer chooses not to engage their customers to post an online reviews, the work of an SEO consultant can be easily undermined if the reviews on Google Page One are horrible.  (See POD Score) 

If dealers do not identify customers that have Gmail accounts, they lose the opportunity to leverage the Google +1 button or connect with their customers on Google+.  Both of these marketing tools greatly influence local search results.

If dealers do not create customer testimonial videos or educational walk-around videos, the SEO strategist has little to work with to create ENGAGING Video SEO strategies.

Google Has Leveled The Field

In some ways, Google has leveled the playing field.  They have pushed some of the SEO responsibilities back to the business owner.  This is good if the dealership understands their role and executes effectively with the guidance of their SEO partner.  

It's bad if dealers believes that their SEO company can operate independently of their engagement.  If dealers want the strongest local SEO strategy to work for their brand, they have to lend a hand.

If you have an SEO vendor partner, make sure you ask them what your contribution must be to ensure success. If they tell you that you have to do nothing, this should be a warning flag.

Maximizing your search visibility during the Zero Moment of Truth is critical.  The point of this post is that you can't outsource 100% of the work and expect market dominating success.

Is content, links, and a comprehensive strategy still relevant?  Yes.  Just don't be surprised when that strategy has some homework for your dealership staff!

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Consulting Services

brian@pcgmailer.com

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I've been actively writing about the weekly changes that seem to be impacting Google SERP and Google Places.  Are you getting dizzy by the work needed to keep Google Places up to date?  I won't even mention the pain that many dealers have been having with Merged Listings!

One of the MOST crazy changes is that in many markets, the Google Places Business Name is being over-written with the dealer's Home Page Title tag.  This makes no sense since many websites are not optimized and have no proper Title Tag in place.  

The Denver dealers listed below now have CRAPPY business names and descriptions?  Why is Google asking for the business name and description in Google Places and not using it??  

Obviously, the Google team needs to step back and get feedback from the business community.

Until this is fixed and if this applies to your listing, I would update the HOME PAGE title and meta description on your website immediately.

Local Search Results Getting Stronger and Cleaner

Today I was looking at some searches in the Miami market, and a search phrase like "Honda Miami" did NOT pull up Google Places.  It normally does.

In other markets, like typing in "Honda Denver" Google Places does show.  Google Places is not consistent, have you noticed?

But the point I want to make is that when Google Places does not show, the results are very "clean".  Oddly clean.

The results were just like Google Places, in that the results were WAY TO CLEAN and ORDERED for my trained eye.  What I mean is that 9 out of 10 of the organic listings were the primary websites of OEM Honda dealers.  

These sterilized results are not representative of what Google SERP have looked like a year ago.   

It is clear that Google is localizing search better and may be using third party validation and not just SEO to create a SERP.  In the past, this page would have third party classified websites, press releases, and blog posts.  

What is consistent, is that the only non dealer primary website in list is an exact matching microsite. (http://www.hondamiami.org)   Now I have watched the video Matt Cutts filmed that said that Google will "weight' domain names less in organic search, but my experience is different.

Digital Marketing Vigilance

I bring this up to make the point that Google seems to be making visible changes on a weekly basis that impact your digital marketing strategy.  Google Places has become a magnetic for organic clicks which is reducing visitors to third party microsites that once easily apepared on Page One.

SEO strategies need to evolve and get more aggressive and that include more of an emphasis on Video SEO strategies. 

Have you seen how much organic search results have been changing?   If you need a better mousetrap, give me a call.

Share you challenges and success stories here.

Brian 

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

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Today Google reported blow-out earnings which surprised Wall Street.   It did not surprise me!

After hours trading had the shares up 35+ dollars and close to $600 a share. Just this past week, Google was at $500 a share so this stock has surged 100 points through the earnings week.

According to Google's press release:

...the company reported earnings excluding items of $9.72 a share, up from from $7.64 per share a year ago. Net income rose to $2.73 billion from $2.17 billion.

Net revenue, which excludes fees that Google shares with partner websites, increased 37 percent to $7.51 billion from $5.48 billion last year.

Aggregate paid clicks, which come from ads on Google sites and its AdSense partners, rose 28 percent from a year earlier and the average cost-per-click increased 5 percent from a year earlier.

Automotive Advertising Trends on Google

In the past year, automotive advertising clients of PCG Digital Marketing have been moving more of their budgets to online spending with Google.  

The biggest increases are in Google Adwords, Adwords Express, Mobile Adwords Campaigns, and Retargeting.

Auto dealers are also increasing spending on Facebook but to a lesser degree when compared to Google investments.

Google's  automotive advertising strategies are connecting dealers with in-market car buyers and increasing dealer sales and profits.  

This of course assumes that the campaigns are setup properly to track conversion and optimize results.

The shift by car dealers tracked by PCG is confirmed by today's earnings announcement from Google.  The upside earnings announcement was no surprise to me!

PCG Digital Marketing is assisting dealers review their advertising budgets and strategies and recommending changes to better connect with consumers during the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), a phrase coined by Jim Leciniski at Google.

Readers can download a free copy of Jim Leciniski's book at www.zeromomentoftruth.com

Shifting from Stimulus to ZMOT Investments

Car dealers still are overweighted in stimulus spending; radio, TV, and print.   On average, car dealers have 75-80% of their budget investment in traditional stimulus advertising.

When I travel to 20 Group or dealerships across the country to educate dealers on consumer shopping trends and ZMOT, the shift to increase digital spending is clear.  

Investments in Google advertising are measurable and can be tested to improve conversion and ROI.  This is an opportunity not afforded by traditional stimulus investments.

Dealers looking for more information on the best mixture of traditional and online advertising investments are invited to join the Automotive Zero Moment of Truth study which begins October 25, 2011.  

The free study is open to Dealer Principals, General Managers, and Marketing Managers of automotive dealerships in the US and Canada.

More information on the Automotive ZMOT study can be found at: http://www.automotivezeromomentoftruth.com

Share This Article

If you found this article helpful, please click on the Google +1 button or Share Buttons at the top of this page.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences

Brian Pasch

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Edmonton Toyota Oil Change

Bailey invites Toyota owners in Edmonton AB to visit Kingsway Toyota for their next Oil Change Service.  She attended a marketing workshop in Vancouver to learn how to use video to market their Edmonton Toyota dealership.

Schedule Your Oil Change

Just complete the form below and the service professionals at Kingway Toyota will be waiting for you in our clean, comfortable service lounge. Don't risk having your Toyota serviced by independent service centers that may not use factory original parts or hire trained Toyota technicians.

