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DENVER, Colorado (August 17, 2010) – Brian Pasch, founder and CEO of PCG Digital Marketing, will present a leadership session at the Innovative Dealer Summit, September 8. 

Pasch’s leadership message is entitled: “Car Dealers are Under Attack.”   

Brian will demonstrate to attendees of The Innovative Dealership Summit the unforeseen negative consequences of car dealers participating in some popular inventory advertising models that are actually hurting their own direct website traffic!  Pasch will also give examples of how car dealers can fight back against online attacks on their brand name.

Innovative Dealer Summit

Denver, The Mile High City, will host representatives of the automotive industry at the Marriott Denver South at Park Meadows for a day-long leadership program on the latest in innovative technologies, social media marketing, search engine optimization, reputation management, sales, service, customer satisfaction, profitability and more.

Summit attendees will include dealer principals/owners, general managers, senior dealership managers and directors, Internet sales managers, business development managers, F&I managers, key dealership leaders, sales leadership, advertising and marketing consultants, controllers and other key decision makers.

Tim Jackson, director of the Innovative Dealer Summit, said, “Brian’s presentation will be very timely and one of the most popular and interesting of the conference.”  The Summit will feature 30 emerging, compelling topics during the 12-hour conference.”

Brian Pasch Included In Program

Brian Pasch, CEO and Founder of PCG Digital Marketing is a popular speaker and writer on digital marketing strategies for the automotive industry.  He is an active blogger on the most visited social networks and forums for car dealers who seek to learn more about SEO, SEM, social media and leveraging the Internet to grow dealership sales.

Brian Pasch is also creator of the popular ASMA Awards (www.asmaawards.org) which recognizes the best digital marketing platforms in the automotive industry.  Pasch also recently announced the largest Automotive SEO Study for car dealers which will start on September 1, 2010.

The Innovative Dealer Summit was created as a directive and priority of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. For more information visit www.innovativedealersummit.com

About Innovative Dealer Summit

• Scheduled from 8am to 8pm, September 8, 2010 
• 36 action-packed hours of training during a 12-hour period
• Nationally recognized auto retail thought-leaders
• Top Internet marketing wizards will address dealers

For more information, please visit:

Twitter: www.twitter.com/dealersummit

You Tube: www.youtube.com/drivedenver

Google Maps can be very frustrating for car dealers and it gets worse in competitive markets. 

For example, if you search Google for “Arizona Honda Dealers” and click on the Maps tab, you get a list of dealers. If your dealership is not showing up in the first few listings, you can get frustrated. 

How does Tempe Honda get top organic billing?  The answers are fuzzy at times but it seems that there is a growing body of evidence that supports theories why some maps are shown more often than others.

Many companies and car dealers have asked me about how they can increase the “relevance” of their Google Maps listing. Keep in mind that the “address” of the Google Maps/Places is a dominant factor in which search results show a Google map.

Misguided SEO hackers have attempted to scam or influence Google Maps listings with fake addresses but Google is cracking down on this practice. In the example on the right, you can see one such scammer (Listing A) that created a listing called “Honda Dealers” with a bogus address as “Metro Area”. 

Google Maps has not yet got around to removing this listing which is pushing real Honda dealers off the top positions.  Google Maps spam is on the rise and I would report to Google any fake listings that do not represent authorized Honda dealers.

Authoritative Directory Verifications

From my testing on Google Maps, I have concluded that having a consistent name, address and phone numbers across “reference” websites can assist your Google Maps listing to be shown above those that have no external references.  That means that you should not use different tracking numbers for public business directory listsing that are different.

Google can see if the submitted “business name and address” can be found on other paid or free websites. If the submitted address is nowhere to be found, you can understand why Google may be reluctant to show that new Maps listing. I am leaning on a recommendation that car dealers “pay” to be included in some very highly ranked directories as well as making sure that they get a free listing on www.dmoz.org which is the undisputed king of organic search directories.

