The Pasch Consulting Group offers car dealers with the opportunity to promote their car inventory on a number of social networking websites including: 

• Craigslist
• BackPage
• MerchantCircle
• Google Base

The advantage of using these tools is simple; you sell more cars.  You sell more cars because your inventory is displayed in more places where consumers research car prices or local car sales.  A second advantage is that for some of these website, you can create inbound links to your website from a high quality website.  If done properly, if you post your used car inventory with a dedicated page link per car, you can simply the shopping experience as well as create power direct inner links to your website.

For example this link: www.usednissancars.net/MA/2006/Nissan/Altima/Used-2006-Nissan-Altima-589.html directly points to a used Nissan Altima for sale in Massachusetts.  By having this direct link “live” in Craigslist, consumers can them go directly to the photos and the specific details on the car with one click.  With our optimized car inventory module, the benefits of individual SEO optimized landing pages are further leveraged on Craigslist.

As sites like www.Craigslist.org get more popular, consumers will start directly searching for cars that may be posted on Craigslist.  Yes, they can go and search Craigslist on their site but I believe consumers will also start searching Google with a search phrase like “Boston craigslist 2005 BMW x5″.

The process of loading your inventory on Craigslist can be often as you like since we can accept your car inventory feed and post cars in the geo-areas on Craigslist that are local to you. Our fees for posting are changed by the hour so you get efficient posting on social networks without a set fee.  This will reduce you costs on months when new car inventory is lighter than normal.

If you are interested in discussing how Social Networking sites can benefit your Internet visibility, give us a call.  Ask to speak with our founder, Brian Pasch.  732-842-4720

I strongly believe in the long term ROI of SEO and the great “annuity” it offers car dealers to deliver low cost consumer direct leads year after year. I’m an advocate for organic search marketing but I’m often asked where Google Adwords (SEM) fits into my digital marketing strategy..

If I were asked to choose between SEO or SEM, I would choose SEO because of the long term benefits it offers and its higher ROI.  I’m also well aware that many General Managers are confused about what SEO really means so they often take the easy route and go with SEM

Despite my efforts to educate the car dealers on how to change the face of automotive digital marketing with some very simple SEO techniques, there are few early adopters. 

Frustrating? Yes.  Hopeless. No. There are many car dealers who have become believers in what PCG can offer with our SEO microsites and Google compliant automotive inventory modules. 

It’s All About Balance

That said, effective automotive lead generation strategies are not just about SEO.

I’m not about to drink the SEO “Kool-Aid” and tell dealers that PPC is a waste of time. Google Adwords is an important “tool” when used properly and car dealers should not avoid Adwords because of a perception that it is costly or has a lower ROI than SEO. Like many things in life, it is how the tool is used that makes it good or bad.

Consumer behavior dictates much of why PPC needs to be a part of car dealer marketing budgets. For this example, let’s see what a consumer may type into Google when looking for a Honda Civic in New Jersey.

When you look at data from Google searches, consumers are typing in search phrases WITHOUT a geo-locator. (state, county or town). They are typing in very short phrases like:

• “Honda”
• “Honda Civic”
• “Honda Civic Prices”
•  “Honda Civic Reviews”

Since these are national phrases, the third party lead collection sites like www.edmunds.com, Yahoo Autos and www.motortrend.com come up on Google page one. These third party lead collectors are optimized for every year make and model, unlike car dealer sites. They also have tremendous traffic which further supports their rankings.

Every day these third party lead collectors capture local buyer leads and sell them to dealers. The only practical short term way to get in front of consumers for broad phrases, without any geo-targets, is PPC. So, you can decide to buy leads or you can attempt to capture the local leads yourself.

It would take a significant investment in time and money to show on organically on Google page one for the search phrase “Honda Civic”. There are no Honda dealers shown in the first two pages (20 listings) of Google for that phrase. You will see all the major lead collector sites on those first two pages.

There are exceptions. I was able to get national Google Page 1 ranking for “Infiniti G37 Convertible” and “Infiniti G37” searches, but it would be very hard to get on Google page one for “Infiniti G35” or “Infiniti dealer”.

