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Every week it seems that a new social media website or micro-blogging platform comes to market and your circle of friends invite you to join.  I don’t know about you but how does the average person evaluate the benefits of using these new digital marketing tools? Are you overwhelmed?  Do you feel that you are dodging bullets?

In the past 60 days you may have been invited and joined:

• IMfaceplate.com
• CarDealerWiki.org
• Amplify.com
• Thoughts.com
• Quora.com
• Branchout.com

I thought I would share with you some of the processes I use to evaluate the many requests that come across my desk each month.  In my experience, some websites serve as useful Automotive SEO tools, others as Automotive Social Media tools, and some just fail to do anything.  The key is to know how to evaluate your investment in these websites.  You must have the tools to evaluate which websites are worthy of your continued investment of time and energy.

Your time is valuable so treat it that way!

Automotive Advertising Strategies

For car dealers, automotive advertising strategies have never been as diverse and confusing as they are today.  Dealers are faced with deciding how to find the correct balance of traditional marketing, social media, SEO, SEM, blogging, email marketing, re-marketing, and the list goes on.  All of the sites that I listed above may have been presented to dealers as “worthy” of their staff time and content.

Which new websites are really delivering on those claims?

All of the sites listed above may be suited for car dealers.  However, some may be better for personal branding.   In either case, the question comes down to your time investment.  Should you engage or not?

Sites You Think Are Good For SEO

If a website is introduced to you as a new Automotive SEO tool, there are some quick ways to measure that claim.  First, make sure you are using Google Alerts, Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools.  Setup Google Alerts for your dealership name and your personal name.

I like to use Google Alerts to see how fast a blog post I created is picked up by Google. This is a measure of how often Google pulls and indexes content.

For example, I posted content on www.Quora.com, recommended by my friend Eric Miltsch, under my name this past week.  One question I posted was about Frank Herbert and Dune books. I received a Google Alert within an hour of posting and from the screen shot below, you can see that it is now in the Google index.  This site is definitely respected by Google.

In contrast, all the social media sign-ups that I have done on Branchout.com in the past two weeks have not triggered any Google Alerts.  In the first case, Quora.com is getting into the Google search stream and Branchout.com seems to be limited to inside of Facbeook.  Branchout.com fails on the SEO front and we will have to see how it does on the networking front.

Automotive Advertising on CarDealerWiki

As I stated in another blog post this week, www.CarDealerWiki.org is showing strong SEO visibility and links.  Take a look at this search query for a dealer who is leveraging the page publishing power of CarDealerWiki:

You Should Be Seeing Increased Links

Secondly, if your posts or articles on micro-blogging platforms are being respected by the search engines, any hyperlinks in your posts should be showing in Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools to your main website.   If after 30-60 days your links are not showing, you can assume you are not getting SEO back-link benefits from these posts.

Sites You Think Are Good For Networking

Other websites that are not designed for Automotive SEO may claim to increase your networking potential.  In these cases, I recommend that you use a tracking phone number on all posts to these sites.  This can be in the form of a user profile or a signature block that you add to all articles.  In addition to tracking numbers, you can see how many people are commenting on your posts.

For example, IMFaceplate.com is a new micro-blogging platform.  I have posted about 12 articles on my profile so take a peek:  Brian Pasch.  The comments on my articles have not been very interactive or meaningful.  In addition to low engagement, I have not been seeing Google Alerts coming in for my efforts.  I will give this website another month or content and if I don’t see any positive confirmations form the search engines, I will stop.

As a side note, www.imfaceplate.com has slow website response times which I think is hampering their search engine credibility.

Prioritizing Your Time

With so many new websites in play each month, just be careful about how you invest your time.  Measure the search visibility, link counts, or contacts you get by engaging in any new community.

If you want some proven strategies for content publishing and link building, there are many articles that I have published in the past.  If you need an updated Top 10 List, just send me an email:  brian@pcgdigitalmarketing.com.  I’ll send you my Top 10 Content Publishing websites that can assist car dealers with search visibility, links, and traffic generation.

P.S.  Dealers who want to develop the strongest digital marketing strategies for 2011, are coming to the 2011 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference Feb 1-3rd in the Napa Valley prior to NADA.  You can be there as well, register at: http://www.digitalmarketingstrategies.org

Wikipedia made popular the technology used on many “wiki” websites which allows for web pages to be created and edited without requiring HTML programming knowledge.

