Google Base is a classified advertising system developed by Google.  The listings can be displayed on Google related properties at the discretion of Google but most people go directly to Google Base to search and buy goods.   Google Base is currently free and allows anyone to post an item for sale.  Postings will stay in their system for up to 30 days.  All items that are posted are categorized and highly searchable through Google Base’s simple user interface.

Google Base is an ideal SEO tool for selling cars, trucks and other vehicles. Cutting edge car dealers have started to use Google Base as part of their  Automotive SEO strategy.  Because of how Google Base can be setup,  an SEO consultant can use this system to create greater visibility for their car inventory on the Internet. 

Adoption of Google Base by auto dealers has been hindered by technology and time constraints. Without special programming, car dealers have to enter their cars one at a time.  Dealers did not have off the shelf tools to take their inventory feeds and seamlessly integrate their car data and photos into Google Base until now.  Additionally,  GB Feeder is designed to maximize the SEO benefit by posting cars on Google Base; a strategy that PCG customers currently benefit from.

Pasch Consulting Group Unveils ”GB Feeder”

The Pasch Consulting Group is now offering a service to capture car dealer new and used car feeds and automatically post them into Google Base.  The PCG software called “GB Feeder” accepts over a dozen standard automotive feeds including CSV, XML, ADF and ASCII via FTP.  GB Feeder is compatible with third party car inventory management services* like:

• DealerFusion.com
• DealerSpecialties.com
• HomeNetInc.com
• SELECTQU
• AutoBase.com
• EBizAutos.com
• Dealer.com
• GetAuto.com
• InfinitiNet

The PCG software will accept daily updates from car dealer feeds and post new entries into Google base on a regular schedule.  Car dealers will be glad to know that PCG can customize any car inventory data file  into their “GB Feeder” system.

In addition to increased visibility, the GB Feeder software provides a new tool in The Pasch Consulting Group Automotive SEO toolkit to help dealers sell cars on the Internet.  The Google Base service is now available in addition to their automated listing services for Craigslist, BackPage and MerchantCircle.

For additional information on Google Base car inventory feeds, contact the Pasch Consulting Group at 732-842-4720 or email us at sales@paschconsulting.com

 

* The automotive vendor compatability is based on existing customers who are feeding data from these vendors into our systems.  These vendors are not endorsing or supporting compatability for GB Feeder.

It is clear that search engine optimization (SEO), social networking, and organic search marketing are tools that car dealers need to understand and utilize  to compete on the Internet. 

There are a good number of articles available to car dealers  that advocate automotive digital marketing as an important budgetary item  however for some  managers it can be difficult to quantify the actual ROI to their dealership in any given week or month.  

Short Term Digital Marketing

The work to build consistent cars leads from an SEO campaign is spread over weeks, months and even years.  So you can imagine my excitement when I had a chance to measure the short term impact of a proven set of Automotive SEO strategies on a single promotion event for an Infiniti dealer in Arizona.

The event was held December12-14th in Chandler Arizona at the Adesa Auction Grounds; a direct to public sale of used Infiniti and Nissan Cars coordinated by Nissan and a third party marketing company.  Eight area Infiniti and Nissan dealers were invited to participate in co-op advertising costs for the event which presented about 650 cars for sale over a three day weekend. 

The event was not an auction.  It was a factory direct sale of lease end cars, repossessed cars, and demo cars which dealers could sell at the event on a first come basis.   The advertising campaign from participant co-op dollars would go into radio, TV, and newspaper ads.  The company who organized the event also had a website which included the basic details on the event: date, location, and time.

Automotive Event Marketing Tactics

The marketing strategy set by my client was to secure appointments in advance of the three day weekend event.  I was given three weeks’ notice to come up with an Internet marketing plan.  We created an action plan to determine what the dealer’s staff would be doing and what my company would be doing. 

The dealer would be contacting all unsold prospects in their database as well as starting a small pay-per-click campaign that would send direct leads to a microsite that I was to create.

I was to create the automotive marketing microsite for the event which would load all of the 650 cars into an online searchable database, a concept which no other dealers participating in the event implemented.  The event site was http://www.arizonausedinfiniti.com .