Edmonton Oil Change Centers

Car owners in Edmonton AB have many choices where they can get an oil change. Consider Kingsway Toyota for outstanding service, trained technicians that care about your safety, and money saving offers on all car services.

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I'm looking forward to sharing with progressive dealers my latest research and strategies for automotive search engine optimization.  Google has been making so many changes to how search engine result pages (SERP) are displayed that it is hard to know what is important and what is just fluff.  

The job of an Automotive SEO strategist is not getting any easier!

DSES Workshop on Search Marketing

On Monday October 10th at 1:30 PM I will be conducting an exclusive workshop at the 2011 DrivingSales Executive Summit (DSES) and sharing my findings.  The title of my DSES workshop is:

"The Most Important Ranking Factors for Your Dealership in 2012".

You'll be surprised what are the most important ranking factors for today's digital marketing terrain. The content of my workshop is a perfect match for DSES.  The conference attracts the leaders in the field of social media, digital marketing, SEO, SEM, ecommerce, and sales training who share the latest trends and strategies for success.

DSES is an intimate conference with just the right balance of workshops, keynotes, and panel discussions.  Jared Hamilton has done an excellent job of attracting national experts in and outside the automotive industry to inspire dealers to greater success in the year ahead.

I strongly encourage you to join me in Las Vegas by registering today for DSES.  The registration link can be found at: http://drivingsalesexecutivesummit.com/2011_registration/

If you register by August 31st you can save on registration costs.  It's a steal at $699 but that rate is only good till the end of August!

Las Vegas Automotive Conferences

This year DSES is positioned between two veteran conferences, DD11 and JD Powers.  I know that if you attended all three conferences you would be out of the office 10 days, so pick wisely.  The dates for all the Las Vegas shows in October are as follows:

• DD11 - October 5-7th 
• AWA - October 7th
• DSES - October 9-11th
• JD Powers - October 12-13th

If you have not attended DSES in the past, this is the year to invest in a new experience that stands alone in value and design.  If you want a new approach to digital marketing and social media, you will get the "meat" at the DSES Conference.   Just check out the lineup of keynote speakers on this page: http://drivingsalesexecutivesummit.com/2011_speakers/

Automotive Website Awards

Another perk at traveling out to Las Vegas this year will be the opportunity to attend the 2011 Automotive Website Awards ceremony which is being held at Ceasars Casino on Friday Night October 7th at 6:00 pm.

The awards recognize the best companies that provide website platforms and digital marketing prpducts for car dealers.  Come out and be the first to congratulate the winners.

You can reserve your tickets to attend the awards ceremony and VIP cocktail reception by visiting the official awards website at:  http://www.automotivewebsiteawards.com.  

Tickets are limited, so if you will be in Las Vegas on the 7th, reserve your tickets now.

See you in October!

Brian

Brian Pasch, CEO
PCG Digital Marketing
Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences
Brian Pasch

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Before I share this recent change I noticed in Google, I have to say that Google is making frequent  changes to organic and paid search results and dealers have to stay connected with these changes.  Your Automotive SEO strategy can not be STATIC, it has to be dynamic.

It is great to see that a number of automotive leaders are sharing what they are seeing.

Dave Page, from Dealer eProcess, shared yesterday how Google is changing organic SERP results with the additional of a new "box", shown in green, that contain hotlinks to related BROAD search results, as shown below:

I'll be sharing more information about this special case scenario for broad searches in the near future.

Google Enhances Sitelinks

Today I was searching a dealership name, and it looks like another change is being presented that is important for members of this community to know.  

The old "site links" section has been expanded to INCLUDE the META Title and Description tags as shown below:

If you take a look at the first LINK labeled "Used" you can see that the META Title and META Description is feeding that data, and I highlighted the text:

Automotive SEO Action Plan

You need to search your dealership name and see how the new sitelinks for your dealership are being displayed.  You should make sure that these LINKS and TEXT are clear for consumer action.

This will require some edits to your key pages that are included in the SiteLinks.  These edits will be for only those pages shown in the sitelinks and you will need to edit the Page Titles and META description tags.

If you DO NOT want specific pages listed in your sitelinks, you can delete them using Google Webmaster Tools.   You CAN NOT add pages to the sitelinks, but you can BLOCK pages, as shown below.

Are You Ahead Or Behind?

These constant changes are why dealers need to have a proactive search marketing strategy in place that can leverage the latest changes to gain a competitive edge on their local competition.

If your digital marketing partners are NOT keeping pace with these changes, give the team at PCG a call at 732.450.8200.  We would love to create a customized digital marketing strategy for your dealership.  Stay ahead of the competition and create a market DOMINATING strategy with PCG.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences

Brian Pasch

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Like a proud father who is moved with emotion as he sees his child graduate from college, I was filled with pride when Westbury Jeep secured their graduation honors. In July Westbury Jeep was recognized as the #1 Jeep Chrysler Dodge dealer in the United States for June 2011.

Being #1 in the US for any brand is a great reward and a double blessing for a passionate and engaging dealer principal. Many factors go into achieving that level of success and the entire Westbury Jeep team should be congratulated. Creating a team that executes on all levels is not an easy accomplishment.

PCG Digital Marketing has assisted Westbury Jeep define and implement their digital marketing strategy for the past three years. We have also developed a great relationship with Joel and his team based on keeping them ahead of their competition in regards to digital marketing.  

Joel Sporn is a rare dealer principal that sought to understand all digital marketing concepts so he could adapt them to his specific vision for his franchise store. Joel is a student of strategy and fiercely competitive. He chose to accept the responsibility of crafting his digital strategy and build a great team of marketing partners.

Joel sought out and connected with people who could help him learn, execute, and integrate that knowledge. Joel was patient to see the rewards of his digital investments, which is the main theme of this article.

Too often the executive leadership of a dealership is disconnected from the staff that are tasked to research, select, implement, and manage a digital strategy. This disconnect can cause dealer principals to be impatient.

It is not uncommon for digital investments to be pulled off the budget before they bear fruit in as little as 60 days.

Search Engine Optimization Is Not For Short Term Planners

Digital marketing investments can have an immediate and clear ROI for dealers like adding 24x7 managed chat to a website, adding pop-up coupons, or operating a pay-per-click campaign with well-designed conversion pages. These digital strategies have an immediate pay-off and, when measured, create a comfort level with bean counters.

Other digital strategies require patience to create a market dominating success story. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most misunderstood investments. Joel took the time to learn, craft, and implement a market dominating SEO strategy and the payoff is clear today.

