Evidence Of The Power Of Backlinks To A Car Dealers Website
Goerge W. Bush Was Google Bombed?
If you ask any internet sales manager or director in the car business this one question, it is most likely they will say the same thing:
What is the single most important factor in optimizing a car dealer website?
Most will say keywords, Title Tags, etc… My answer has always been backlinks, and I finally have the evidence to prove it. But first, let me give you the most famous example that happened a while back.
During George W. Bush’s presidency a bunch of webmasters got together and linked to his biography website with the link text saying “miserable failure“. We call this a Google Bomb because what the link text says (anchor text) is one of the most important factors in optimizing any website.
What happened was simple. Anyone who searched Google for the term “miserable failure” was presented with the top 2 organic (free) listings pointing to the actual White House Website. The second listing went directly to George W’s biography page. So, was the official website of the White House optimized for the term “miserable failure”? Certainly not.
Google had to make some dramatic changes to it’s algorithm to keep this from happening in the future, and even Google’s Matt Cutts said the change was “completely algorithmic” and “we’re not going to claim it’s 100 percent perfect”.
After Google made this change a new tactic hit the world of SEO, and it was referred to as “Google Bowling“. To beat the competition, a rogue SEO company would bombard their competition with a massive amount of links from low quality websites pointing to a website. This would trigger a Google penalty that would kick them off their desired listings. This is why you never want to build too many links too fast.
Google did place a defensive mechanism in their algorithm to combat this. I know this because it happened to me. I put a shady alleged DMOZ editor in his place on a popular forum, and the next day he tried to Google Bowl me back when I was in the seafood industry. To my relief, it did not work. Thanks Google, good looking out!
Anyway, to prove how important backlinks are, I found a query I can use as an example. I was Googling the term “used cars in Orlando” this morning and I found a Ford dealer in Orlando Florida that came up on page 2 for this term.
Normally when you Google any term, you will see the keywords in bold in the website’s title tag and description. With Orlando Florida being one of the hottest used car areas in the United States, I was shocked to see that this was number 11:
This Google Search Didn't Even Have Any Keywords In It
If you notice, the words Orlando or Florida aren’t even mentioned in the display. If you Google that term, you will see websites with great keywords even on page 10.
This is an example of how powerful backlinks can be. There are many websites out there that will check your backlinks. I like Backlink Watch because it shows the bad links with the nofollow attribute.
You can click that term to learn more about nofollows, but basically any nofollow link will not pass relevancy to your website The same goes for javascript links (search engine bots don’t even try to read java scripts). If you plan on obtaining backlinks to your website, you should learn the difference.
A great website to check your current backlinks is Back Link Watch. You can also check your competition’s backlinks. Any backlink you find with the term “nofollow” next to it you should disregard.
For example, this particular dealer had many backlinks from yellowpages.com, but they are all nofollow. These backlinks won’t provide any SEO benefit to the dealers website.
There were some juicy backlinks from Netlook, an Orlando Used Car Listing Website, and some miscellaneous directories shown for this car dealer.
As an internet sales manager it is your job to acquire backlinks. There are thousands of directory websites out there that are free, and there are also some juicy paid directories like Business.com and the Yahoo Directory. Each of the two cost $300.00 a year, but you will get your moneys worth in Organic Traffic.
Keywords are still important, and I cannot believe that this dealer in Orlando doesn’t have any keywords in their title tag. I don’t blame them for being naive, so I would blame the vendor that built their website. The first thing they should have done was put the proper title tags on the homepage.
If you are an internet sales manager, I suggest you subscribe to this blog on the top right. We will provide you with a wealth of information on a weekly basis so you can personally take your dealership to the top!
If you have any suggestions for a topic, send an email to mike@showroomlogic.com.
Have You Ever Tried To SEO A Service Department For A Car Dealer?
Service Department Microsite
I asked this question last week at the NADA Convention in Orlando Florida to every marketing vendor I met. Every single company I asked cringed before answering. Have you ever helped a dealer market their service department on the internet?