An ADF feed was created from an Excel Spreadsheet provided by the event organizers.  This ADF feed was also loaded into Infiniti of  Scottsdale’s used inventory which in turn was distributed to a number of third party car marketing platforms.  This allowed the Infiniti dealer to promote the cars in the event to a very wide audience in a very short period of time.  

Since Infiniti of Scottsdale was the only dealer that displayed the event inventory in advance of the sale, they had a distinct advantage on capturing and confirming pre-event interest.  The sales staff could walk people through the site on the phone to find cars that met their budget and then book an appointment to see the car.

As part our Internet Marketing strategy, we emailed their entire customer database with a simple text email designed to get in under the spam filters and direct people to the event website. We issued a series of Internet press releases that directed consumer traffic to the site organically.  This helped to compliment the buzz that was being created on radio, TV, and newspapers.  

The Power of Automotive Press Releases

Since we knew that the traditional marketing campaign would generate online interest, we made sure that our site would come up in Google searches for a few variations of the event name.  If you go into Google and type “Chandler Surplus Sale”  or  “Arizona car surplus sale” you can see that we dominate the first page of Google which lead to over 300 visits per day in advance of the car event.   

In the three week prior to the event, we unleashed the Internet marketing “hounds” at a very reasonable cost to the dealership.  We utilized social networking platforms, Craigslist, Google Base, and a few proprietary marketing models.  The event site was getting over 300 hits a day from interested parties which were not generated by any of the co-cop advertising dollars for this event.

The results?  Infiniti of Scotstdale had the most appointments of all Infiniti dealers at the event and they sold more cars to consumers than any other Infiniti dealer .  The bottom line is that the event was very profitable and the ROI on the Internet marketing costs was very high.   When the event was over, the General Manager clearly understood that the success at the event was a great partnership between his outstanding sales team and aggressive internet marketing strategies.

The residual benefits are that the 150+ leadsthat came into our marketing microsite are still being pursued and matched up with used cars from their used car inventory.  The event created a fresh list of leads of  Arizona car shoppers looking for used car values. The ISM is confident that he can turn these unsold event leads into sales this month.

The event marketing website will be repurposed for selling Infiniti used cars in Arizona year round. It has already started to gain some organic ranking for Infiniti used car searches in Arizona.  It’s great to know that when the pressure is on, organic search marketing and Automotive digital marketing techniques can make a short term difference and return a fantastic ROI.  The long term benefits of SEO have been discussed on this forum at great lengths. In this case, a short term Internet marketing campaign outside of Pay-Per-Click, resulted in outstanding results.

Looking For New Automotive Marketing Stratgies?

Contact Brian Pasch, CEO to discuss how the Pasch Consulting Group can help energize your new and used cars sales in the year ahead.

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.

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.

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.

A well-tuned Google Adwords (PPC) campaign is extremely effective in generating car sales leads. Pay per click advertising, when combined with a good landing page, can deliver an excellent ROI. Google display and banner ads, even when they are not clicked, can also increase brand awareness in your local market. If you are not using Google Adwords, you are making your competitors very happy.

During difficult economic times, everyone is evaluating their spending, so I thought I would comment on what I have observed in September and October managing dealer SEM campaigns. In the past month we have seen the most volatile sessions in the history of the stock market. We have seen great companies collapse and other tossed away like dirty rags. It’s a scary time for consumers and for car dealers. This fear is manifesting itself in consumer click behavior.

For car dealers, PPC beats the pants off a full page ad in a local paper. It has more quantifiable results than radio or TV. Many of my car dealer clients have pulled out of the typical Sunday ad section. The money spent on a full page newspaper ad in New Jersey may cost around $2,000 - $3,000 depending on the paper and the results are very hard to track. That same investment in PPC would yield traceable sales results and help to develop your Internet cost per new retail sale.

Economy is Changing CPC rates

In the past month, my automotive clients have actually seen an increase in their costs per click (CPC) and a decrease in conversion. Bids for popular keywords have risen about 20%. My guess is that more car dealers are shifting the ad spending to the Internet. It may also be that dealers are more desperate and throwing money at the Internet without a true digital marketing plan. The costs per click for some keywords are becoming absurd.