Since an aggressive SEO strategy can take over a year to implement and refine, few dealers ever see the fruits of their SEO investment. Automotive SEO strategies are continually changing. Just recently Google added the “+1 Button” to search engine listing pages and this one change will have a major impact on click rates to dealer websites.

The Google launch of their social media platform “Google+” also creates new opportunities to drive social links and traffic to a dealer’s website.

Despite all these new opportunities, I caution dealers that have little patience to start an aggressive SEO strategy. If you are looking for SEO to make significant changes in online visibility and traffic in 90 days, don’t start.

Patience in Reputation Management

Patience is also required for Internet Reputation Management (IRM) processes, which yield an increase in online review counts each month. These reviews are visible to tens of thousands of in-market shoppers each month.

Dealers who ignore their online reputation “scores” are in effect using their monthly advertising budgets to send consumers to their nearest competitors. Dealers who want to fully leverage the digital divide must implement an in-store and post sale review gathering process.

Implementation does not come without resistance from dealer employees. They are also uninformed and impatient on the benefits of doing “more” work in their already hectic workday. The ROI to a commitment to IRM does not necessarily come in 30, 60, or 90 days, but when a dealership has 200+ more reviews than their nearest competitor, the pay-off starts to become very clear.

When consumers call and ask for sales professionals they never met because of an online review, your sales team will take notice.

Unfortunately, I have already started to see dealers give up on IRM process investments. I’ve been told that it’s too hard to ask happy customers to take 60 seconds to post a review inside the store. I’ve been told that none of their customers have Google accounts. Both are excuses and lies.

Dealers, what lies are you and your employees believing that are holding back your online marketing success?

Digital marketing takes a well-defined strategy and as I have outlined; patience. Success also takes a commitment to learn and lead from the top executives of the company.

We have mentored Brickell Honda, located in Miami Florida, over the past 2 years and they have over 800 reviews posted directly on Google Places. They have a market dominating digital marketing strategy that includes a strong belief in presenting a positive online brand image.

With the correct leadership it is amazing what can be accomplished.

Do You Have Patience?

Westbury Jeep and Brickell Honda have demonstrated patience in crafting and implementing their digital marketing strategy. Success did not happen overnight.

Their success came from having a strategy that reviewed all their current marketing investments, which resulted in an action plan. These two dealers are examples of a new breed of automotive professionals that are making the investment to develop a strategy that includes technology, training, and the willingness to be ahead of their peers.

Has your dealership made a commitment to create a dominating digital marketing strategy?

If dealers continue to measure success in 30, 60, or 90-day intervals they will never reap the rewards, which are produced from implementing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

I am not implying that your digital investments should not be measured each month. I am saying that until dealership executives invest in digital marketing education for themselves and their team, they will never have the patience to win the race.  They may win a short sprint but never the marathon.

Running A Dealership Is Like Running A Marathon

Successful car dealers are marathon runners.  If you are looking for a new trainer, give us a call.

PCG Digital Marketing can offer a full assessment of your advertising budget and blueprint for success.  

The marketing blueprint will build the confidence that you will cross the finish line with a broad smile.    

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

Text PCGedu to 75674 get information on our upcoming conferences.

 Brian Pasch

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The tsunami of changes that are coming from Google these days is without parallel. I look back to October 2010 when Google Places was integrated into organic search results and since that major shift, the team at Google has been keeping Automotive SEO strategists on their toes. It is clear that organic search results shown on Google Page One are being influence by social media posts, likes, fans, and now +1.

Just this week I noticed that a dealer's Facebook page moved to the second spot on Google Page One over well aged and well linked microsites. This dealer has over 35,000 likes to his Facebook dealership page. The highly trafficked Facebook Page outweighs the SEO strength of his other web assets. Change is here and documented!

Google +1 Implementation

Now we have Google +1 to play with and people are asking how they can leverage this new search "stamping" tool. According to Google's website: "Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1's can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search." Do you believe that your business provides great products and service to local consumers? Do your employees feel the same way?

If the answer to both questions are "YES", then what strategy do you have in place to educate and energize each employee to +1 your key digital assets. These assets are MORE than your website. Your Google +1 strategy should include your Youtube Videos, microsites, press releases, slideshare docs, etc. Any web assets that will help consumers connect with your brand and that show your company in a positive light.

Have you started tagging your web assets with the +1? What are you waiting for then!

Empowering Your Customers

Once you and your employees have been educated and a strategy put in place, next comes family, friends, and customers. This means that you email templates and communication process for soliciting reviews can be enhanced to leverage the Google +1 tag.

Have you added the +1 toolbar on all your blogs like the one at the top of this page? This toolbar makes it easier to get your readers and fans to engage in your +1 strategy. By the way, have your new customers been encouraged to +1 tag your Google Adwords ads?

By the way, before you leave this page, use the toolbar at the top to +1 the article and share it with your network. What are friends for, correct?

When You Use Google +1 - SERP's Change

Here is a quick task, please follow along with me. Log into your Google Account. Go to Google and search "Automotive SEO". Here is what you will see if you are logged into your Google account:

The first two listings should be www.dealer-seo.com and www.automotiveseo.co.

Click on the +1 button for these two listings. What happens after your +1'd these two listings, the next time you search for this same phrase "Automotive SEO". What changed? Now was that hard to do? You know the top search phrases that consumers use to find your goods and services. If your website is not at the top of search listings, these +1 tags from local consumers can make your listing stand out. Do you want your website assets to stand out?

The Bigger Picture - Socialized SERP's

Google is aligning business interests and search engine result pages (SERPS) to get more consumers to create a Google account and use Google tools. Once Google decided to get into the review business, a clear signal was sent. Reviews posted with GOOGLE accounts can be leveraged top increase SERP visibility and traffic; that's Google Boost.

Now that Google allows consumers to "mark" their favorite search engine result pages, once again businesses will educate and encourage consumers to mark THEIR listings to create a more visible SERP listing. The future of SERP's is socialized and personalized results for local markets. The sooner your business engages with a proactive review collection process and now a proactive +1 process, the faster your SERP listings will be standing out.

The faster your PPC campaigns can be enhanced with "stars".

Do You Have A Search Strategy

If you need assistance implementing a strong search marketing strategy that includes reputation management, SEO, Google Adwords, or Google Boost, we would love to discuss your needs and come up with a customized plan for your market. Call our team at 732.450.8200 and ask for Matt O'Such for a free consultation.  

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Google has always enabled you to track what people say about you online with Google Alerts but they have now made it easier for anyone to track their online reputation with a new feature in the Google Dashboard called "Me on the Web".