The largest “wiki” website for the automotive industry is http://www.CarDealerWiki.org. This website is a great resource for dealers embarking on a Automotive Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign and also for dealers who want to syndicate their used car inventory.

CarDealerWiki.org is a free website that is for employees of car dealerships, vendors of the automotive industry, and related automotive service and news providers. Getting started with CarDealerWiki is as simple as creating an account and completing the sign-up form.

It is recommended that you register with an email account from your business and NOT from Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail. Once your registration is approved, normally within 24 hours, you can claim your dealership profile page and create powerful content and backlinks.  Email accounts not associated with a business website will not be approved to reduce spam.

Creating More Automotive Backlinks

One of the most powerful ways a car dealer can increase the search authority of their website is to build quality backlinks from well respected websites. The more links a dealer has pointing to his relevant website content, the higher that page will rank in the search engines. Think of links as “votes” to your website pages.

It is a challenge to find free websites that allow car dealers to post original content and create backlinks on a variety of keywords and phrases.

CarDealerWiki is one of the best websites to assist dealers with content publishing and backlink building.

In fact, the site has a number of automated features that make content generation and link building very easy, some which are shown below:

1. You can drop in your RSS feed from DealerRater.com (view example)
2. You can drop in your RSS feed of new car inventory (view example)
3. You can drop in your RSS feed of used car inventory (view example)
4. You can drop in customer testimonial videos from Youtube
5. You can drop in your RSS feed from your blog

Capital Ford Lincoln in Canada has a very detailed profile page and sub-pages that integrates their inventory, videos, and their blog posts.  Take a peek by visiting their page at:  http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Capital_Ford_Lincoln.

Marketing Used Cars on CarDealerWiki

CarDealerWiki.org also supports the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) data feed so members have direct access to their inventory with searchable RSS parameters so they can create used car marketing pages for any make or model.

The architecture of CarDealerWiki.org really empowers car dealers to build links to their Vehicle Detail Pages.  This is a significant competitive edge that is little talked about in the industry. Not all website providers provide a properly formatted RSS feed of car inventory, for those that do, dealers can really leverage this website.

Midway Motors in Kansas created a Used Car marketing page for Hillsboro Kansas and the cars shown on this page http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Hillsboro_Used_Cars provide not only more visibility for their cars but also links back to their main dealership website and Vehicle Detail Pages (VDP)

CarDealerWiki Pages Index For Automotive Search Phrases

The key with any SEO campaign is to see if Google is respecting the content and links generated from a third party website and in this matter CarDealerWiki.org is a superstar.

Take a look at the screen capture below for a search on the phrase “Nissan Altima Marlboro“.  Marlboro Nissan operates a dealership in Marlboro Massachusetts and the content pages he created on CarDealerWiki is helping to defend his PMA.

You will see that CarDealerWiki has two listing on Google Page One. In fact, 90% of this page is filled with search results that Tim Martell, Internet Marketing Director and founder of WikiMotive has implemented for his store.

You can also search for a Fiat Dealers in the USA with a term like “Fiat Dealers USA” and you will see that CarDealerWiki.org is on Google Page One for this national search phrases.  Type into Google “Regina Ford Service” and you will see CarDealerWiki.org on Google Page One for a dealer created service page.

Dealers Can Be Creative

The power of CarDealerWiki.org is that car dealers can create pages for new cars, used cars, service, parts, and warranty repairs in their local markets.  Well formatted content pages can link back to the dealer’s primary website to enhance the search authority of their main website.

So if dealers need more search visibility and links and content are a part of that solution, I encourage all car dealers in the US and Canada to create an account and get started building out content on CarDealerWiki.org for their dealership.

If you are a website provider or an SEO Consultant working on behalf of a dealership, you can assist your clients on CarDealerWiki.org as well.  Register with your business email address and complete your profile and your one login can be used for all your clients.

Now get to work!

Today is November 1 and for car dealers this means that the monthly clock has been reset and new sales goals will be made for the next 30 days.  For readers that are responsible for car sales, it’s time to make a November 1 resolution to apply what you may have learned at recent conferences or what has been shared on automotive communities.

Stu Mittleman Inspired Me

I had the opportunity to spend the weekend with World Record Holding Ultra Marathoner Stu Mittleman who has World and National records in ultra marathon races (6 days) and won a very special 1,000 mile race as part of his hall of fame accomplishments.  We ran 10 miles together, which was the longest I have run since re-starting my training back in April.

