by Top Dealer SEO on August 3, 2009
Ford has certainly been a Big Three standout, especially as the only one of the three that has not gone through bankruptcy restructuring. But Ford is also very different in how they approach the Web and online communication. The way in which the company has embraced technology and social media has helped real people share their experiences with Ford products in an all-new way, paving the way for a real emotional connection to the brand.
One method for opening up communication with existing and potential customers is through blogging. Blogs such as The Ford Story have not only been a successful outlet for Ford news and unique stories about the company, but it has also been a forum where consumers can make their ideas and opinions be heard. The site also focuses on important areas that Ford wants to highlight, including the company’s overall plan and progress, quality, green initiatives, safety, and smart technology – all of which is also important to consumers as well.
Another important website for Ford is the Fiesta Movement. To build anticipation for the upcoming 2011 Ford Fiesta, 100 lucky people were selected to drive the cars for six months and share their experience via blogging and social media. Giving consumers the ability to promote what they really think about the car day after day is a bold step for Ford, and it also says plenty about the Fiesta’s quality and Ford’s confidence in the product ahead of its official release. It also doesn’t hurt that Jeremy Clarkson seemed to really enjoy the Fiesta either.
Ford can now be found everywhere online. From YouTube to Facebook to Twitter, Ford is not just present on prominent social media properties, Ford is an active participant. Ultimately, this reflects on their products as they’re giving consumers more opportunities to be heard, and obviously what people are saying isn’t always good and that’s not a bad thing. The company’s social media activity is a good model for other automakers and car dealers as well. Today’s auto market and today’s consumers are very different from just a few years ago, and connecting with consumers socially appears to be an increasingly important step to create trust and sell more cars. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on August 3, 2009
Providing quality content is the key to success with Web users and search engines alike. But understanding the way content is structured and how a search engine might crawl it is also important to consider. Let’s explore some important tips on site architecture and SEO.
Organize Your Content in the Planning Stage
Sometimes the aesthetics of a new website can be intoxicating. But ultimately it’s the content that will attract, retain, and convert visitors. In the early stages of planning for a new website, plan what pages, landing pages, and specific content you’ll want to highlight. By starting this off early, you’ll find that the answering questions about your content strategy may help make design decisions a little easier. Consider how similar pages should be grouped, and how navigation will allow users to drill down into sub-pages.
Utilize Bolding for Emphasis
Bolding certain words within content can help emphasis certain parts of text as users skim through a page. Additionally, bolding can be helpful for SEO as it alerts search engines to important topics and keywords. However, avoid bolding too much – if everything is bold, then nothing is important!
Isolate Flash Whenever Possible
Although Flash is not generally “SEO-friendly,” that’s not to say it has to be avoided at all costs if you intended to be successful in the SERPs. Many high-ranking automotive websites use ample Flash such as this Toms River Ford dealer website. The key to succeed with heavy use of Flash, scripts, and/or images is to balance it out with rich text content that can be easily read by browsers, users, and search engine crawlers. Additionally, using alt attributes to describe Flash and image content can still be helpful in telling search engines what the content is all about.
Avoid Duplicate Content Like the Plague
Duplicate content has never and will never be a good thing when it comes to SEO. Stay away from providing duplicated, repeating, or redundant content across multiple pages. Duplicate content is typically identified when search engines index a given page, and redundancies are eliminated from the index at some point or another. Just don’t do it!
Embrace Header Tags
Once you have a nice page of text to put on your site, you’re not quite done. Organizing your content is also important for a couple reasons. Breaking up a page with H1 or H2 header tags can make the content more readable, since more readers on the Web are likely to skim. A page on Alexandria used cars for example remains easy to read thanks to ample use of headers. But these tags can also help search engines understand the main themes of the page, thus helping in terms of SEO if keywords are present.
Unique Pages With a Call to Action
Each page should satisfy some purpose. Of course avoiding duplicate content is one way to have each page satisfy a specific objective. But pages should also educate or motivate readers. A Finance page from a New York Mazda dealer website for example not only explains financing, but it also encourages users to easily start the car buying process by filling out a credit application. By leaving out that important actionable request, you might as well say goodbye to potential leads.
Maintain Transparency at All Times
Hidden text or links on your website is always an SEO no-no. Sometimes the decisions to hide text or links may not be malicious, but trying to hide content from users in an attempt to appease the search engines will get you nowhere fast! [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on August 3, 2009
Several months back we pointed out that Google released a Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This guide introduced the basic yet necessary components to creating an SEO-friendly website and how to adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Following in Google’s footsteps, MSN’s Bing has just released a similar document called Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters. The guide focuses heavily on the unique features of MSN’s all-new search engine, but it too discusses the basic but necessary components that webmasters and web publishers should know about SEO.