Google Adwords campaigns have a geo-based advertising radius so that if you decide to buy broad words, you can limit the radius to a practical driving area for potential buyers. If I only want to target Monmouth County residents,
because my dealership is in that county, I can advertise to local car shoppers typing in the phrase “Honda Civic” or “Honda Civic Prices”.

This is not to say that PPC works for all dealers and marketing strategies. Dealers have to evaluate the costs and ROI for all lead sources; SEO and SEM. They need to compare the conversion rates for “broad search” leads versus long-tail searches like “Monmouth County Honda dealer”. If both methods are profitable and sell cars, both should be continued.

SEO should have a better ROI but you cannot capture all of potential buyers via SEO. You have to have more than one tool in the chest. There is a limit at what SEO can do in any one month. Doubling a SEO budget in any given month does not significantly change the lead flow in the same month.

Since dealers are often rewarded on monthly or quarterly goals, SEM may be needed to hit short term sales targets. Also, if a car dealer is trying to boost extended warranty sales PPC is very effective since consumers normally just type
“Infiniti warranty” or “Infiniti extended warranty” into Google.

We can create a microsite to attract organic car warranty leads. We did that successfully with www.infinitiwarranty.net and it is ranked #2 in the USA for that phrase. My client also gets highly qualified leads from buying a few selected warranty keywords in Google Adwords. So, in this case, the balance of SEO and SEM is generating a steady flow of warranty leads.

In summary, car dealers need both SEO and SEM to effectively compete on the  Internet to catch the eye of local car shoppers. The Pasch Consulting Group has effective strategies to help car dealers implement competitive SEO campaigns as well as structure effective Google Adwords campaigns.

Call us to discuss your needs: 732-842-4720 or email sales@paschconsulting.com

More souring news on the automotive industry as the 2009 Detroit Auto Show fades from its former glory.

This week, Nissan and Infiniti are the latest to announce that they are not going to participate in the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next January. This news increases the count to seven car companies that will skip the 2009 Detroit Auto Show.

Nissan and Infiniti, which normally have large displays at the show, will not have a public display of vehicles. Earlier this year, Mitsubishi, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Suzuki and Land Rover all said they would not attend the 2009 Detroit show.  This seems like additional anecdotal evidence of how fear and panic have spread into the overall economy.

Where I live in New Jersey, local restaurants that were once thriving are now 25% full on weekends. I visited the Borgota Casino two weeks ago on a Friday night and at 6:00 PM, there were two people on line to check. On a Friday the line is normally 15-20 people deep.

Local car dealerships are very concerned and many are drastically cutting back on spending.  This new announcement from Infiniti and Nissan sends another wave of panic to the markets. This decision begs the question; what comes next for the auto industry?

Pulling out of any major industry venue may be knee jerk reaction compared to just cutting down the budget with a smaller footprint. I don’t understand the politics of the show but it seems like the baby is being thrown out with the bath water.

If you would like more information on the show, use the website link below:

http://www.naias.com

January 17-25, 2009

Cabo Center, Detroit Michigan

Automotive advertising agencies – you are being called to task.  It is very common for car dealers to have their ad agency create a sheet of monthly specials like the one shown for Audi cars. These ads are used in local newspapers but they are also being used for dealer websites.

Unfortunately, the ad agencies are not telling automotive sales managers that these graphical contribute practically NOTHING to attractive car shoppers via Google and Yahoo search. Most traditional automotive advertising agencies don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO).  They didn’t grow up with SEO.  Their job is to produce auto ads every month, on schedule, and they are happy for the business.

Well, if I was the owner of a car dealership, I would not be happy how these ads are being used on the web. You see, these ads have text that Google cannot index.  Google cannot read the text on a photo.  They are in effect a blank page to the search engine spiders.  If car dealers expect for consumers to find their monthly specials online, they have to take the time to type the details in plain text.

You may think this is a simple task and one that should be commonplace on dealer websites.  But take a look at 20 car dealer websites by clicking on their “Specials” page and you’ll find that most are graphical ads with the pertinent information on an image. 