Using GetListed.org

One tool that can simply the process of seeing which directories have your listing correct is www.getlisted.org .  If you type in your business name and zip code, as shown below, it will search Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp and BOTW to see if your listing is there. 

The fact that BOTW is listed as a “top” directory is interesting because it is a paid directory if you want to get the most important parts of your business profile visible to consumers, at $30 a month.  That money making recommendation aside, the tool is a quick way to get a snapshot of where you are. 

When the search is done, you can click to get a report on those five top websites that looks like this:

Additional Directory Sites

I would also recommend these directories to ensure that a dealer is represented on multiple free authoritive websites:

• www.MerchantCircle.com
• www.InsiderPages.com
• www.Judysbook.com
• www.SuperPages.com
• www.BrownBook.net
• www.Switchboard.com
• www.InfoUsa.com

According to an InfoGraphic on GetListed.org, the network of business directory websites and facilitators is shown below:

Google Maps Visibility

The idea behind this graphic is to show that there are MANY websites in which you can register your business name, address, phone and website. The idea is that if your contact information can be validated in MANY places, it has a higher likelihood of being accurate. 

This begs the question… 

• Have you made an effort to synchronize your business directory information?
• Have you paid for a listing on Yahoo.com or Business.com?
• Do you need to?
• How have you validated Your Business address?

Let the questions start and I will answer them to the best of my ability….

Internet sales and marketing professionals who are currently working at car dealerships and want to master powerful SEO tools and strategies to improve the search visibility of their website are invited to participate in a unique Automotive SEO Study which will be presented at the 2011 NADA Convention in San Francisco. 

The study is co-sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com.

The Automotive SEO Study will be limited to 100 automotive dealers*. Registration ends on August 30, 2010.

There is no cost to participate however members should budget approximately $100 for domain purchases, blog hosting and/or fees paid to third part marketing sites, directories and related sites as needed.

Study members will be trained and coached how to use content publishing, link building, social media, video, PDF brochures, and automotive networks to improve their Google Page One results for popular consumer search phrases.   Members in the study will be required to dedicate 3-4 hours a week to complete the tasks required to deliver measurable results for their dealership.

The 100 dealers will have access winning digital marketing strategies, training videos, marketing outlines, tutorials, and websites managed by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales that will enhance the results of their work. In return, members in the study will share the results of their work and be included in a whitepaper being prepared by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com.

“The Automotive SEO Study will be the first of its kind”, according to Brian Pasch, CEO of PCG Digital Marketing.   “The partnership with DrivingSales.com, the leading automotive social media community, is consistent with founder Jared Hamilton’s goal to provide digital marketing curriculums and best practices to assist automotive retailers with online advertising and communications.”

Length Of Automotive SEO Study

The study will run from September 1, 2010 to January 1, 2011. In those four months, members in the study will document their work and record data on a number of search marketing factors which will include website link counts, Google ranking for specific keywords, unique visitor traffic, lead submissions, and changes in their Google Page One Management (GPOM) results.

The results will be published and presented at the 2011 NADA Convention in San Francisco. Monthly updates during the four month study, as well as the final results, will be shared with members of www.DrivingSales.com .

Car dealers interested in the results of this study should create a free account on Drivingsales.com and follow the progress of their peers through the interactive blogs and dealership forums.

Automotive SEO Study Requirements

 The requirements to participate in the study are:

1. Participants must be an employee of a car dealership, proof will be required.
2. Participants must have written permission to write about the dealership online; blogs, press releases, social media, etc.
3. Participants must have an email address from an active dealership domain.
4. Members in the study will be required to dedicate 4 hours a week to complete the tasks required for success.
5. Participants must be willing to share the results of their work via Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics data and allow the data to be summarized* in the final study whitepaper.

No confidential data or specific dealership website results will be published in the whitepaper or made public without written permission from participant.

Register For Study

Dealers interested in participating should register online at www.automotiveseostudy.com.  Inquiries can be sent to:  info@automotiveseostudy.com.  

* PCG Digital Marketing retains the right to decline dealer participation in the Automotive SEO Study based on conflicts of interest with current clients.