On June 25, 2009 the stakes to be in the Cash for Clunkersadvertising game just got higher.  Google Adwords costs skyrocketed over 1000% in a matter of days; I was able to get my ads in position one, Google page one for 12 cents a click,  before Obama signed the bill. 

The only consistent advertisers for the term Cash for Clunkers in the prior weeks was Edmunds.com and our company for www.cashforclunkersfacts.com.  Now the page is filled with Pay-Per-Click ads from national brands; some have good ads and others do not.   I’m surprised that some manufacturers have PPC ads going to landing pages that just suck.  

I think GM and Ford are doing to best job  with Cash for Clunkers landing pages right now and Mazda is one of the worst.  Their landing page doesn’t even mention the CARS program.

Automotive Microsites

Our advance planning was rewarded us well which shows that WordPress automotive microsites can compete with the big boys if you plan in advance.  In fact one day our website received over 70,000 vistors and is now averaging over 40,000 visitors a day.  This is good news because the program has not even started and we are on Google Page One, in the top spot for the term “Cash for Clunkers”.

We are also at the top of the search results for other related phrases like:

• Cash for Clunkers Florida
• Cash for Clunkers Ford
• Cash for Clunkers Chevrolet
• Cash for Clunkers Toyota
• Cash for Clunkers Fort Worth

First Responders Get Rewarded in Automotive SEO

Brian Pasch has been advocating for the last two months that dealers get a jump start on the bill through blog articles on Automotive Digital Marketing, Driving Sales, Automotive SEO as well as this website.  Few dealers were willing to step out in advance of the bill becoming signed into law.  Those who took my advice are at the top of organic search results.

We were the first company to come up with a marketing logo to help car dealers communicate with consumers about the upcoming legislation.  Today, hundreds of car dealers are using our marketing logo to draw attention to the program and get consumers to call.  We have offered to use of the logo to as many companies related to the auto industry as have contacted us for permission.  Dealers can download logo here.

You can go to Google and Type “Cash for Clunkers Phoenix” and see that Bell Honda is #1 in the state for ALL brands.  If you type into Google “Honda Cash for Clunkers Arizona“  you will see that Bell Honda is #1 again.  Hats off to Travis Holt for his foresight into planning ahead for strong Honda car sales in Arizona.

Budget For SEO and SEM

Car dealers know that the official start date of the CARS program will not be until the end of July.  That gives dealers approximately three weeks from today to put in a plan that can have some real search visibility by the end of July.

Dealers should consider building an organic marketing plan today as well as budgeting for an SEM campaign.  We have seen some impressive SEM ideas from ADP that dealers should consider.  You can contact Ralph Paglia about ADP advertising packages that can be up and running quickly.

The Pasch Consulting Group can assist dealers with on-site and off-site SEO strategies like press releases, blogging and dealer profile pages on www.cashforclunkersfacts.com. A dealer profile page is optimized for your brand, state and city.  Here are two examples of dealer profile pages:

• http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/dealers/california/nissan-cars/los-angeles
• http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/dealers/texas/chevy-cars/fort-worth-chevrolet-cash-for-clunkers 

In the end, our marketing plan was to educate consumers and to motivate those with an old clunker to get in and buy a new car with the limited time offer that CARS presents to consumers.  If you need help implementing an effective online organic marketing plan, call us at 732-450-8200

News Alert: Facebook will now allow users to create their own vanity URL similar to other social networking websites.  A vanity URL is one that is easy to remember; it can be your name or something pertaining to you.

Starting at 12:01 a.m. (EDT) on Saturday, June 13, 2009, you will be able to select a user name at http://www.facebook.com/username. For more information, visit the Username help topic.

I have a number of vanity URL’s for my name that show up on Google pahe one or two when you search my name:

• http://twitter.com/brianpasch
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianpasch
• http://brianpasch.gather.com/
• http:// brianpasch.multiply.com

Facebook Opens Up to Vanity

Currently, my Facebook profile URL is: www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Pasch/685389902 .   This URL is odd looking and what is that number on the end?  It’s a way to make the URL unique so that any other Brian Pasch in the world can create their own profile.

With the new offering, the URL can be: www.facebook.com/brianpasch.  The trick is that only ONE URL can be created like that so first come first served.  So if you want to reserve your name without putting a number after it, you must act quickly.