Stu told me a story about how he was hired to train 27 employees of a New York hotel for the New York City Marathon in 9 weeks.  The farthest distance 26 of these 27 people ever ran was 3.1 miles, which is a 5K race.  Some would have thought this would be impossible but all 26 “newbies” completed the race.  The one experienced runner did not make it.

He succeeded by training the runners to look at the race as a New York City street fair with 26 stands, which corresponds to the 26 aide stations that are along the course for water.  By looking at the race as 26 one-mile runs, he was able to achieve the goal of getting these runners to finish the race.  The details of this story and Stu’s philosophy on running can be found in his book “Slow Burn,” a recommended read for anyone who wants to understand how to best utilize the power of your body.

Many car dealers came back from Vegas conferences trying to figure out how they are going to implement the 26+ things that they learned and if they do that, they will fail.  So, let’s look at all the digital marketing opportunities for your dealership and execute them one at a time so we can move forward and not stay fixated at the starting line.

My suggestion is that you start small and make THREE RESOLUTIONS for Digital Marketing today.

Resolution #1

Many people have written about the changes in Google Search results with Google Places taking a much larger portion of Page One Results.  (Read my latest post)  If you haven’t seen this for yourself, search for “Baltimore Honda Dealers” and see how different Page One looks.

Heritage Honda has 152 reviews, Norris Honda has 41 reviews and Brown’s Honda City has 14 reviews plus a rating of less than 2 stars.   Google Places and car dealer reviews are now front and center in Google search.  When presented with this page of results, whose dealership will most likely get an increase of clicks?

It is TIME to start your Reputation Management process in November – Make That Commitment.  You need to have a process by which customers can post their reviews on the 5-6 primary websites that are consolidated in Google Places.  Those sites vary from market to market, but a process is needed.  If you don’t have a high star count on Page One, your traditional advertising dollars will be assisting your competitors in attracting more in market shoppers.

Resolution #2

Invest in tracking phone numbers for your off-site content publishing, blogs, and social media engagement.  It’s time to stop making excuses that tracking numbers are expensive.  Actually the data that these numbers provide can shed light on where you are wasting money.  Tracking numbers can also prevent you from terminating services that are working very well.

At DrivingSales Executive Summit Matt Murray from Dealer.com showed that for every LEAD that was submitted on a dealer’s website from a Google Adwords campaign, the dealer received FIVE phone calls.  The point is that IF you are measuring the success of Google Adwords on lead form submissions alone, you would be missing the majority of consumer response generated by PPC.

This applies to so many other digital marketing strategies as well however I don’t have the calls to lead ratio.  By placing tracking numbers on microsites, PDF brochures, and social media profiles you can start to see what marketing channels are attracting consumer calls.  If Matt Murray’s data does not inspire you to start tracking your calls, you have bigger issues at hand.

Resolution #3

Many dealers are using Google Adwords (PPC) to generate traffic to their website and this is a good strategy as long as you are inspecting where these clicks are going and measuring what is happening when they land on those pages.  Secondly, we all can agree that designing the perfect landing page design is not a one time design task.

You’ll never know if you have a good design until you set-up A/B testing.

So I would like to encourage all dealers for their third November resolution to inspect their PPC landing pages and to start an A/B testing program to track and measure results based on different designs.  For example, dealers know that the model car a consumer calls about or discusses when they first walk into a dealership is not always the car they purchase.

In the same way, give your landing pages a design that provide alternatives to consumers.  If you design a 2010 Nissan Altima lease special page, you may want to provide button that also show your current Nissan Sentra lease specials or a button that shows used Nissan Altimas.  They key is to recognize that you have no idea what will work until you test different variations over time.

Many dealers are spending 3K, 5K, 10K and even 25K a month on Google Adwords yet they have never tested whether their landing pages are achieving the optimal results.  The testing processes takes time, but it is time well spent.  The knowledge that you will gain from the experiment will revolutionize your PPC strategies.

Start Your Digital Marketing Marathon

So will you start the process of your Digital Marketing Marathon this month?  Digital marketing is not a sprint.  Take it slow and get comfortable but you have to make the commitment to start.  If you need help with any of these three resolutions, please give us a call and we can go over our digital marketing services that can help you achieve greater success in 2011.