Use Faces Instead Of Vehicle Screen Shots, Your Views Will Rise. It's That Simple

On this blog post I will give you my results so far for the YouTube Channel for Park Auto Mall I made. As of today, here are some stats:

• The YouTube Channel is only 42 Days Old
• Our videos have been watched 5,193 times
• 2,212 of the views were local
• 27% of the views came from our channel
• 35% of the views came from an embedded player (our car blog and Facebook page) We do embed videos on our website, but we just started that 2 days ago.
• 5% came from a mobile device
• Only 7.1 % came from a YouTube search (let’s face it, people don’t go to YouTube to search for vehicles to purchase)
• Only .56 % came from a Google search. Too much competition in Tampa for YouTube

All of those stats can be found in your “insights” page when logged in to YouTube.

Now before I even started our YouTube Channel I looked all around Tampa Bay to see what other dealers were doing. Their views were unimpressive, so I knew we had to try something different. Here is what we do differently:

1) We make sure our freeze frame shot is a face, not a car. Whenever you upload a video to YouTube, you will have the option to pick a screenshot when the video is fully rendered. YouTube will only give you 3 choices, so if a face is available select it. People will be more prone to select a face than just a vehicle. See how it sticks out here?

2) Use proper tags when uploading. Be sure to fill in your tags, and make sure whichever tags you use are in your title and/or description. You will be surprised of the amount of local websites your video will automatically appear on when tagged properly.

3) Add Outtakes. We had our video guy make us a beginning and an end that we reuse on all of our videos. I added an outtake to the end of a video a few weeks ago, and play them after the close. People love them!

3) Hire Some Personality. Most people are self conscious about being themselves on a video, and it takes a little time for them to relax. Besides obvious reasons to hire somebody, we look for unique skills that they don’t even realize they have. We want our future customers to get to know us, and they will!

Our internet staff is so good, 40% of our customers give us a video testimonial! I know some vendors suggest to create a separate YouTube Channel for testimonials, but we decided not to. We mix them all together.

I know by now your thinking about time, cost and personnel. This is all it takes:

1. A Decent Digital Video Camera: $500.00
2. Video Editing Software: $500.00+ (I use Sony Vegas)
3. 2 People (1 to shoot, and one to demonstrate)
4. 10 Minutes Of Time To Shoot The Video (2 people)
5. 20 Minutes of time to edit the video (1 person). It used to take me longer, but it’s become so repetitive I’m a lot quicker. The video will take some time to render, but I can do other things while it’s rendering.

We have 86 videos so far, and you can expect more. I let each person pick the vehicle they want to do, that was they’ll have more to say. All of our employees have a unique way of doing the videos, but this one is our best yet:

If you have any YouTube Tips for car dealers please leave some feedback below. This is a dofollow blog, so you can earn yourself a nice backlink for each comment.

I made this entire blog last night. It took Me 3 Hours Total. I still kave to add content to it, but it's a good start. Click To See It Live

I am the internet director for a car dealership in Tampa Florida. We are proud to say that we are not vendor dependent, and we own the Tampa Bay area for car related internet searches. Here are some tips to get your car dealership in the right direction.

When setting up a new Wordpress Blog, the most important part of it is choosing the right plugins. There are some that you will actually need, and if you don’t you will have a blog with no traffic. It’s that simple.

Last night my boss asked me to set-up a new blog for his dealership, and I said no problem. Yes, I work for Park Automall in Pinellas Park Florida…so I did this an an employee.

When I started the project, I didn’t even have a domain name yet. The entire project took me 3 hours, and I’ll show you exactly what I did:

1) Domain Name:

Domain names are getting harder to buy because there are so many squatters that buy them with hopes of a resale for big dollars. After about 20 minutes, I found that tampacarblog.com was available., so I logged on to GoDaddy and purchased it for 3 years. The only thing I would recommend every buying from GoDaddy is a domain name. Never buy hosting or anything else, just say “no thanks” to all of the crap they try to sell you during the checkout process.

Now at this point I didn’t even have a hosting company yet, but I knew I was going with Bluehost. While I was still logged in to GoDaddy, I clicked “manage domains” and I changed my nameservers to ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com. This will make it easier when I set up my hosting account. That’s it, and I won’t have to log in to Go Daddy for three years.

2) Web Hosting

Bluehost.com offers hosting packages for less than $90.00 per year, and they have many great tools that makes life easier for us all. When signing up, the first thing they do is offer you a free domain name. Don’t even bother with that, because you will never own that domain name. Just tell them you already have one. When asked, put the domain name in the box when they asked you. Remember in the above step I changed my nameservers already? If I hadn’t, I would of had to log-in to Godaddy again and change them during this step. Why? Bluehost will verify that the domain is pointed to the right direction. A name server can be compared to a phone number. When someone calls your phone, your number will tell the phone where to ring to. the same goes to web hosting.