So should dealers login into their website administrative panel and add their car specials in text?  This is where things get interesting.  Creating a good looking text page on most automotive website platforms is not easy.  Yes, most platforms claim that they have easy to use HTML editors but in common practice, they are not easy to use.

I have worked with a number of HTML editors on car dealer websites and they all are tricky at best.  The skills to create “tables” or aligned text requires skills that are beyond the average Internet sales manager. Copying preformatted text into these embedded editors can cause more trouble that it’s worth.

So, Sales Managers take the least path of resistance and drop in a graphic advertisement on their specials page so it’s not blank.   Just keep in mind that these graphical ads do ZERO for drawing new customer via search. Even worse, pages that only contain one image will most likely never even get indexed by Google.

If car dealers take the time to create car specials and incentives, they should also take the time to publicize them on the web.  In an ideal world, you would have a dedicated web page for each car you have on special that month.  This way the HTML Title, META Description and content can be optimized for the offer. In addition to their own websites, specials can be posted on free services like Craigslist, MerchantCircle and social networking sites.  The dealers, who make the effort to give Google what they expect, will be rewarded with better search visibility.

Automotive SEM Competition is on the rise and car dealers will be paying more for targeted keywords in Google Adwords .

As the economy weakens and the stock market fails to provide emotional support for a stunned consumer market, automotive dealers are digging in their heels and fighting back.  Recent data indicates that US car dealers are diverting monies from traditional advertising channels and increasing their spending on Google and Yahoo. From our customer surveys, monies once allocated to print, radio and cable TV are being reduced and moved to internet advertising platforms.

This shift in spending has many implications. The cost per click on many common automotive search phrases has been steadily rising in October and November of 2008.  This is a clear indication that car dealers are embracing the fact that 85% of new car buyers are researching their cars on the Internet prior to a purchase.  With cash flow tight, Automotive Sales Managers are increasing their bids for the top positions in Google Adwords.

The increased competition poses some interesting challenges for Automotive Marketing companies due to the risk of a bidding war erupting, and everyone involved being hurt.  Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an important part of any car dealer’s digital marketing strategy.  However, SEM alone can be very costly in the long term.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies can provide car dealers with sustainable, low-cost lead flow to supplement leads purchased through SEM.  Automotive microsites are another tool which provide car dealers with a highly ranked website designed to capture local car buyer information.  As PPC costs continue to rise, SEO strategies look increasingly attractive.

One SEO strategy example is a microsite designed for the release of the 2009 Infiniti G37 Convertible.  We created a microsite on the domain www.infinitig37convertible.com for Infiniti of Santa Monica. It ranks #1 in the USA for the search phrase “Infiniti G37 Convertible” and is on Google page one for other search phrases like “2009 G37 convertible” or simply “g37 convertible”.  The site had a low, on-time cost to create and has generated hundreds of consumer leads located in California who want to purchase this car.  When the Infiniti G37 convertible finally is released in the spring of 2009, Infiniti of Santa Monica will be the West Coast sales leader for this car.

As car dealers look for effective marketing strategies, SEO and SEM will continue to rise to the top of a list of  channels that produce the best ROI for local consumer car leads.  If you are interested in additional articles on Automotive SEO, you can visit www.dealer-seo.com.

We are pleased to welcome Bell Honda into our growing family of auto dealers.  Bell Honda has hired our firm for Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization services.  Brian Pasch and his team will be working to increase Bell Honda’s visibility on the web.  Our initial work will be focused on Certified Honda car sales.

The timing of the project could not come at a better time.  Over 85% of new car buyers are researching cars online prior to a purchase.  This fact coupled with an increased interest in used cars due to economic conditions, makes perfect sense to invest into Internet advertising.  Certified Honda cars are a smart choice when consumers have to replace a car when their lease ends.