In this economy there are more window shoppers than buyers. The data that I am seeing would indicate that dealers should test specific PPC ads vs. more general PPC ads. Dealers should also test different messaging for used cars since used car sales are on the rise.  With CPC rates rising, its important that your ads don’t attract unqualified buyers.

For example, a Google ad that says “Ultimate BMW Car Sale” may generate a lot of clicks and costs but few leads. In this economy, I would suggest that you test a general ad with an ad that is more specific. A specific ad would be “08 BMW X5 $450/m”. The idea is that if someone could only afford a payment of $300 a month, they will not be clicking on your ad and wasting your money.  You can repeat this type of ad test for each model you sell and make sure that ad goes to a model specific landing page.

Free Offers Can Burn Cash

We manage the SEM campaign for an award winning Australian winery. Mollydooker winery tested a free shipping offer on Google this week and had to pull it after 2 days. The ad’s curb appeal was great and generated double the amount of clicks, but the offer resulted in very few purchases.

In this case, I think that people are cutting back on non-essentials. They “act” like they may buy but in the end they are just shopping.  In the Mollydooker example, I get the feeling that consumers are deciding to buy a few bottles of wine locally compared to buying a full case online. When things are great, people don’t mind stocking up on good wine. Today, when cash flow is tight, even free shipping is not enough to get their wallets open.

SEM is actually achieving excellent click rates in this crisis, but the ”offer” should be refined to compensate for the fact that there are more tire kickers surfing teh Internet than those who are ready to buy.  To run an effective Google PPC campaign there should be one standard operating procedure: test and test again. As long as you are testing your ads you will avoid spending good money on bad ideas.   Don’t start a PPC campaign and let it run unsupervised, it could be costing you more than you realize.

I recently saw a post on Facebook from a web designer asking the question “How do I respond to an potential employer asking me: What would you do to improve our website?”  This is a tricky question since you don’t want to piss off the person who is interviewing you by insulting the dealership’s website. The flip side is that if everyone is kissing up to the interviewer you will never be able to stand out from the pack.

My advice is to focus on some “facts” about the website and stay away from commenting on the design which is subjective. For example, if a person is interviewing for an Internet Sales Manager job, addressing the question with facts on how they could improve their web traffic and lead flow is always a better tactic than commenting on photos, colors or music.

Anyone who is seeking an Internet Sales Manager job with an automotive dealer should do a little homework on the dealer’s website prior to the interview.  This will prepare them for any questions regarding their ideas about making their Internet department stronger.  Having data collected from the Internet is less offensive than an opinion. Especially when your findings show that the car dealer has been slacking compared to their peers.

Here are some tasks candidates should complete prior to their interview:

Visibility: Type common keywords into Google and Yahoo search engine.  If you are interviewing with a Nissan Dealer in Boston, type in words like “Boston Nissan”, “Nissan Used Cars Boston” and “Nissan Altima Boston”. Create a chart of where their company website ranked for those terms.  You may want to include on the chart any competitor’s websites that rank above their website for those same keywords. 

Traffic: Check the www.alexa.com  traffic to the website and show how their traffic compares to a few of their competitors.   If traffic is low compared to your competitors you should find out how they are achieving such a difference in daily web visitors.

Popularity: Find out how many links are pointing to the website by going into Google and Yahoo and typing in “link:www.yourwebsite.com” and see the quality and quantity of links.   A low number of links could hinder the sites competitive edge.   Compare the number of links to their website to link counts that are for your local competitors.

Quality: Find out how many broken links are on the website using a free tool like “Xenu”.   Broken pages can frustrate users and block new traffic which the owners of the website may not be aware of.   You can see how this tool works and download a free copy from: http://seo.brianpasch.com/Xenu-LinkSleuth-Finds-Broken-Web-Links.htm

Content: See how all the website page titles and descriptions “display” in the list when you go into Google and type “site:yourwebsitename.com“.  Are the page titles unique and do they read like a good table of contents?   If many of the page titles and descriptions in the list are identical, this is a big red flag. Pointing this out in an interview will convey your awareness of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Responsiveness: Fill out a lead form with a fictitious name but use your email address.  See how long it takes for someone to call you and email you.  Grade the call as if you were an interested consumer.