Showroom Logic is in the process of doing just that for the Napleton Auto Group. They have over 60 rooftops nationwide, located in 4 or 5 different states. We’re starting with a group of close to 20 dealerships.
Our plans are simple. We’ll set-up a Google Adwords PPC campaign to get traffic while the website and blog is being built. This will enable us to find out what the hot keywords are and go after them.
We have many things to consider, and setting up the keyword phrases for the PPC campaign will be the toughest. We have to figure out how people search in all these different areas. But the question is, do people search for “Oil Changes” or “oil change coupons”? I know Google will suggest keywords to use, but the unique keyword phrases not on the list are the ones you can get cheap.
During the past 3 weeks we have been running a PPC campaign for a car dealer in Kissimmee Florida. We’ve been advertising cars for them with great success. When they saw our numbers compared to other marketing companies they asked us to help them with their service department.
Although this wasn’t part of our business model, we love to try new things so we went for it. We started doing some keyword research and worked on some custom landing pages to obtain a better quality score from Google. We want to get as many quality impressions as possible without spending too much per click.
When we launched the campaign we were surprised to see how many companies were doing PPC in the Orlando / Kissimmee Florida area for oil changes alone.
Jiffy Lube alone has a huge presence for organic and PPC searches. It appears they are paying over $4.00 per click, and their national website is so powerful and mature that it ranks first and third for the term “oil change orlando”. The first is their main website, and the third is a subdomain (orlando.jiffylube.com).
To obtain rankings like Jiffy Lube is possible, but it certainly won’t happen over night. Many people think SEO is all about keywords, but there is a lot more to it than that. You can have the most optimized website in the world but if you don’t have any quality links pointing to it from other relevant websites you won’t get much out of it.
So, where should these links come from? You can start with directories but that will be just a small piece. Directory links are weak, but it’s a good start.
You have to have a successful link building campaign going, and you cannot get links too quick. If the search engines see too many backlinks roll in you may get a penalty. If you get a Google Penalty, consider it the kiss of death.
Basically, it will take at least 4 – 5 months to get Jiffy Lube types of rankings. There is no magic switch an SEO company has to get a website ranked. It takes time and money.
The time comes in doing keywords research, writing 500+ word articles and publishing them to the right websites, hub pages, etc…
The money is needed to have premium listings in some powerful directories and to fund the person assigned to all of the above practices.
Performing SEO for a new website is like playing chess by mail, with the other player living on the North Pole and you’re using the pony express for delivery.
Besides the main website for Napleton, we will also be launching a service department blog to help juice it up. our first rooftop will be Ed Napleton Honda in Missouri.
10 Most Popular Used Cars In Central Florida From Google
Google accounts for 80% of internet traffic, so I use them as a source often. You rarely will ever here me mention the inferior search engines like Yahoo and Bing.
For Car Dealers, it is important to know what vehicles are most popular in your area, and it will make a difference when you decide to purchase your next vehicles at the auction. Doesn’t it make sense to sell the cars that people are looking for?
It’s also a great source for optimizing your deep pages for SEO, so you know what keywords to aim for.
Here are the top 10:
- Ford Mustang
- Chevrolet Corvette
- BMW Z-4
- Dodge Charger
- Toyota Camry
- Jeep Wrangler
- Chevrolet Silverado
- Honda Accord
- Dodge Ram
- Volkswagen Jetta
This list was obtained from area Google Adwords data. The data is compiled from Google Searches performed and impressions from participating blogs and news sources that advertise on the Google Content Network. A few examples of these websites are The New York Times Online, Motor Trend and YouTube. Combined, these vehicle are the most searched and written about.
Search Engine Marketing For Car Dealer Service Departments
Search Marketing For Service Departments
Last week Patrick and I were approached by a car dealer in Orlando Florida. They are already an existing customer of ours, using our Orlando Microsite to sell more new and used cars online.
Anyway, they wanted us to help them market their service department online because they are very happy with the results we’ve given them so far.
This dealer has 3 separate websites. The first is their main site, which is operated by Izmo Cars. The second is a macrosite provided by Showroom Logic. The third website is a microsite by dealer.com which attempts to target the Orlando Florida market.