Brian Pasch, CEO added “Our staff will assist The Bell Honda to communicate their brand value to Arizona online car shoppers.  This will include making it easier for consumers to download information on any car they sell as well as one-click price quotes and no obligation trade valuations. ”

In Arizona, we are also assisting Infiniti of Scottsdale market their new and used cars.  Consistent with our business strategy, we will provide SEO services to only one Honda dealership in Arizona and Bell Honda is our client.  We believe that our statewide SEO campaigns would make it impractical to work for two Honda dealers at the same time.  We would be competing against ourselves.

Honda car dealers in states outside of Arizona are encouraged to call PCG to receive a free evaluation of their website.  The review will identify ways in which Honda dealers can imrpove their Internet visibility to attract more consumer direct leads.

This past week I attended and automotive eMarketing brunch hosted by Kelly Blue Book.  Speakers at the brunch included industry veterans Ralph Paglia, Mark Burack and event host Rob Lange from KBB.   The topics covered in the seminar were outstanding which also included a presentation by Chad Goodson of Carfax.com.  Ralph is the founder of AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com and I am a member of that community. Mark Burack is the EVP of LiquidSales.com and they have some great tools fio for selling cars on eBay.

Rob Lange opened the seminar by sharing data from industry surveys that tracked the online behavior of new car buyers. The data identified important expectations that online car buyers had when visiting a car dealer website.  When various survey results were placed on a PowerPoint slide, the data made practical sense to everyone in the room.  There we no surprises but when you see data compiled on one page, I started to brainstorm.

As an automotive SEO specialist, I spend a lot of time driving traffic to websites who have designs that I do not control.  The motivations behind car dealer website designs at times are puzzling.  I’ve visited dealer websites that make it hard to get a price quote.  I’ve experienced sites that hang up my browser because they are so overloaded with flash.  Other auto dealer sites set-off my pop-up blocker with annoying “specials” or blast me with animated videos. There is obviously no consensus on what makes up a good website design.

The KBB seminar forced me to think about how we could create an optimal website design that meets the expectations of the online car shopper.  I don’t have any solutions to share immediately. I did however start to create a graphical representation of what I distilled from the first seminar topic.

Online car buyers want to be educated; over 83% of car buyers search the Internet for information before buying a car. Consumers want that information provided in a convenient format and I would like to add that they would like it in a format that is easily emailed, like a PDF. 

Online car buyers are expecting a simple process to obtain a price quote, the MSRP and features for any car a dealer sells.  They expect dealers to respect their privacy and send them information via email before they call.  And finally, online car shoppers want to feel that all this work resulted in a better -than- average price for the car they buy.  As Rob Lange put it “They want to win.”

If these expectations represent the average online shopper, then car dealer websites have a long way to go.  Not all auto dealers provide the same car data sheets as PDF files that are offered freely on the manufacturer’s website pertaining to car model specifications, options, and colors.  By adding basic educational materials to dealer websites, car buyers may be spending more time on local dealer sites and less time on third party lead collection websites.

If online car buyers have a choice on where to educate themselves about a car, the local car dealer that adds ample content on each car that they sell will have an advantage over their local competition.  According to one of the speakers at the seminar, if the dealer respects the consumers wish to receive and review the requested information before a call is initiated, the potential for a successful result will be optimized.

If you look at your website from a consumer perspective, you may agree that a few small changes could make a big difference in conversion rates of visitor traffic.  If you would like a free evaluation of your car dealer website, give Brian Pasch, CEO a call; 732-842-4720.

Here is a link to the newly minted book from Google on getting started with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Those of you who know me, my constant focus and “preaching” on:

are all confirmed in this document. Car dealer website software platform companies that have been discounting the importance of Unique Page Titles, Unique META Descriptions, Clean URL Names and Google Sitemaps can go eat xxxx.

I’m not well liked by many companies offering car dealer platforms since I documented that about 80% of them FAIL this document’s guidelines. If you missed the inventory scoring article, you can request a full copy by email to: brian@paschconsulting.com or read an excerpt by clicking here.

I’m not discouraged, as long as my clients read this and know that they are being advised properly. Pass the word that I’m not insane!

In fact, I was speaking with a representative from a major dealer platform YESTERDAY and he flat out told me and my client in an email, that for car inventory pages, Google doesn’t really care about Titles, META descriptions and URL names. After reading this document, you will agree that this is the most RIDICULOUS statement someone in the Automotive Digital Marketing profession can make.