So if Google already offers an awesome free guide on SEO, why does this new guide from Bing matter? Well, Microsoft has been promoting its new search engine heavily both online and offline in an attempt to acquire greater market share from search leaders Google and Yahoo. But even more importantly, Microsoft has just entered a long anticipated search partnership with Yahoo that will bring Bing’s search technology and listings to Yahoo properties. Once the partnership is officially implemented it will significantly expand the market share of Bing over night, and it will help Bing become a serious threat to Google’s dominance in search.
With all that is currently happening at Bing, and the sweeping changes that lie ahead, it’s worth getting acquainted with Bing if you haven’t already done so. Download the guide to Bing and if you haven’t already done so, check out the SEO Starter Guide from Google. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on August 2, 2009
Here’s a quick and basic video SEO tutorial to give car dealers a jump start on an innovative automotive SEO strategy.
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by Top Dealer SEO on July 2, 2009
Many car dealers are becoming increasingly intrigued about online reputation management and monitoring. With countless ways for consumers, and competitors, to voice their opinions online, it’s becoming important to listen to what’s being said on consumer review websites, blogs, and social media.
If you aren’t embracing online marketing to promote your website, or even if you don’t have a website, you still have an online reputation to consider! Online media is about a conversation, and if you’re not contributing to the conversation, it won’t stop people from talking.
The best way to dive into the proactive of online reputation management is simply to start listening. High profile social media websites are a great place to start. These websites include Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter to name just a few. For any car dealer, local search portals and review sites like CitySearch and Yelp are also important to check out to gauge what people are saying about your website. Needless to say, sites specifically within the automotive niche, such as DealerRater.com, are also helpful in identifying what customers are saying about your dealership.
One of the best ways to begin monitoring your online reputation is to simply create a free Google account which will enable you to take advantage of a number of helpful tools and resources.
The first resource to look into is Google News. Thanks to its RSS functionality, you can easily keep track of the specific news you want to stay on top of, such as information on the automotive industry or other local news. While Google News covers news and events across the world and across the web, you can use keywords to narrow-in on the specific news you seek.
Another important tool for online reputation monitoring is Google Alerts. If you’re not a fan of RSS feeds, simply add the keywords that you’re interested in, such as your dealership name or the name of your competitors, and Google Alerts will email you each time news or other recent content is found that addresses those keywords.
Google Blog Search is Google’s search destination for finding out what’s happening in the blogosphere. These days, many car dealers have their own blogs, and so do your customers. By utilizing options for email alerts or RSS, you can keep track of what car buyers and your competitors are saying.
Online reputation management and monitoring is not exclusively performed by large corporations. Small and medium sized businesses should also be gauging the pulse of their industry and local area. Of course reputation monitoring will also allow businesses to see what it is they’re doing right or doing wrong in the eyes of their customers. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on July 2, 2009
Google appears to be increasingly embracing the universal search platform. As competition from Yahoo and Microsoft’s all-new Bing.com heats up, Google must now address the quality of its core product and the overall search experience.
Universal search blends a variety of content with search results. This might include news, images, video content, blog posts, and even books in addition to traditional website listings. While most search engines are adding content variety to their results pages, the biggest challenge is in providing the content in an easy to understand manner. The other challenge is determining how relevant a piece of content is in relation to a specific search query. For a given query, would a blog post be most relevant or perhaps a video? Regardless, the information found within the SERPs is becoming more varied than ever before, and the trend can be seen in Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
With the rapid implementation of universal search, there are certainly more opportunities for website owners. When devising content for the Web, it’s increasingly important to consider types of content and think about where to place this content. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can develop your digital assets to take full advantage of universal search.
News
Search engines love fresh content in general, but all search engines these days are also becoming hubs for news-related content. Luckily, any dealership can take advantage by creating news releases about new products, unique sales promotions, special events, or philanthropic work in the community. This content can easily find its way into Google News and become featured as ‘News’ within search results pages for important search queries. Popular websites for submitting press releases include PR Newswire and PR Leap, both of which provide a variety of options to maximize reach and SEO capabilities.
Video
Video is one of the most powerful types of content available, yet many dealers neglect to utilize this medium online. Not only is it easy for car dealers to take television commercials and post them online, but creating an online video that explores new models or provides some type of tutorial can greatly improve the online user experience. Video content can be posted on numerous websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and even Flickr, to expand potential viewership. Best of all, videos from popular websites like YouTube not only can find their way into search results, but they can also be optimized for specific keywords and phrases.