I've stated this many times but it is worth repeating.  All advertising dollars that drive consumers to Google to search your business name or the goods you sell are impacted by your online reputation.  Google has socialized the web experience and your "stars" will impact whether a consumer will engage with your business or call a competitor.

Free IRM Tools

The new set of tools makes it easier for anyone to see what is posted on the web using their name. The dashboard also has features that includes a link entitled "How to Remove Unwanted Content" which will assist companies dealing with their online reputation management.

Here is an exerpt from that page:

"If you find content online--say, your telephone number or an embarrassing photo of you--that you don't want to appear online, first determine whether you or someone else controls the content. For example, if the photo you want to hide is part of your Picasa account, you can simply change your photo visibility settings. If, however, the unwanted content resides on a site or page you don't control, you can follow our tips on removing personal information from the web and removing a page from Google's search results."

Me On The Web

The Google Accounts dashboard, shown below, has the "Me on the Web" summary and helpful links:  

To access this feature, login to your Google Account Dashboard and it will be active.

The introduction of this feature is a clear signal to any business that Internet Reputation Management is a mandatory business process that should be part their standard operation procedures manual.

This feature will also help to educate the general public on reputation management.  In fact, on XM and local radio, you may have been hearing commercials from a company called "Reputation Defender".  Reputation Management is going mainstream and our phone has been overheating with companies asking for help with their online reputation management.

So, check out the new features and I am confident that this will be expanded in the year ahead to make it easier for people to check what people are saying about them online.

If you need assistance with synchronizing your business information on all directory sites and implementing a reputation management process, give our team at call at 732.450.8200.

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Chicago area car dealers are pleased to see the PCG Pit Stop digital marketing conference come to Chicago on June 11th and 12th. The conference will be held at the Palmer House in downtown Chicago.

This is the first time that local Chicago car dealers can gain access to high quality digital marketing training offered by PCG Digital Marketing without a flight out of town!

Car dealers looking to learn more about effective Automotive SEO strategies will be able to participate in workshops lead by Brian Pasch, a leader in Automotive SEO strategies.

Dealers looking for updated strategies for SEO, SEM, Social Media, Reputation Management, CRM Lead Handling, Chat, Fixed Operations, and Improving Sales should mark their calendars and register today.

Why Should Chicago Dealers Attend?

Please Answer These Questions:

• Are you leveraging the new communication channels provided by social media?
• Do you have an integrated digital marketing strategy for your dealership?
• Is your website conversion rate increasing each month?
• Could you be handling your calls and Internet leads better?
• Would you like a 2-4% average increase in closing ratios to to phone and Internet leads?
• Is your Fixed Operations Budget using SEM, SEO, and Social Media?
• Are you looking for advice on how to structure your entire advertising budget?
• Are you ready to implement free advertising strategies to increase website traffic?

Get the answers, advice, and strategies from industry pros at the PCG Pit Stop Conference in Chicago.

Register to attend the next PCG Pit Stop^® that is conveniently located in Chicago that you can easily travel to and enjoy the workshop experience offered by PCG Education.  Six other cities are included in the 2011 tour so if you can't make the Chicago date, hop of a plane and get to a conference in another city.

Chicago area dealers need more than just their 20 Group Meetings and annual conferences to stay connected with the latest changes in our industry. Google has been making significant changes to Internet marketing every few months so don’t get left behind.

Details on the automotive conference can be found in the color brochure below:

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In the past 60 days, OEM compliance inspections of dealer blogs, microsites, and press releases have significantly increased.  From the guideline documents that I have reviewed, it is clear that the OEM marketing teams have been poorly advised on how dealers should be leveraging all marketing opportunities on the Internet.

There is a double standard that OEM's have created in regards to automotive marketing.  Let's look at the Boston Massachusetts market, where many dealers serve this large city, but where only one dealer has an actual Boston address.  The other dealers are separated by 10-15 miles and physically located in a smaller suburb, with its own city name.

Dealers in the suburbs can take out print ads in the Boston Herald, which advertises their services to consumers well beyond their PMA.  These ads can use the words "Boston" in the printed text. and can even show driving directions from Boston to their suburbia location.

These same dealers can also take out radio ads or television spots that cross all PMA lines and saturate the greater Boston market. Both of these communication channels are available for co-op funds and can mention the Boston metro area in the ad script.

Dealers can also create Google Adwords campaigns that have advertising radiuses outside their PMA, and these campaigns are also available for co-op money.  These advertising campaigns can also use the word "Boston" as a keyword or any other city in a reasonable driving distance.

When Confused, Kick the SEO Dog

However, some dealers are now being restricted and penalized for implementing SEO strategies that use the same geo-targeting strategies that other approved channels can utilize.  If dealers can appear on radio, television, and print in towns outside a dealer’s official PMA, why not in organic search as well?

Specifically, dealers are being penalized if any of their organic marketing strategies include:

1. Including the name of ANY city outside of where their dealership is located in Title Tags, META descriptions, or in body text.  This applies to any website page with their name on it.
2. If dealers choose to use a city name outside of their physical location in a Title Tag or META Description, it has to be preceded by the word "Serving". 
3. Hyper-linking words in the body of any page that includes ANY city name outside of their physical location is prohibited.  This means you can't hyperlink Boston Toyota Service if your dealership is in Worcester.  You can't even hyperlink 'Serving Boston Toyota Owners" in a sentence.
4. Some OEM's have policies that prevent dealers from owning domains that have ANY city name in it that is not your city.  You can't own it even if there is NO competing dealer in that city.
5. Some OEM's have policies that prevent dealers from owning microsites that don't have your official business name as part of the domain name.

And the list goes on.  So, OEM's have created a virtual marketing wall for the Internet SEO strategies, which in fact only hurts their own franchise dealers.  Someone has an agenda against Automotive SEO strategies at the OEM level and it's only hurting their own dealer base.

Great News For 3rd Party Lead Collectors

This is great news for third party advertising sites and independent used car dealers.  Independents will so have unrestricted access to creating strong used car marketing platforms that are geo-targeted. 

OEM's are forcing dealers to transfer all domains that don't comply into their ownership.  The result of non-compliance is costly.

These OEM policies are GREAT news for third party lead collectors since they do not have any restrictions on domain names, content, or linking strategies.  Third party lead collection vendors must be jumping for joy, and it's even possible that they are the ones advising their OEM community!

These Internet content policies also increases dealer's dependence on inventory advertising sites like Autotrader.com, Cars.com, or Everycarlisted.com or PPC strategies.  These are all valid advertising strategies, but it looks like the OEM marketing teams are trying to limit competition, innovation, and free markets.