The campaign we agreed upon will be Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing using Google Adwords.
For the SEO Aspect we felt it would be best to develop and maintain a blog for their service department. This will give us more flexibility to optimize the website for keywords. The reason we decided not to use any of their existing websites is because of the lack of technology available for creating new pages.
Their Izmo Cars website doesn’t have a log-in where you can add or edit a webpage. They have to be contacted for each change and they will do it. The problem is I do not wish to wait when I need something changed.
The Dealer.com website is much better than Izmo, but it still lacks flexibility. I could of created a new page for their service department, but I wouldn’t have access to change the title tags.
This is why we chose the blog, and it’s actually like having an additional website for our customer. Counting our used car blog, they now have 5 websites:
- Orlando Used Car Classified Microsite This website shows up better than any of their websites for organic (free) searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo. We do not market their brand or franchise. We market their inventory, new and used. We also use our Google Adwords Software to promote their vehicles within a 40 mile radius of their dealership.
- Orlando Car Blog This blog helps to rank all of their other websites in search engines. Weekly blog posts are done about their new inventory as it comes in. Whenever a blog post is published, the system “pings” Google, and the article is crawled and indexed within a couple of minutes. A couple of months ago they acquired over 10 used Corvettes. I made the Corvette keyword a main focus during one week, and since then all of the Corvettes have been sold.
- Service Department Blog: This blog provides the same as above, only the traffic is funneled to either their lead management tool or their existing main dealer website service pages. It also blends in social networking accounts like Twitter and Facebook.
- Main Napleton Website: This website is their main dealer website, operated by Izmo Cars. It obtains most of it’s traffic by drive-by’s, newspaper and TV advertising.
- Corporate Website: This website is provided by Chrysler and it has backlinks from corporate Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge websites. It also offers more flexibilitythan their main dealer website.
This is why Napleton is a leader in internet sales in the Orlando area. They have a large internet presence consisting of 5 different websites and they blast their inventory daily to Twitter, Facebook and Craigslist using our automated tools.
We can only service one dealership per city, so it’s first come first serve. If you would like more information regarding our services, please email mike@showroomlogic.com.
Is Your Car Dealer Website Really Getting That Many Visitors?
There are more and more website providers for the car industry popping up than ever before, and it’s important to know how to properly measure the performance of your website.
A few months back, I had a car dealer tell me they were getting 1,200 visitors a day. I knew just by looking at their website that this wasn’t possible. I asked him if I could see the stats, so the next day I stopped by there.
As soon as he logged into his stats program I was suspicious. The program he was using was provided by the company that built and hosts his dealer’s website. Sure enough, he was getting 1,200 visitors a day (according to this program).
I explained to him that there are many stats programs out there that measure spiders as well as actual visitors. The more authority your website has, the more spiders will visit your website on a daily basis.
I explained this to him, and asked him to have his webmaster install Google Analytics. He called him up right away, and the webmaster freaked out. He said if he installed Google Analytics it would crash his website and cause all sorts of other problems. Now I have been using this software for many years, in many different industries. I never had a problem.
After a bit of demanding, we convinced the webmaster to install Google Analytics. I was excited to see the results, but I had to wait a day to see the actual numbers because this software doesn’t update instantly.
The next day I started watching, and sure enough they were averaging about 300 – 400 visitors a day. That’s a far cry from 1,200!
It is very important to know for sure what kind of traffic you are getting. It’s the very first step before you consider making any changes to your internet presence.
To show you how different each stats program can be, I will demonstrate a website that has 3 different stats programs installed. These stats come from a printing website:
Webalizer
This stats program reports that this website received 35,980 visitors in the month of May, 2009.
Webalizer Reports 35,980 Visitors for May, 2009
Awstats
This program reports that during the same month the website received 17,922 visitors. That’s half less than Webalizer reported.
Awstats reports 17,922 visitors for May, 2009
Google Analytics
Google Analytics reports that this website received 7,239 visitors in May 2009.