Images
Many users turn to search engines to find images, especially new car shoppers looking for quality pictures of new models. By paying particularly close attention to files names, fie size, and most importantly SEO-friendly alt tags and text captions, the images on your website will have a greater chance of attracting more views. To prepare your images for universal search, check out the image search tool in Google’s Webmaster Central.
Local Listings
Local listings are truly the low-hanging fruit of universal search. While it’s easy to forget adding your dealership to local listings on various search engines, it could make a huge impact. By taking just a few minutes to update your local listing information, your dealership’s location and contact information can appear within the SERPs, in addition to standard organic listings. To confirm if you have been added to local listings, check out GetListed.org for more information.
Product Listings
Product listings can be a unique way to generate extra revenue for any parts and accessories department. For long-tail, specific product searches, search engines such as Google are commonly showing specific product listings in search results. By jumping into product listings, dealerships can take advantage of other outlets beyond eBay and other popular e-commerce options.
Blogs
We’ve certainly discussed the importance of blogging on Top Dealer SEO before as there are ample advantages to it when it comes to SEO and building awareness. Blogs also make it easy to add fresh content to your website and they help attract links from other websites. In addition to building buzz within the blogosphere, blogs can also ping Google Blog Search and other blog search platforms which automatically notifies these services of updates. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on June 29, 2009
Multimedia is one of the greatest opportunities in Web marketing. However, it’s important to remember that when optimizing on-site content, this includes video and image content and not just text. Video optimization in particular is increasingly important as a brand-building tool. Best of all, video content potentially could find its way into search engine results pages as well.
With the growth of online video, car dealers are increasingly embracing YouTube and other online video platforms. In fact, comScore estimated that internet users in the US in the month of March viewed 14.5 billion videos on the Web! That’s an incredible statistic that shows the awesome power and demand of video content. It also may highlight the ease of putting video content online. In making it easier to find success with your online videos, let’s look at a few tips for video optimization.
When developing the video, or deciding on where to place it, consider relevancy of its content. The best online videos are those that provide value to those who view it. Videos that don’t provide any helpful information, don’t relate to the content on your website, or are simply old videos, usually are not able to gain impressive views.
Giving your video a title is probably the single most important video optimization tip. The title should be both descriptive and enticing to get people to view it. But the video titles can also be infused with important keywords to help optimize the video for search engines.
Tagging is another way to help people find your video content. Tags are used by numerous websites such as YouTube to categorize videos and they make it easier for viewers to find specific content via search queries. You should only use several keywords, no more than a half dozen. The keywords should also include keywords to aid SEO.
Naming video and image content is very important. The filenames you choose also play an important role in optimization, and should include a format that is easy to read by a human, while also being descriptive of the content. Smash Webs, a company specializing in SEO Omaha NE, agrees and adds that keywords should be used as well when applicable.
Much of search engine optimization revolves around text, which is precisely why a text transcript should also be considered. Many video and slideshow websites feature the ability to upload text to accompany your multimedia content. Adding a text transcript on your own website will also be advantageous for car dealer SEO. While not all video sites enable this function, at the very least you’re able to provide a brief description of your content. Again, the description should accurately describe your content, be enticing like an advertisement for your video, and it should also include helpful keywords that users may use to find the video.
Video content is a social media tool, and as such can be helpful in link building efforts. Video should be engaging, entertaining, and/or informative, if you want others to link to it. Getting links from various social media outlets translates in more potential viewers.
Some videos are so entertaining or informative that they could go viral. What this means is that communities within social media sites begin to share it with friends and recommend it in such a way that the video is passed from user to user. Again this means more eyeballs are on your video content, and it also could lead to more links pointing to your content. Don’t forget to provide proper branding or contact information on your content to ensure you won’t miss out on any leads! [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on June 1, 2009
Microsoft has long struggled to boost the profile of its search engine, MSN/Live.com. For that reason, Microsoft decided to try something new and has just launched an all-new search engine called Bing. Bing, which had previously been code-named Kumo, is said to help consumers make “faster, more informed decisions.”
Bing is said to provide vertical search functionality for those shopping for a specific product, planning a trip, researching health related topics, or trying to find a local business. Like other search engines, Bing also enables searches to be filtered by automatically generating suggested search queries as well as by links to images, shopping, maps, news, and travel. A key feature of Bing is the ability to hover over a result and read a snippet of the website’s content, helping the user gauge just how useful the site is.