For many OEM's, dealers CAN NOT create a second used car inventory marketing site.  They can send their cars to 3rd parties but they CAN NOT do it themselves.  Interesting!  For many dealers, they are told that they can only have one website.  Period.

Since OEM's hold hundreds of thousands of dollars of dealers heads for compliance fines or bonus money, dealers have no choice but to comply. 

Time to crank up those PPC budgets!  Time to hire a few more inventory-advertising partners and increase your ad budgets.  Your days of SEO innovation must move to another area of marketing.

P.S.  SEO still works and dealers need an SEO strategy.  SEO is not dead. Dealers need to have a compliant SEO strategy while we wait for OEM marketing executives to reach out to industry experts on this topic. 

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Bing has decided to update their sleepy Business Listing product with all the focus that the market has placed on Google Places. Bing has always had an equivalent to Google Places called Bing Local Listing Center but now they have made a major upgrade and renamed it to Bing Business Portal.

New Interface and Features

I'm commonly asked if Bing and Yahoo are relevant and the answer is yes.

Having an updated Business Profile on Bing is an easy and relevant task to complete today. If you have an existing login, like a hotmail account, when you created your Bing Local Listing profile it will work with this new system.

If you have an existing account, use the "Sign In Here" button shown above on the right.

We just moved our office so I had to update our business address but there are additional features with the new product that should be completed. Take time to upload up to 9 great photos of your business. I suggest that you load up happy customer photos, photos of your work in the community, and limit shots of your facility.

You can also add products that you sell and any special deals or promotions (see graphic on right). Keep in mind that you should keep promotions general unless you have a process to update the deals each month.

Make sure you phone number, address, and website are synchronized with the data on Google Places. This recommendation applies to all business listing websites. Use the same address and phone number to create multiple source that can be used to validate your primary address and phone number.

Bing Business Portal Tools

Once you have completed your profile, make sure you click on the Publish/RePublish Button. (See above) Once published, Bing Business Portal will allow you to print Window Stickers with your store hours, print QR Codes, and it also creates a simple mobile website with your business data.

The idea of a simple mobile website or window stickers may not excite car dealers but think about the thousands of small businesses that don't have website or tools to create POS marketing materials. If you haven't noticed lately, banks and credit car companies are pushing "instant" website products as a value add upsell.

Bing is a relevant search engine and you should take advantage of any free tools to help connect your business with consumers. So get started today and visit http://www.bing.com/businessportal.

Bing Business Portal also has a "review" feature so once your listing is completed, include this site into your managed IRM processes.  

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Google recently announced changes to their search algorithm and included in those changes were efforts to lower the visibility of spammy websites. One of the secondary conversions was will Google lower the weighting of keyword rich domains like "www.buyviagra.com".

Matt Cutts addressed this specific question in a video below:

I want to thank Anirban Das for bringing this video to my attention.

All car dealers have their primary domains set and locked for most cases so buying extra domains would be used for marketing microsites for lead collection, brand awareness, or to capitalize on popular search phrases.

Matt Cutt's video and his examples are really misleading because car dealers would not be investing the millions of dollars needed to create large technology or marketing portals like Twitter, Tech Crunch, Zappos, etc. Branded websites do not become popular for non-match keyword searches magically, which is a large omission from Matt's video message.

Regardless if Google turns down the dial slightly for exact matching domain names, they are still the fastest way for a dealer to gain page one visibility in their local market for long tail keywords.

Domain Names That Are Not Exact Matches

Buying non-exact matching domains still works, like Matt said, but what he didn't disclose is that non-exact matching domains needs significantly more external links with anchor text on the targeted keywords.

Example, search Google for "Automotive Microsites" and you will see www.dealerbytes.com on Page One. It does not have either phrase in the domain name but it ranks on page one. Why? Because Paul Rushing, domain owner, has content on his website and links on the phrase "automotive microsites" directed to that domain.

Creating Exact Matching Microsites

For dealers, exact matching domains are the better match because dealers have smaller budgets for SEO projects. There are hundreds of automotive microsites that I have build that demonstrate that exact matching domains with great unique content are still the fastest way to hit Page One.

Need some examples, post Google update:

1. ToyotaRecall - ranks on page one for "Toyota Recall" over most major giant news sources
2. MiamiUsedCars.org - ranks well on Page One for "Miami Used Cars" in a very competitive market
3. ChevroletFortWorth.com - DFW is a very competitive market for Chevy dealers, Jerry's gets more awareness.
4. SeattleJeep.com - Seattle has a number of choices for Jeep dealers, Rairdon get more visibility.
5. BuffaloCars.net - A popular search phrase in Buffalo is "Buffalo Cars" and this site get the brand out there.

So, as many writers have said in the past, content is King and great content on a keyword rich domain can deliver an annuity of page one placements. Then the focus has to be switched to testing designs that increase calls, leads, and floor traffic. In the end, a poorly converting microsites is a waste of time.

Microsites are a great tool for car dealers and regardless of what Google may signal, the proof is that SEO marketing strategies on a small budget can benefit from exact matching, keyword rich domains.

Combined Strategies Produce Stellar Visibility

Dealers should not ignore adding targeted content pages on their website before jumping into microsites. When you combine good on-site content and good microsites and press releases, you can start to have strong visibility in your local markets like shown below:

The dealership website with a targeted page is in black.  The microsite pages are in red and the dealership press release is in green.  This shows that a combined on-site and off-site SEO strategy can result is multiple above the fold results.

Microsite Education

If you are looking for advice and strategies to build effective microsites, PCG is offering two classes at the upcoming Automotive Marketing Boot Camp that will show you everything you need to succeed. You can register for the April 16-18th event by visiting http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com.

I will be conducting a workshop on Automotive SEO Strategies and two members of the PCG team will be conducting a workshop on WordPress microsites and optimization strategies. The combination of these two workshops will empower you to launch, test, and improve your microsite marketing campaigns.

Bring your laptop to these workshops since you will be jumping in and doing hands-on work for these sessions. If you have microsites that have not been doing well, bring your logins and passwords so you can optimize them during the boot camp with help from the experts.

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Once I showed the dealers how easy it was to fix their profiles and setup a process to get customers to post reviews, they were very thankful. They were not aware of the importance of Google Places but now they do so and they can inspect their listings.

Knowledge is power.

From this experience, I decided to remind all members of this community to run through this checklist and make sure that you are leveraging the full potential of Google Places. Let me know what you found when you looked at your Places page, and share with the community if this checklist helped you.