Google Analytics Reports 7,239 Visitors for May, 2009
So what’s going on? The answer is simple, the top two programs are measuring spiders. If your current provider provides you with Google Analytics then I will consider them an honorable company.
If they don’t you need to start asking questions. When it comes to reporting, always obtain a trusted third party program which is not affiliated in any way with your provider. You have no reason not to trust Google.
If your dealer website provider refuses to install Google Analytics, you should consider shopping around.
It is important to note that we do not build dealer websites, nor are we affiliated with anyone that does. We would have no motive to steer you in the wrong direction. Patrick and I have been doing this for years, so take my advise. Know your stats!
Did you read my Alexa Rank article? I would advise you give it a read, because that is another misunderstood factor in the car business.
Better Car Dealer Blog Themes Launched For Better Results
New Car Dealer Blog Format (Click to see live version)
Showroom Logic recently made some changes how we display the blogs for our car dealers. Although our organic search results were amazing, we felt we could do better by launching themes that show more text and less pictures.
Our new theme is perfect because it allows us to show small thumbnail photographs that will help the page load faster. The faster the page loads and the more text you have on your homepage the better it will perform on search engines.
Blogs are an important part of our strategy. Our car dealers get a entire website AND a blog, all tied into one website. We take care of the actual blogging, and our dealers are free to post on their own as well. Most don’t because they lack the proper tools like Adobe Photoshop, and knowing how to deep link.
Blogging is definitely a science, and our dealers are happy with the results we provide. There is only one way to get more internet leads, and that is to get more traffic. The car dealers that use our blog packages obtain 50% more traffic then they did before.
The powerful keyword rich backlinks we provide back to the dealer’s website also gives them an advantage to whatever keywords they’re bidding on. They will move up on all terms.
The great thing about Showroom Logic is their software runs on it’s own. A car dealer doesn’t have to switch website providers. Basically it’s an entirely different website that gets it’s own leads.
Some call them microsites, we call them macrosites. Showroom Logic will blog about a dealer’s inventory and place keyword rich links pointing to the dealers actual inventory. Every now and then we’ll blog about the service or parts department for a dealer. Basically, we work for them so what they want we’ll do.
You want to sell 30 more cars a month? You may think I’m joking, but I’m dead serious. Call Mike at (863) 666-0130 and I can show you what I can do for you, or send an email to mike@showroomlogic.com.
If You Get Blog Comments You Will Appreciate The SEO Love Letters Video
Anyone who runs a blog with some decent traffic on it will appreciate this one. Prospect-MX who focuses on Customized Internet Marketing Strategies produced a great video I found on StumbleUpon.
If you don’t get this, you simply have no sense of humor or you are a lucky one to not get comment spam on your blog.
Companies like this deserve a backlink for their efforts, plus the bonus of some anchor text.
The Main Reason Why Car Dealers Balk At Advertising On Google
This Dealer Received 1.5 Million Impressions In 3 Weeks From a 50 Mile Radius Of Their Dealership, resulting in a spike of an additional 30 sales
Many car dealers have a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to advertising on Google. The story usually is the same, they spent a lot of money without getting anything in return.
The problem with this is all about keywords, and choosing the right ones. Some car dealers have tried the campaign themselves, and some have hired specialty marketing companies to set up the Google Adwords Campaign.
Finding the right keywords to bid on is the challenge, and if you’re too vague then you will spend a ton of money with little results.
Remember, a car dealer sells cars. If you are a Chevy Dealer, forget about bidding on “Chevrolet Dealer”. That’s what Google Local listings are for, and they’re free. You need to focus on your inventory.
Let’s start with the Chevy Tahoe. It is now 2010, but I’m sure you have some 2009’s out there. You would want these keywords:
- 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe
- 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe
- 2009 Chevy Tahoe
- 2010 Chevy Tahoe
- 2009 Chevy Tahoe LS
- 2009 Chevy Tahoe LT
- 2009 Chevy Tahoe LTZ
- 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe LS
- 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe LT
OK, I think you can figure out the rest. You need to do this with all of your models. As you set up each campaign, be sure to create separate ones for each model. It’s important for the text to read “Chevy Tahoe”. Not only will you get more action, you will achieve a higher quality score from Google. The higher your quality score, the lower you will have to pay per click.