3) Setting Up Wordpress (You Won’t Believe How Easy This Is)

Now that you have your hosting account set up, it will take you about 30 seconds to set up Wordpress. Scroll down and find an icon called “Simple Scripts”. Click that and you will see a bunch of different software programs you can download and enable for free. Find the Wordpress Script and click it. The rest of the process is self explanatory. If you want to install it in a subfolder or subdomain you can with ease, but I would recommend not doing that. Just leave it as is and install.

4) Your Wordpress Blog Is Now Live

You now have a default installation of Wordpress installed. There are a few plugins and adjustments you should make now, not later. Let’s not be concerned with your template and content just yet. Check your email for a username and password that was emailed to you after you set it up. Click the link and log in to the backend of your Wordpress Blog.

5) Change your Permalink Setting

On your Wordpress back end, scroll down to the lower left and click “settings” then “permalinks”. This step will rewrite your url’s properly, and it will make your blog search engine friendly. Make yours look just like this:

Make your Permalink Settings Exactly Like This, Then Save

Now let’s install must have Plugins.

6) Enable Akismet

This is a spam comment fighter, and if you don’t enable this now you will get some serious comment spam. It will eventually light up your inbox. By default this should have came with your installation. Go to ‘Plugins”, then find Akismet and click enable. You may have to get a key if you don’t already have one. It’s free, so do it now so you don’t forget.

7) All In One SEO Pack

Go to the Plugin tab, then search for plugins by putting “All In One SEO Pack” in the search box. It should be the first one, just click it and install. If you want to play around with the settings, scroll down to the lower left. Click “Settings” then “All In One SEO Pack”. Don’t change a setting unless you know what you’re doing. If you want to learn, read the Wordpress Forums. Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Wordpress is there, and if it’s not you can open up a new thread and ask a question. there are thousands of people that will help you for free.

Comment Luv

If you want more people to comment on your blogs, this plug in is the way to go. When somebody makes a comment that you approve, comment love will reward them with a keyword rich backlink to their website. If their blog or website has an RSS Feed, it will list their latest post as well.

9) Do Follow

This plugin will make all comment links dofollow, which will help you get more comments. It’s a perfect marriage with keywordluv. Be careful though, don’t just approve any comment. Be sure the website isn’t a “bad neighborhood” like porn or gambling. If you link to bad neighborhoods Google will hold it against you, and you can kiss your traffic goodbye.

The rest of the plugins available are luxuries, and by now you should be good at installing and activating plugins. Poke around and try some, but make sure you read the feedback first before you install any new plugin.

10) Choosing A Theme Template

There are thousands of free templates available out there, and most don’t have many options. Ever wonder why there are so many, and how the developers make their money? It’s simple, they put links in the footer of the blog, and sometimes 3 or 4. They make the templates for the SEO benefit of their own websites or a sponsor.

I would recommend buying a Premium Theme. I like Studio Press. For less than 200 bucks you can buy all of their templates, and you can remove any footer link with ease. Currently, I am using the Allure Theme for the blog I made last night.

If you’re a cheapskate, you can find free templates here. Remember though, these freebies don’t have many options. As Joe Dirt would say, “Maybe someday Unicef will get in the Free Worpress Template Business”.

Let’s Talk Widgets:

Proper widgets can make great call to actions. My philosophy for a blog is simple. Get traffic to the blog and funnel the viewer to your main website. Forget about purchasing inventory plugins for Wordpress, it’s a waste of time and money. We want these people off this blog and into our main website. This is where clickable call to action widgets come in. Here is a screenshot of what I did so far to the new blog I made last night:

So Far I Added 3 Widgets, and I'll explain what they are below. Click the photo to see the blog live in action.

The top widget is a simple html widget. I pasted my YouTube embed code in to a new text widget and changed the size in the code. If you look at the code, you will see a height and width number in pixels in 2 different spot. Simply change both to the size of your widget box. If you’re not sure about how to find out the width of your sidebar, check out this plugin from Firefox called MeasureIt.

The second widget is my favorite. It’s a Wowzio Widget, and you can read all about it and other cool Wordpress widgets here. All you need is an RSS Feed and you’re ready to go.

The Facebook Widget makes a create widget as well, and click the above link to learn more. When adding the code, you need to change the width number to whatever your widget width is. I think it’s 300 by default, and if you don’t make the change it will look funny.

Now that you set this blog up right, be sure to throw a link to it from another website with some authority. You want the search engines to find and index your new blog.