Automotive Advertising Resource For Dealers

Google Places is the best free automotive advertising resource for car dealers to increase online visibility, referral website traffic, and phone calls. Despite this opportunity, many dealers have not completed and optimized their Google Place data.

When you login into your Google Places Dashboard account it will tell you what percentage complete your data is currently. Make sure you edit your profile to achieve a 100% complete status.

Google Places Optimization (GPO) however goes further than having your profile data 100% complete.

You also want to optimize the consumer experience and enhance your brand message when consumers read your page. You also want to increase the opportunity to get MORE clicks to your Places Page than local competitors.

Google Places Optimization Checklist

Use this checklist to ensure that you have your Google Places listing optimized:

1. Enter your business name, address, and phone number so that it matches the primary information associated with the local phone company and your OEM website. Do not use a tracking number unless all OEM listings and all business directories are using this number.
2. Make sure that you enter your website address and test the link. You would be surprised to see how many listings still have http://maps.google.com or the OEM website.
3. Use all five “business category” tags, which include your OEM brand and the category “Used Car Dealer”. For example, if you are a Toyota dealer, make sure you pick "Toyota Dealer" as one of your 5 categories.
4. Complete the “Additional Information” section of the profile to include brands of goods that you sell and related services that include: tires, oil change, brakes, transmission service, and of course used cars.
5. Load 10 photos and stay away from photos of your building. Photos should show happy customers taking delivery of a car, your work in the community, OEM awards, or any brand enhancing images. Photos that will make people smile! Photos of your building will not help to engage your audience.
6. Load 5 videos and we recommend that three videos be actual customer testimonials. The remaining two videos can be a welcome to the dealership message and the final video to invite consumers to service their car at your dealership.
7. Set your “Service Area” beyond the default range of a 20-mile radius around your store location. For most dealers the range can be comfortably increased to 50 miles. Dealers near bodies of water can create a custom shape for their service area. If you need help, you can refer to this article I wrote on custom service areas.
8. Setup a process to get your customers to post reviews directly to Google Places. Your goal should be to get at least 30 reviews a month to be posted directly on Google Places. The Google Places App can help you easily achieve this goal. Between sales and service there are hundreds of customers that are completely satisfied with your dealership so ask them!
9. Invest $25 a month to enhance your Google Places listing with a Google Tag. This yellow highlighted graphic can advertise your monthly specials. Also, set a process to update your specials each month on Google Places because they will automatically expire in 30 days.
10. Once your have a strong number of positive reviews on Google Places, consider spending money to advertise your high marks from consumers using . Let your customers speak for you and drive more traffic to your website.

The good news is that once all of these tips are implemented, you can track the increase in impressions, clicks, and activity using Google Places activity reports. So login to your Google Places account and run through this checklist today.

Join Me at Boot Camp

I'll be sharing more ways for car dealers to leverage free online advertising tools and search optimization strategies at the 2nd Annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp in Orlando, April 16-18th. I hope you can be part of that experience. http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com

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The 2nd Annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp** is scheduled from April 16th - 18th in Orlando Florida. Last year the Orlando Automotive Marketing Boot Camp was a first class educational experience for car dealers. This year the Boot Camp promises even greater educational diversity.  The Boot Camp websites lists over 30 speakers and educational opportunities for the automotive community.

Click here to Download Brochure

Car dealers looking for the hands-on training, mentoring, coaching, and assistance with creating the structure, process, and innovative marketing plans should invest in sending key staff to the Boot Camp.

The Boot Camp Experience includes keynote speakers, round-table discussions, workshops, labs, and technology showcases. The programs will be lead by industry leaders, subject matter experts, and leading dealership employees.

Who should attend?  Anyone in a dealership that is making marketing decisions.  Anyone who is responsible for customer interaction and retention.  Executives and management professionals. The key point is that dealers should be sending both executives and front-line employees to learn together. 

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp has attracted industry leaders than will help dealers at all levels implement the next steps in their growth strategy. Boot Camp organizers have added workshops on important topics like Fixed Operations Digital Marketing, Social Media, Video Marketing, Location Based Marketing, Lead Management, CRM Processes, Phone Training Skills, and Reputation Management.

Changes In Automotive Advertising Strategies

The Boot Camp will have classes for dealers just embarking on their digital journey and enough meat for seasoned professional who want to increase their market share with new ideas. Best of all the program registration fee includes all classes, eight meals, and materials. The networking and relationships that are formed over these three days will last a lifetime. 

The real challenge for the automotive industry is this:  Will dealers invest in educating their employees?  PCG Digital Marketing surveyed hundreds of dealers to find that over 40% of respondents said that they did not have a line item for education in their budgets.  This is disheartening when you consider how much change the automotive industry has undergone in the last 10 years.

Boot Camp in Sunny Orlando

Dealers attending the Boot Camp would fly into Orlando on April 16th in the afternoon to participate in the evening kick-off reception on Saturday night. The Boot Camp will feature two full days of classes on Sunday and Monday to provide the strongest educational experience for all that attend. Dealers who invest in their employees and be rewarded 10X!

The 2nd Annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp (#AMBC) will provide an early breakfast on Tuesday morning April 19th. After breakfast, attendees will be able to return home or participate in other automotive conferences scheduled in Orlando in April.

Boot Camp Hosted by Hilton Orlando

Attendees of the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp will have discounted rates at the Hilton Orlando which is located on 6001 Destination Parkway, Orlando, FL 32819. PCG Digital Marketing has secured a block of 100 rooms for the Boot Camp at this discounted rate. Dealers are advised not to delay their registration so they can save money on these special room rates. The discount code is "PCG Digital Marketing" and the local phone number for the Hilton Orlando is: 407-313-4300.

** The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp is not associated in any way with the 10th Digital Dealer Conference or Horizon Communications.

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Let me start by saying that successful automotive advertising platforms like Autotrader.com, Cars.com, and the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) provide marketing opportunities and branding solutions that should be considered in a comprehensive dealership marketing strategy.

In fact all three companies were awarded Dealer Satisfaction Awards this year by DrivingSales.com in the Used Car Advertising category.

Car dealers need to evaluate existing and new methodologies to connect consumers with the cars that they have for sale. The Internet has become more expensive to attract clicks than ever before as more dealers participate in Google Adwords and similar online marketing services.

When I look at local competition in the search engines for a car dealer, one consistent competitor appears. Dealers are under attack by their own OEM automotive advertising campaigns.

This can come from national advertising campaigns or Tier 2 regional advertising campaigns, and I have some examples to share below.

VDP Showing Manufacturer Ad Campaigns

Let me give you an example of what gets my blood boiling.