Microsoft will be carrying the Bing branding to MSN and Live.com. If nothing else this is an indication that Microsoft intends to make the Bing search engine its primary product to compete with Google. But like so many other search engines that have tried to go up against Google, Bing will need to bring something truly different to the table to ensure its success. Most importantly, results need to provide value to users and deliver on the promise to provide information and answers to users faster.
Bing has been unveiled a few days ahead of schedule to give users the chance to preview the new search engine. It’s expected that potential users will soon see the Bing logo everywhere as Microsoft is spending between $80 million and $100 million on advertising to promote its latest search product.
While some have said that Bing stands for “But-its-not-Google,” the new search engine has received plenty of positive feedback from industry observers. Despite solid reviews, Bing still faces an uphill battle. The biggest challenge is getting users to switch from Google – a product they’re already used to. That being said, Bing may deliver more of a threat to Yahoo rather than Google. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on May 13, 2009
The Ford Fiesta will finally be available to U.S. customers next year as part of Ford’s strategy of offering a single global product lineup. Recently redesigned, the latest Fiesta is a compact hatchback that balances efficiency and sportiness and it has already seen tremendous sales success in Europe. Its success has fueled anticipation among American consumers and dealers alike, but to help maintain the anticipation, Ford has created a new campaign to generate interest.
To excite North American consumers about their latest offering, Ford has already shipped 100 Fiestas to the U.S. as part of the automaker’s Fiesta Movement campaign. For the next six months, 100 Americans will drive a Fiesta completely free of charge as they record their experience and impressions of the vehicle online via fiestamovement.com.
The Fiesta Movement campaign is comprised of young and well-connected drivers. The campaign is intended to leverage social media to spur grassroots interest in the Fiesta and generate demand for the car leading up to its release.
This bold campaign is plenty risky for Ford as few companies have had success running similar viral campaigns. However, Ford Tacoma and other observers recognize that Ford has plenty to gain if the campaign proves to be successful. For a limited financial investment, Ford can put the Fiesta in the hands of influencers and in front of its target demographic at a significantly lower cost than a traditional media buy.
Of course not everyone believes that such a campaign will be capable of enticing consumers. First, with a free car, free insurance, and even free parking, how can anyone expect these drivers to give completely unbiased opinions of the vehicle? Despite these perks, Ford’s social media guru Scott Monty has indicated that the Fiesta Movement drivers were instructed to be truthful and honest. To do their part, Ford will not censor or edit the content generated by those participating in the campaign.
Although the campaign is risky, Ford has little to worry about and everything to gain. With brisk sales of the Fiesta in Europe, the Ford Fiesta seems poised to be a success in North America soon enough. [click to continue…]
by Top Dealer SEO on May 13, 2009
Microsites are not new, but they certainly seem to be catching on. When we discuss microsites we’re talking about websites that have unique URLs and/or are separate from a car dealer’s main website. The content for these microsites are typically much narrower in focus, and revolves around a particular product or service.
With microsites catering to a specific product or service, car dealers can easily deliver unique and targeted marketing campaigns. Microsites can benefit car dealers by providing a more targeted landing page for a new or existing paid search advertising campaign. More targeted content is also advantageous for organic search.
The real benefit of a microsite is flexibility. If you have a lucrative product, service, or profit center, why not utilize a marketing tool specifically for it? Best of all, a microsite is smaller and more manageable than a dealership’s primary website.
An example of a highly targeted microsite is one recently launched for an Ashland Ford dealer. Giving highly-targeted information regarding their maintenance-related services, the Richmond Quick Lane microsite provides Richmond-area drivers with information regarding an oil change Richmond VA, tire services, brake services, and other services that drivers may not realize were available at a Ford dealership. What makes this microsite successful is that it provides a destination that appeals to a wide range of drivers, and not just those that happen to drive a Ford.
For those looking for collision repair in Richmond Virginia, the same dealer has also produced a helpful microsite that again provides what searchers are looking for. While similar content is located on their dealership’s primary website, the microsite is tailored not only to Ford owners, but also those drivers that own other makes.
Opportunities arise with microsites because they help extend the reach of your dealership by helping you communicate with a niche audience. And because they’re so specific, microsites are a great way to optimize for a specific keyword or phrase, which is helpful for organic search as well. At the average car dealership, there are many stakeholders, including those who want to buy a car, finance a car, service a car, detail a car, etc. For those stakeholders that matter most, or for those who may otherwise would not respond to the content on your primary website, a microsite is the simple solution to drive additional leads. [click to continue…]