Reputation: Type in the car dealer’s name into Google and Yahoo and see if there are any consumer reviews or comments.  If negative comments appear on Google page one, suggest that they hire an Internet reputation management firm to help move these comments off of Google page one.

Form vs Function
 
Let me suggest that that there is some futility in focusing on a website graphical design if consumers can’t find the dealer website in the major search engines.  By focusing on the search marketing aspects of the site, you can demonstrate ways in which you can grow the dealer’s business through better website architecture, better indexing and better SEO which should align your interests with the GSM or GM.

Most business owners would like to leverage their website for increasing sales.  Graphics designers are easy to find.  Finding people who can turn an average website into a lead generator or a sales generator will differentiate you from the crowed list of web developer applicants.  If you do your homework, your interview will be very impressive.

Adwords Campaigns Get a Facelift

Over the past year dozens of new social networking or blog platforms have come to market with odd names like Vox, Naymz, Ning, Squiddo and Knowl. These names represent only a small portion of the platforms that have been recently launched to compete for your time, personal information and blogging articles.  These websites are not directly competing with Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace since each site offers its own twist and value proposition.

With ever increasing competition for Google page one ranking, I decided to test some of the newer social marketing platforms to see if they can supplement my existing web marketing strategies. Since many companies hire an outside business to build their primary business website, I wondered if these social platforms could also provide fast, easily deployable content that Google would respect.

Automotive Marketing on VOX

So, I started searching on Google using search terms for a few of my business niche services.  One phrase I tested was “automotive seo”.  When you type this into Google, I have two of my marketing websites appearing on Google Page One: www.dealer-seo.com and www.paschconsulting.com .  However, the very first listing I saw was http://automotove-seo.vox.com, and my eyes went wide.  What is VOX?  I didn’t know it at the time but it actually is a very good website marketing platform that anyone can setup in minutes to attract people with similar interests or new customers. 

Instantly I created http://automotiveseo.vox.com and started to complete my profile.  Take a look at what I have started in the past few weeks to see what a new VOX site looks like. Since the site is new, I only have four articles written. Being that Google respects this platform, I’m convinced it’s a place to create a social networking site.  One of the reasons I believe in the VOX platform is that it creates a “sub-domain” for your VOX site name. A sub-domain is the text to the left of the vox.com domain, so in my case the subdomain is exactly the search phrase I want “automotiveseo”.  Google uses the text in a sub-domain to match search results.

 So, savvy marketers could snatch up wine marketing keywords such as:

• http://usedcars.vox.com
• http://bmwcars.vox.com
• http://chevycars.vox.com

These subdomains may have been already taken, but you get the idea; snooze you lose. Pick your VOX site name carefully and I suggest that you use Google’s free Keyword Tool to find the best search phrase for your VOX site name.  Since your primary website is most likely under the control of your web master, you can use VOX to post regular articles as a blog, photos, and special offers with a very easy interface.  If you commit to the platform, you will find that Google will rank the your VOX site in their index, and maybe you can pin a top search phrase in your marketing niche like “automotive seo” .

 

Ning - Another Successful Platform

You will also see on Google Page One a site called Ning.com when you search for the phrase “automotive seo”.  Ning is another instant website platform that Google respects from the search results for this phrase.  I created a profile on http://automotive-seo.ning.com/. Once again the site is new, but from other research on the web, this platform is designed to reward good content with top search results.

Squiddo - Creating a Marketing Lens

Quiddo is anotehr marketing platform that shows equally exciting potential.  My Dquiddo page is located at: http://www.squidoo.com/automotive-dealer-seo.  They ket to the ultimate success of each of these platforms is to make sure you create original ocntent on each website platform.  If you don’t have time to write, then just pick oen and focus on building that site with content.  Having too many sites with light content will not achieve the goals that you would liek to achieve.

Automotove SEO Tools

Each of these website platforms provide ample places to create back links to your primary website.  This means that all blog posts can have a live link back to a page on your website where additional information can be found.  This is a big win for enhancing your SEO strategies in a professional manner while increasing your search placements in Google search.