A dealer makes an investment to list their cars on automotive advertising websites for many reasons. One reason is that consumers, outside of their normal area of responsibility or PMA, may connect with a car that they have in stock. The key point here is that for out of area shoppers, their zip code would normally be a part of another dealer's PMA.

If you look at this example below, a Tier 2 Banner ad runs on the top and right side of this dealer's Vehicle Detail Page (VDP). The other areas are also advertising leaks, but not associated with a GM advertising campaign.

That's another topic called Dealer Centricity Scores that you should engage.

When you click on the top Silverado HD Banner or the right side Silverado banner, you are taken off-page to a Tier 2 Chevy website design for lead collection. If a consumer engages with this Tier 2 website, and completes a lead form, the lead most likely will not be sent to the dealer listed on this page, rather it will go to the dealer covering their zip code.

Does anyone have a problem with this model?

So the OEM endorsed advertising campaign or Tier 2 created advertising campaign, is working against this one dealer for any consumer outside of his market. It seems to me that this is just counter productive and is using the dealers inventory against him.

Should These OEM Ads Be On Your Page?

If a dealer is paying to list this car, on this site, why would he want an interactive Ajax banner ad running, that catches the consumer's attention, to drive them to another Chevy website?

Could you say that this dealer's advertising investment is funneling leads to his local competitors?

This is not limited to Cars.com as you can see from this Autotrader.com VDP. Once again, a national OEM sponsored banner campaign is taking prime real estate to drive consumers to the national Cadillac website.

Anytime a consumer gets to a national site, the dealer can not be assured that the lead will be routed to their CRM system. It's all based on zip code or consumer choice but the action was based on this dealer's advertising investment.

Inspect Automotive Advertising Investments

I'm not sure if any other dealers agree with me that this a topic that should be discussed at OEM Marketing meetings. A bigger issue to remind car dealers is to inspect their automotive advertising investments. When you take the time to inspect how your brand is being marketed online, many light bulbs start to go off.

Reminder to Save $100 by March 15th

Members if this community can save $100 off the registration investment for the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp in Orlando, April 16-18th. To get this discount, you need to register on this special page setup for friends of Brian Pasch:

Discounted Boot Camp Registration

You will also be glad to know that the full color brochure for the event is now available for download. Read about the program, workshops, labs, and technology showcases that make up the Boot Camp experience. You'll also be glad to know that all 8 meals are included in your registration so you'll have ample time to network with your peers.

See you in Orlando!

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Is it possible to increase online service appointments by 300%? I didn't think so but I found out that you can by making some simple changes to your existing website!

Can you increase total service appointments by 10-15% with an inexpensive change to your website? Yes you can.

What would your service business and profits look like if you achieved these improvements over the next 60 days?

Fixed Operations, one of the most significant profit centers for a dealership, is often left behind when digital marketing strategies are discussed.

When a dealer realizes this and takes action, the results can be stunning. Most of the online discussions regarding SEO, Video Marketing, and even Pay-Per-Click strategies deal with marketing new and used cars. It is time to wake up the sleeping giant and take our Fixed Operations marketing game to the streets.

Many dealers use direct mail and email to market to existing customers or purchase third party lists to attract new customers. However, the larger opportunity is the thousands of in market consumers that use the search engines to locate and shop for car service and repair facilities. Does social media play a role? Yes it does! The combination of traditional marketing and innovative digital marketing for Fixed Operations is a game changer.

Check Your Fixed Operations Visibility

Google rewards those who act first and publish optimized content on a particular keyword goal. Add to this fact that independent service organizations like Jiffy Lube, Meineke, Pep Boys, and Discount Tire have been left unchallenged by franchise dealers.

You can conduct a simple test in your own market by inspecting your own search visibility.

For example, if your dealership was in Boston, you would type in these searches to test your organic visibility:

• Boston Car Repairs
• Boston Tire Stores
• Boston Brakes
• Boston Oil Change

And type in these phrases to test your Pay-Per-Click (SEM) visibility:

• Tires Stores
• Discount Tires
• Oil Change Coupons
• Brake Stores
• Muffler Shop

Of course you can also add service searches that include your OEM brand. If you do a search for "Honda Brakes Queens", "Honda Radiator Queens", or "Honda Oil Change Queens" you can see that Paragon Honda is #1 in organic ranking for their service microsite. Fixed operations content publishing strategies can yield an annuity of leads with very low maintenance.

Google Instant will show you suggestions for what consumers are typing in your marketplace. How did your testing go?

• Is your dealership showing in the Paid Search area (SEM)?
• Is your dealership showing the the Google Places area?
• Is your dealership showing up for videos, press releases, blog posts, or microsites in the organic SEO area?

If Fixed Operations is a major profit center for dealers why is Google Adwords, Google Places, and Google Organics often a low priority in Fixed Operations budgets?

Thinking Out Of The Box

How many search optimized videos have you created to promote your service offerings?

Checkered Flag in Virginia Beach is a dealership that invests in video and their value messaging is strong. Check out their video enhanced landing page for their body shop:

Virginia Beach Body Shop.

When you start to publish videos on Fixed Operations, not only do you service landing pages come alive but your videos can also be found in organic Search. Here are two examples of videos that were created to increase search visibility for oil changes:

• Checkered Flag
• Rairdon Group

If you search "Virginia Beach Oil Change" Checkered Flag's video is on Google Page One. Search "Jeep Oil Change Seattle" and the same result occurs for Rairdon's video. These were the search phrases that these videos were optimized for.

For fun, search in Google: "Virginia Fiat 500" . You will find a video I recorded last week. Can you see how video marketing can increase the visibility for the cars you sell and the services you offer?

Any single video may be only viewed a few hundred times a year, but what happens when you publish a dozen videos, two dozen videos, each optimized for a particular keyword? The combination of videos, blogs, microsites and content optimization together can yield an annuity of leads and business for your Fixed Operations profit center.

Fixed Ops Marketing Workshop

At the 2nd Annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp I will be leading an extended session on Fixed Operations Digital Marketing. I will be sharing my proven marketing strategies specifically designed for Fixed Operations for the first time!

Attendees are advised to bring their laptop computers and a login to their website and/or microsite because changes that will be implemented right in class will start to improve dealership search visibility. As part of the workshop I will be demonstrating the tool, techniques, and strategies that can be implemented to:

• increase service appointments
• increase overall service revenue
• engage the independent service centers in your market
• Increase the paths to your dealership website for service inquiries

Fixed Operations Directors and Marketing Directors should be attending the Boot Camp and this is just one of the reasons why you should register. Your investment to attend the Boot Camp will be well rewarded in the next 60 days as dealers implement winning marketing strategies for SEO, SEM, Video, and online service appointments. Are you ready to make super-charge your fixed operations business model?