So, please take a peek at this well written document from Google. SEO is not an overnight achievement but our work to educate car dealers and to develop well written SEO car marketing platforms is well confirmed in this document created by Google.

What’s New

This month we are rolling out our new 100% Google compliant inventory module to early adopters and it looks great. Dealers on this platform will be kicking butt in organic search in the coming months. Questions? Send me a note or give us a call at 732-842-4720.

Car dealers across the country are seeing an increase in used car sales.  To that end, The Pasch Consulting Group has been approached by several car dealers to help increase the visibility of their available inventory.  PCG is once again embarking on an SEO campaign for a savvy auto dealer who wants to capitalize on the popularity of used cars.  Our SEO efforts and the focus of this article will be how to increase internet leads for this Honda dealer.

Since the Honda Certified project is just starting, I thought I would share with you how to use the ‘Google Keyword Tool’ to refine an initial dealer keyword strategy.  Keyword strategies evolve over the course of a project, but the initial research into what consumers are tying into Google is extremely valuable.

You can use Google’s free keyword research tool by using this link: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal 

SEO Keywords For Honda Certified Used Cars

A good keyword strategy will help direct the new written content that will be added to the dealer’s website.  It will also serve as a guide for creating Certified Honda press releases and Certified Honda blog postings on social networking websites.
Google provides a free tool to query their database to see how popular certain search phrases are each month. Since we will be marketing Honda used cars on the Internet, we have to research the most popular phrases consumers use each month in Google.  Here is a partial list of the data provided by Google:

• certified Honda  - 18,100 per month
• certified Honda quote – no measurable traffic
• certified Honda NJ – no measurable traffic
• certified Honda PA  – no measurable traffic
• certified Honda Philadelphia  – no measurable traffic
• certified Honda phoenix – no measurable traffi
• used Honda quotes – no measurable traffic
• used Honda prices - 1,300 per month
• Used Honda - 368,000 per month
• Used Honda PA – 1,000 per month
• Used Honda NY – 1,000 per month
• Used Honda dealer - 2,900 per month
• Used Honda cars - 90,500 per month
• Honda used car  - 12,100 per month
• Honda used cars – 90,500 per month
• Honda preowned – 5,400 per month
• Honda preowned cars – 390 per month

This research is important to determine which search phrases are the best to include in our targeted keyword list.  When creating an automotive keyword strategy, it is important to let the data speak and avoid drinking your own Kool-Aid. 

The data shows that consumers are more likely to type into Google “used Honda” as compared to “certified Honda”. Every month, 368,000 people type in “used Honda” as compared to 18,000 people a month typing in “certified Honda”. This knowledge is valuable in creating an effective Automotive SEO campaign.

Dealer’s love to use the word “certified” for their cars because they think the word “used” is not very sexy. That’s fine for internal printed documents and conversations with customers, but it’s not as powerful for Automotive Digital Marketing.  I’m not suggesting ignoring the word “certified”, but it has to be placed in the proper priority for your keyword strategy. 

If you were going to build a microsite for selling used Honda cars, this data would also help guide you to what domains to purchase.  For example, based on this research I purchased www.honda-usedcars.com as a possible domain for this new project.  I would not purchase www.certified-honda.com  because the monthly traffic is too small.

Certified Honda Long Tail Searches

For example, if you are trying to capture consumers looking for a used  Honda price quote, the phrase “Certified Honda Quote” would be a waste of time since no one is really typing in that phrase into Google.  The more common phrase “Used Honda Quote” is also not a high volume phrase so that’s not a good choice either.

Slightly better, according to Google, is “Honda used car prices” which confirms that the word “quote” is not as popular as you would think.  According to Google “Honda car prices” (1,600) or “Honda Prices” (33,100) would be a better choice to attract price shoppers. 

An effective automotive digital marketing campaign has to include keyword research like what is shown above.  This is only one part of a good Automotive SEO strategy but is a key part of the foundation for all work that follows.