There are a number of great sites that we are testing at Pasch Consulting Group and the early results have been very promising.  If you are serious about increasing the visibility of your company on the Internet, platforms such as VOX and Ning are an inexpensive way to grow links, traffic, and awareness of your primary marketing website.

With dozens of automotive website platforms on the market, it is challenging for car dealerships to sift through the marketing hype and evaluate inventory listing modules for their search marketing potential.  The ideal inventory management module will be visually attractive to the online shoppers as well as following the guidelines set out in Google Webmaster Guidelines for indexing. 

If your inventory module is ONLY good looking, you will have to rely more heavily on paid advertising to get direct traffic for model specific searches.  Specifically, if your inventory module is not presenting unique page data for each car in stock, it will be hard for Google to match long tail searches.

For example, if a consumer in Massachusetts types in “2008 BMW X5 Black Boston“, only those dealers with optimized marketing pages will be on Google page 1 or 2.  If a car dealer does not have an SEO friendly inventory module, they will have to rely on getting on page one for the broader search of “BMW X5 Boston”.    Most dealers will fail this test since third party lead collectors normally appear on Google Page One for broad car model/city searches.

The point of this discussion is that dealers should show up for both BROAD and LONG TAIL searches.  Since most dealers have a choice on inventory modules, why not choose one that is strong for organic search optimization; broad and long tail searches.

What is blocking Long Tail Searches?

There are a many technical reasons why car dealer platforms are not SEO friendly, but in this article we will mention two reasons that we have found from our automotive SEO consulting projects.  Dealerships have been chosen at random from Google searches or manufacturer websites to demonstrate our criteria for inventory modules that are NOT SEO friendly. 

The provider of the website platform used by the dealerships we have reviewed may have other software alternatives than those implemented on the sites we visited, so please check with them directly if you have any questions.  This is because the dealership websites that are contained in this review may have elected not to purchase a new inventory module from their software vendor, so please confirm our findings with your own research.

Reason #1 - Flash Based Inventory Modules

On these websites the inventory lookup tool is 100% flash, and as you select different cars from a list, the page titles and page description tags do not change.   This is a very common problem with flash websites.  Google claims that it can now read the text on flash pages; however it does not resolve the architecture problems.  This means that even if Google can read the text, there are no unique page titles and descriptions.  In a head to head test, an inventory module with unique HTML pages, titles, and tags will always beat a single page flash module in organic search.

If you visit www.accollinsford.com you can see a perfect example of a flash based inventory module that does not have unique page URL names and unique HTML page titles.  If you go to their new car inventory module and click on a few new cars in stock, you will see that the page Title in the browser bar stays fixed and displays:

“AC Collins Ford | Pasadena - Houston - Deer Park - La Port - Clear Lake - Channelview - Dickinson - Webster - Alvin - Seabrook - Kemah | New - Used Car - Pre-Owned Ford Dealership | Texas”

The HTML Title should be specific to the car that is being displayed.  According to Google Webmaster Guidelines:

“Make sure that your <title> elements and alt attributes are descriptive and accurate.”

So, this <title> tag should really be about the specific car displayed on the page.  If a 2008 Ford Edge in Ice Blue Metallic was shown, the <title> tag would be better formatted to read

“2008 Ford Edge - Ice Blue Metallic - Pasadena Texas”

Having the same <title> tag for every car forces you to create a “one size fits all” tag which is what AC Collins Ford’s website tried to create.  It’s inaccurate since this is a new car page and not a used car or pre-owned page.  It’s inaccurate since it does not mention the primary focus of the page’s information.  It’s also too long and does not fit in the Google <title> display area, from our experience.

                                                                                                                   

Reason #2 - Framed Inventory Modules or Ajax Inserts

On these websites, HTML coding is used for the outer wrapper of the website page, but the inside of the page , which is the car details, changes as different cars are selected by the shopper.   This is often described as a webpage inside another webpage.  A good analogy is a digital photo frame with the word “Family Photos” printed on the wooden frame.  The frame always says “Family Photos” regardless of whether the photos being displayed are of a car wreck or famous celebrities.