As an added opportunity for Boot Camp attendees, Rob Fontano from John Marazzi Motors in Florida, will be demonstrating his video marketing techniques in a separate presentation during the CAR-MERCIAL Technology Showcase. Learn from the best and find out why John Marazzi's video publishing strategy is a winning marketing investment. Video search marketing is affordable and scalable once you understand the strategy.

Boot Camp - April 16-18th in Orlando

Make the decision to invest in Fixed Operations Marketing and register for the 2nd Annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp today. April 16-18th in Orlando. http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com

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Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller Keynote Presentation

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp welcomes Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller on Monday morning April 18th as Keynote Presenters in Orlando. The Boot Camp has attracted the automotive industry's top experts, educators and speakers.  For Automotive SEO, the Boot Camp has attracted industry veterans JD Rucker, Brian Pasch, and Ananth Godavari.

The energy, passion, and vision of Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller for car dealer success will perfectly compliment the hands on skills training that will be provided at the Boot Camp.

Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller are the nation’s leading experts on attracting customers, authors of the best selling book Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers and the founders of the Rich Dealers Institute. Jim and Travis have been helping dealers attract customers, drive traffic and increase sales for over a decade.

In 2004 they created the Rich Dealers Institute for busy dealers who want to stand out and sell more without spending more. It is the place for fun and profit in the car business. Collectively their campaigns have directly resulted in the sale of over 2 million vehicles.

Every month they create record shattering automotive promotions and bring together some of the brightest and most successful dealers, authors, entrepreneurs and business people to participate in fun and insanely profitable think-tank, mastermind environments.

Jim and Travis have spoken all around the world about their special brand of customer attraction and have been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Forbes.com, CNBC, Fox Business, Advertising Age, Direct Marketing News, Businessweek, Brandweek, top automotive industry publications, leading marketing industry newsletters and hundreds of radio stations and newspapers around the country.

Order Gravitational Marketing

If you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or sales professional, Gravitational Marketing offers a simple method for attracting customers without the hassle of traditional manual sales labor. If you want to sell more and work less, this book exposes the principles of easily and effortlessly attracting customers without cold calling, prospecting, or begging for business. With Gravitational Marketing, you can finally stop chasing customers and let them come to you.

2011 Automotive Marketing Keynote Address

The Keynote Address is scheduled for 8:00 am on Monday April 18th and will be live broadcast on www.DrivingSalesTV.com to a worldwide audience.

DrivingSales.com is the largest social network for the Automotive industry. Forward thinking car dealers who would like to attend the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp can register online by visiting: http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/paypal/

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At this year’s 2011 Digital Marketing Boot Camp in Orlando, progressive car dealers will learn proven techniques that you can initiate at your own dealership the moment you return home.

The Boot Camp runs April 16-18th, just prior to the 10th Digital Dealer Conference. We encourage you to attend both events! 

You can view the Boot Camp schedule at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com

The Automotive Video SEO methods I will share will help propel your dealership to the top of Goggle’s page rankings regardless of the size of your store or brand. Here is an example of some of the powerful SEO strategies that I will be sharing with you.

One of the biggest digital marketing struggles that dealers face is establishing consistent long term Google page one search results.

We all know that there is no one silver bullet solution to Google Page One Management (GPOM), it takes a broad strategy to compete and stay atop the fold, not to mention drawing the consumers eyes to your page links.

What is even more challenging is conquest. To have your customers find you, when they are researching your competition is the holy grail of SEO.

Automotive Video SEO Workshop

In addition to many other tools that will help you to secure top page rankings, I will show you how to utilize what I find to be one of the most effective, video (VSEO). Video offers the search engines rich and relevant content that can easily be displayed and provides the consumer with information in one the most popular mediums available. When deployed properly, video not only achieves extremely fast SEO results, but has incredible longevity at the top of page rankings.

In Figure 1 below you see videos for our Nissan store in Naples, Florida that were used to conquest page one results for a Kia dealer located in Cape Coral. Note the videos were uploaded on January 7, 2011. These videos, in addition to the blog post and press release seen below captured the top three SERP’s for a competing dealer and manufacturer in just a matter of a few weeks.

As I mentioned before Video offers longevity. In figure 2 you’ll see a conquest video that was uploaded in September 2009 that is still in a top SERP for a Toyota dealer in Fort Myers, Fl. (note the Toyota dealer even has the city in their name)

These are two examples of how video when properly used can be an extremely effective tool in capturing Google Page One Search Results for your dealership. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share these powerful tools with our 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp members and look forward to seeing you all there.

Join up soon, before your competition gets your seat! 

You can register for the Boot Camp at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com

See You in Orlando!

Rob Fontano

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Dealerskins, years ago changed the face of automotive website design with full Flash based technology.  Dealers flocked to the new automotive website platform because their websites were more "alive" than their static brethren.

The excitement eventually faded when dealers realized that 100% flash website were not indexing properly in organic search results.  As a side note, the new Dealerskins platform, which will be released this year looks very promising!

Since that realization, website platform providers have moved away from heavy use of Adobe Flash technology in favor of other solutions.

At the recent NADA Convention, website providers revealed some very "flashy" web and mobile designs that might scare dealers at first glance.

The good news is that today's "flashy" effects are not the old school Flash coding but rather HTML5 code. 

This will becoming a standard in the years ahead so if you are in the market for a new platforms, keep reading.

HTML5 Will Pizzaz and Cross Platform Compatibility

HTML5 seeks to clarify web coding standards and document all the "tricks" that were once undocumented. By clarifying specifics — especially in error handling — HTML5 stands to open the doors for much more efficient and effective JavaScript, heralding a new era for robust interactivity with dynamic interfaces and rich user experiences that would be too heavy and difficult, or impossible, to implement in XHTML or HTML4.

As some of the largest website providers retool their website technology for release in 2011 (Cobalt/ADP, TK Carsites, Reynolds, etc.) you will see some solutions include the graphical energy that HTML5 can deliver.

This is very important for applications or websites that are viewed on iPads and iPhone. Currently Apple does NOT support Adobe Flash technology so HTML5 is the way of the future.

So when you get your next demo from your website provider, ask them about their plans to integrate HTML5 coding on their websites to achieve stunning graphics and transitions once reserved only for Adobe Flash. HTML5 compliant websites will be more cross-platform compatible as well.

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