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.