Using this analogy, a framed inventory module has static page <title> like: “ABC Dealer - New BMW Cars in California.” When Google sees the page, all cars have the same HTML Title and Description tags.  This can results in hundreds of website pages with the same titles and description which is in exact opposition to Google Webmaster Guidelines. In the worse case, it generates one page for ALL new cars in stock and one page for ALL used cars in stock, turning your dealer website into a few dozen pages in size.

A good example of this is Marlboro Nissan, (www.marlboronissan.com) and you can click on any new car in stock and the page titles and page descriptions are all the same, pinned at:

<title> Marlboro Nissan | Marlborough Nissan Dealers | Nissan Boston MA | Nissan Cambridge MA | Nissan Worcester MA | Nissan Quincy MA | Massachusetts New Nissan Dealership</title>

<meta name=”description” content=”Marlboro Nissan, your Boston Massachusetts Nissan dealer. With Nissan cars, trucks, SUVs, and Vans for Marlborough, Boston, Cambridge, Quincy MA, Worcester, and Lowell Marlboro Nissan Where it’s all about you”>

Once again, the title is not specifically identifying the content of the page.  As the consumer uses the inventory module, the outside frame stays the same and the inside changes. Unfortunately, Google reads the tags on the outside frame for tags associated with the URL page name.

In this case, if Marlboro Nissan has 200 new cars in stock, Google will only see the outside framed page called http://www.marlboronissan.com/New-Inventory.html .  Thus they will never have 200 individual car pages that are associated with www.marlboronissan.com, only one.  They will never have 200 new car pages with optimized HTML <title> tags and META descriptions associated with www.marlboronissna.com.   This reduces their ability to have exact matches for long tail searches like “2008 Nissan MDX Boston”

Finding a Better Mouse Trap

There are a few dozen companies that offer website inventory modules.  Of these, a few of the companies are getting closer to the ideal inventory module.  For example, Chrome Systems Corporation*** has the copyright notice for the new car inventory module software used on www.billsullivan.com, and their inventory module has dynamically changing <title> tags.  They do not have SEO friendly URL names so the module does not get a perfect score. 

If you go to this page:  http://www.billsullivan.com/VehicleDetails/1115829624  you will see that the <title> tag is very accurate and descriptive. In our opinion, it is a bit too long.  It reads:

2009 Buick Enclave CXL Black 4 Dr. Wagon.  A Buick Enclave at Sullivan Buick Pontiac GMC Arlington Heights IL

Even the META tags are dynamic, which is very good for reaching long tail searches.  The Chrome Systems software generated META tags are:

<meta name=”description” content=”A 2009 Buick Enclave CXL 3.6L 6 cyl Black 4 Dr. Wagon. This 2009 Buick Enclave CXL is available at Sullivan Buick Pontiac GMC in Arlington Heights IL. This  Buick Enclave is a Black 4 Dr. Wagon with a Automatic transmission. The stock number is 5631 and VIN is 5GAEV23D59J130141. Call (847) 666-5973 for more information.” />

<meta name=”keywords” content=”2009, Buick, Enclave, CXL, 3.6L 6 cyl, Black, 4 Dr. Wagon, Sullivan Buick Pontiac GMC, Arlington Heights, IL, Automatic, 5631, Gas, %VEHICLE_STYLE%, Invoice, MSRP, Online, 2009, Buick, Enclave, CXL, Internet, Price, Sale, Research, Information” />

This inventory module is very good with one exception.  The URL name is:  http://www.billsullivan.com/VehicleDetails/1115829624.

It would be better if it included the model information in the URL.  This example is closer to the ideal platform, but in our opinion, this platform still leaves the ball on the 10 yard line. 

That said, this module is probably better than 50% of the dealer sites on the market today.

The Ultimate SEO Friendly Inventory Module

The Pasch Consulting Group is coming to the market with what we believe is the most SEO compliant car dealer inventory software for the Internet.  The software will be fully compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines and will be offered to a select number of car dealerships across the USA in November.  If you are a General Manager or Internet Sales Manager and would like more information on the PCG Inventory module, give our office a call.  732-842-4720.

 

 
*** Chrome Systems Corporation is not affiliated with Pasch Consulting Group nor have they submitted their website for review.