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The first round of speakers for the 9^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition has been released. The event, scheduled for October 12 to 14, 2010, at the Mirage in Las Vegas will feature sessions, roundtables and a vendor exposition for dealership managers and directors who are interested in learning more about doing business on the Internet.

Seven automobile dealership managers have been included in the first round of speakers:

• Broderick Alley, Internet Sales Director, Diehl Auto Group, on building an Internet department with a limited budget
• Todd Crossley, General Manager, Gary Crossley Ford, on how Crossley Ford became the #1 dealer in Kansas City
• Chris Fousek, e-commerce director for the Village Automotive Group in Massachusetts, on using business intelligence to sell more vehicles
• Tim Jennings, Tom Sparks Auto with YouTube video walk-around essentials
• Jim Flint, corporate director of Interactive Sales and Marketing for the John Eagle Dealerships, on building a team and processes so you can set up your own internet department
• Kevin Frye, e-commerce director, Jeff Wyler Automotive Family with real life dealership examples to become leaner and meaner in the market to drive money to the bottom line 
• Shaun Kniffin, Director of Internet Sales and eBusiness Development for the Germain Motor Company on migrating from having an Internet department to becoming an Internet group

All dealership personnel presenting at the 9^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition will focus their presentations on real world examples from their experience at the dealership and include new insights and practices that session attendees can take home and implement immediately.

Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

The 9^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition is the ideal learning and networking venue for general managers, dealer principals, internet sales managers, e-commerce directors, BDC managers, CRM managers, pre-owned managers, F&I managers and fixed operations managers. More than 550 dealership attendees are expected at the fall event along with as many as 90 exhibitors and sponsors. For more information about the 9^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition, go to www.digitaldealerconference.com or contact Susan Tyson at styson@dealer-communications.com, 312 558-1799.

The conference is owned and operated by Dealer Communications, the leading multi-media information source for the automotive retail industry. Connecting with franchised automotive dealers and managers over ten million times per year, Dealer Communications publishes the monthly print Dealer magazine, and online editions of Dealer, Digital Dealer and Dealer Fixed Operations magazines. Online weekly newsletters include Dealer; Digital Dealer; Dealer Fixed Operations, Dealer Pre-Owned; Dealer F&I, and Dealer Sales and Marketing. To see all that Dealer Communications offers, visit www.dealer-communications.

The Digital Dealer Conference taking place November 1-3rd will cover the latest strategies needed for auto dealership owners, General Managers and Sales Managers to compete and succeed in today’s increasingly competitive retail environment.  Included in a full roster of expert speakers are Dennis Colome and Doug Hadden, experts in the field of advanced selling and marketing strategies for automotive managers.

Dennis Colome will demonstrate to owners and sales managers how to bridge the gap between Internet department and showroom floor. As the creator of iConsult Performance Coaching Program, Colome is as an industry leader in sales and marketing strategies with over 32 years of automotive dealership experience. Over the past 15 years Colome has trained over 1,200 dealerships and has assisted 16,000 dealership and OEM personnel.

This course will cover phone scripting that will allow managers to create a relationship with the prospect. In addition, the psychology of the buyer and the basic human behaviors to get the prospect to open up and build positive relationships will be uncovered. 

Doug Hadden is the manager of Training and Development for DealerTrack Inventory Optimization, powered by AAX. Doug helps Dealerships and large Dealer Groups to sell more vehicles, faster, with higher gross profits utilizing DealerTrack’s Inventory Optimization Solution.

 Hadden will show managers how to utilize key data points to make smarter decisions when it comes to managing inventory. Specifically:

• How to identify the right inventory
• How to close more trades
• How to maintain profitability

The goal is for attendees to walk away with process and practices that they can put in place immediately to begin driving change for their dealership. 

This year’s Digital Dealer Conference takes place in Nashville, TN, November 1^st-3^rd. 

Car dealers who would like to learn more about the Digital Dealer Conference or wish to register to attend can visit http://www.digitaldealerconference.com/ for more information.

Automotive SEO strategies must compensate for the different ways in which SERP’s are dispalayed on Google, Yahoo and Bing.  The chart below demonstrates a number of automotive search phrases and websites that we have created. 

The data is the start of a discussion that goes into why some search phrases yield ZERO page one search results when the same phrase yields top placement on another search engine.  As you develop an Automotive SEO strategy for your dealership, it is important that you track the results in all the major search engines.

The difference in being Google page 1 position 1 vs. position  7, considered under the fold, can be huge.

Google may represent 65% of all organic search traffic but that other 35% is very important.  As you look at one example below “Ford Massachusetts” the microsite does very well in Google but after 4 months the site is still not listed on Yahoo page one.   Since traffic from Yahoo is not insignificant, a special strategy is obviously needed.

Content SEO Strategies

The point of this article is to say that content SEO strategies will vary with the search engine you are targeting.  There are some very valuable insights that this data hints at including how the different search engines treat:

• Sub-domains
• Exact Matching Domains
• Short domain names
• Long domain names
• Free blogging portals (Vox, Ning, etc.)

At the upcoming Digital Dealer Conference I will be going over specific Content SEO strategies that will not only show you how to write content for better search visibility but to discuss how domain names and platforms play a direct role in your ultimate success.