The screenshot above is what a proper campaign that performs will look like. I remember paying $1,200.00 for 50,000 impressions from a local newspaper website when I worked for a car dealership. Now I can get well over a million more for the same price.
Another important part is to link to the proper page. When you set up the Tahoe Campaign, be sure to link to your Chevy Tahoe Page on your website. Don’t just link to your main site and make the user have to go fishing, because they won’t. Having the link go to the proper place will also give you a better quality score.
It may take you a half a day to do this, but it’s well worth it.
Now, let’s focus on your used. Used cars will bring in more UPS than new vehicles. Let’s say you have 75 used cars, and we’ll start with the first one.
We have a 2006 Corvette. Lets create a separate campaign for Corvettes. We need these keywords:
- Used Corvette
- Used Chevy Corvette
- Used Chevrolet Corvette
- 2006 Corvette
- 2006 Chevy Corvette
- 2006 Chevrolet Corvette
- 2006 pre-owned Corvette
Be sure to stay on top of these campaign, and delete each as a vehicle is sold to avoid wasting your advertising dollars.
This can be tedious huh? What if I told you that Showroom Logic can automate the process? We can take every new and used vehicle you have and automatically create a campaign for each. As your new inventory rolls in we can set up each car automatically, and as each vehicle is sold we can delete each campaign.
The screenshot above is what a proper campaign that performs will look like. I remember paying $1,200.00 for 50,000 impressions from a local newspaper website when I worked for a car dealership.
This dealer received over 1 and a half millions impressions in three weeks, and paid only 1 cents for each. The bottom line is simple, most people go to Google to look for vehicles. Not third party companies, not Yahoo and certainly not Bing.
Car Dealers need to start fishing where the fish are when it comes to the internet. You have 200 cars on your lot, and their are people searching for each one of them on a daily basis.
If you want to learn more about our product, check out this video of our tool in action.
Ed Napleton Auto Group Teams Up With Showroom Logic For Car Dealer SEO
Napleton Auto Group
Ed Napleton Automotive Group has hired Showroom Logic to perform SEO services for all 18 of their car dealerships. We will be promoting and marketing their used cars in 3 different states, plus their auto service department in Missouri.
After a successful campaign for Napleton Jeep Chrysler Dodge in Kissimmee Florida, our performance overshadowed anyone they’ve ever hired. About 3 months ago we launched a website in Orlando Florida for Napleton’s used car inventory.
Since then, their return on investment has been over 900%. We at Showroom Logic are proud of that figure, especially when we blew all of their other internet advertising companies out of the water.
If you are a multiple rooftop dealer, Showroom Logic can help you literally own your area.
In today’s internet world, you have to meet your customers half way. Showroom Logic not only helps dealers with organic (free) listings in search engines. We go one step further. We blast your entire inventory to Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist and Google’s network of car related news sites like Motor Trend.
You can see more information here.
Does Alexa Rank Matter For Car Dealers? Does It Bring Traffic?
Alexa Rank Can Easily Be Manipulated
Alexa rank has nothing to do with internet traffic, and it’s totally meaningless. There are ways to manipulate your current rank, and I did just that last month.
I was speaking with a car dealer whose mind was polluted with what their vendors tell them. Many vendors use Alexa Rank to prove how valuable their website is.
After listening to him go on about how great Alexa Rank for Car Dealers is, I told him I would prove how useless it is. At the time, the Alexa Rank for one of our Florida used car websites was about 3.5 million (the lower the number, the better the site).
As soon as I got back to the office, I installed the Alexa toolbar on my browser. You can do this with Firefox or Internet Explorer.
This was about 6 weeks ago. I know have an Alexa Rank of 485,089! If you look at the graphic, my rank shot up 280% in the past month.
Did I get better rankings? No, it doesn’t help one bit.