Does Vanity URL’s Help Automotive SEO

Why is this important?  That is debatable.  For one thing it is easier and cleaner to add to an email signature or just to remember.  Think of it as a calling card.

Secondly, if you can create a URL that is a HIGH value keyword like “bostonnissan” then maybe that Facebook profile will come up for searches on Boston Nissan.   The idea situation is that you reserve your name and if you have a business fan page, you also can customize it with a vanity URL.

An example of this is when you search for “Automotive SEO”.   You will see vanity URL from Vox ( http://automotiveseo.vox.com) and Ning  (http://automotive-seo.ning.com) in Google search results so vanity URL do make a difference.  

So your question should be: What vanity name to use?

I would suggest that you look at your Google Analytics data and Google Adwordsdata to see what search phrases bring the most traffic to your website and then grab that vanity name.  I do not know if the business fan pages have any restriction for vanity name so you will have to see that on Friday or Saturday when the doors open at Facebook.

I hope that this post allows the early birds to get the worm.

So you have created an Automotive Microsite. What are your next steps? 

All websites that you own should have a sitemap and if the site is a blog, it should have a self-generating RSS feed like WordPress and Blogger creates.

That said, I also suggest that you setup the best free measurement and diagnostic  tools that will help you fine tune your automotive microsite marketing strategy.

Sitemap and RSS Registration

First on the list  is to create a free Google Webmaster Tools account and register the website’s sitemap. By doing this you can be alerted when links are broken.  You will also get basic diagnostics on your website. Google Webmaster Tools will give you insight into how Google sees your website and will report common errors like duplicate META descriptions.

Now head over to Yahoo which has a tool called  Site Explorer . Open a free account and register your sitemap and RSS feeds. Here you can register both your sitemap and your RSS feed if you have one.  This tool also has a more reliable inbound link counters to see how many web pages are linking to your site.

Lastly, head over to Microsoft Bing and setup a Webmaster account where you can register your sitemap and get feedback from their search engine.

Add Google Analytics

As an Automotive SEO consultant, I can’t encourage you enough to take advantage of Google Analytics which is free and provides a great deal of information about your visitor traffic and what they are doing on your website.  Google Analytics combined with Google Webmaster Tools is a great toolkit for fine tuning your SEO and content development strategies.

To install Google Analytics you will need the help of your website developer because the Analytics code has to be added to the bottom of every web page.  In the WordPress Microsites that we create, it takes only a minute to add the code to the footer.php  file.  Once this code is in place, you will start collecting valuable data on the people that come to your site.

Register Your Blog

Now that you have registered your sitemap and RSS feeds with the major search engines and have data tracking installed, you should register the website or blog with a few of the better directories.

If you have a microsite with blogging built in like WordPress, Blogger or NING, I would recommend you register your site with Technorati. There are also great blog sites like www.blogcatalog.com and www.bloghints.com.  

Technorati

Create a free account on Technorati and then go through the process to “claim” your blog. 

Follow the steps below to get it right the first time:

1. Create a Technorati Account.
2. Choose to Claim Your Blog.
3. Enter the URL of your Blog.
4. You will be given a piece of code to add to a blog post.  It looks something like this:
5.             <a href=”http://technorati.com/claim/8254cgryhm” rel=”me”>Technorati Profile</a>
6. Highlight and copy this code to your clipboard.
7. Create a blog “post” and not a page on your site. 
8. Switch to HTML mode and paste in the code they gave you.
9. Save the post.
10. Now go back to Technorati and  click to verify your claim. Technorati  will go to your blog and find the snippet of code you just added to a blog post.
11. Once you are verified, complete the details about your site that Technorati asks.
12. You can go back to your blog and delete that post you made to verify the Technorati claim.

In addition with Technorati, you should register you blog with other blog directory sites.  These will create additional inbound links to your site.  If your microsite is not a blog, there still are a number of great places to register your new site for inbound links. 

The key is not to just create a microsite and “hope” that everyone will find you.  Jump start your Internet marketing success with quality links to your new microsite.  Here are a few proven places to register your new microsite: www.merchantcircle.com, www.aboutus.org and www.insiderpages.com.