Don’t expect traffic overnight, and don’t forget about it either. Try to get some backlinks from blog commenting, Pligg Sites, etc. Facebook and Twitter won’t cut it. Those links are nofollow, and they will not pass any “link juice” to your website. It is also equally important to create a new blog post at least once a week. Finding content is easy for car dealers, just blog about one of your vehicles and link to it.

The term “build it and they will come” does not apply to websites or blogs. You must work hard for results.

You can do this with personal pages as well. For fan pages, you must have at least 20 fans before Facebook will allow you to do this.

1) Click http://www.facebook.com/username (or type that in your address bar and hit enter)

2) The first screen will let you change your personal page (you must be logged in). I already changed mine, so now it will show me my other pages by clicking “set a username for your pages”.

Click "Set A Username". You must be an admin of the fan page to do this

3) If you’re an admin of more then one page like I am, simply select your page from the drop down menu. Now add your Keywords. Note: You cannot undo this, so put some thought into it. Consider a keyword domain like:

http://www.facebook.com/napleton.orlando or http://www.facebook.com/used.cars.tampa

You must use periods instaed of dashes. When you done, click "check availability"

Remember, Facebook recently changed it’s privacy settings. Fan Pages will now show up on Google, Yahoo and Bing searches a lot easier. That is why you should consider a keyword domain if you don’t plan on promoting your fanpage with newspaper, radio or TV ads. If you want both, find a happy medium and just make it easy to remember.

It's that simple. Now Click Confirm and You Are Done

Better Tip For A Friendlier Domain Name:

Go to Godaddy.com and buy a domain name for 10 bucks. Once you create it, log in to your domain manager and redirect it to your Facebook Fan Page URL.

Here’s an example: NapletonFans.com This will make it easy for them to get fans when they start their newspaper campaign they are planning.

Having your own car blog will not only help your dealership, it will help you. It’s no secret that an Internet Sales Manager position in the car business can be short lived. If you had your own blog you could bring it to your next job, and change everything to where you are.

Wordpress Blogs are free, and it takes about 60 days to start ranking. Do not get a “Free” hosted blog from Wordpress, spend the $90.00 a year and have it self hosted. You will get more traffic this way and you will own it.

Easily Make $300.00 A Month, and get your Dealership more leads at the same time.

Did you know once you get traffic you can sign up for Google Adsense? Currently car dealers and other third party companies pay over $3.00 a click. Google will pay you half of that. I have an old printing blog that I converted into car related keywords, and I make about $300.00 a month from Google.

I simply blog about once a week, and Google sends me a check every month. Yes, Google makes my car payment!

Here are the steps to get started:

1) Buy A Domain Name

Be sure to buy a domain name with keywords in it. If you live in Florida try to find a good one like floridacarblog.com, or carblogflorida.com. If you plan on staying in your current city, buy one with your city name in it. Be sure to buy it for at least 3 years! If you only buy it for one you will be a suspected spammer.

2) Get Hosting

I recommend Bluehost. I’ve been using them for years. They make it as easy as possible to setup your car blog using a program called Simplescripts. Check them out here.

3) Choose A Theme

Wordpress has thousands of free themes. Check them out here. Find a good one and install it. Don’t worry, you can easily change your theme as often as you’d like.

4) Set Up General Settings

Name your blog with keywords, and make sure everything looks right first. Now is the time to tinker around, because your blog is so new nobody will ever find it.

5) Start Blogging

Be sure to blog about your inventory, not what every other dealer blogs about. The idea is, you want to drive traffic to your dealer website. Blog about your inventory. Check out what we do for Napleton Jeep Chrysler Dodge: Orlando Florida Car Blog

6) Set Up Widgets

I hope you’re already on Facebook and Twitter. Check out these must have widgets for car dealers.

Showroom Logic offers SEO for Car Dealers, and this is one of the services we offer. If you think it’s out of your league, email mike@showroomlogic.com for more information.

Our dealer sell more cars every month from a 30% increase in daily internet traffic. There is only one way to get more leads, and that’s more traffic!

Now You Can Add Your Inventory To Facebook Fan Pages For Free!

Now you can automate your Facebook Fan Page to show every new vehicle that is added to your website. It will even post the photo and a direct link of each vehicle.

Check out RSS Graffiti. It’s free!

The problem is you can only target so many different keywords on any given website, and the internet is wide open for everybody. Car Dealers do more than simply sell cars. They each have Service Departments, Part Departments and Auto Body Ships. Plus, they sell used cars.

So from your homepage which do you target most? New Cars, your brand? It is physically impossible to own your area in all searches, unless you have zero competition. There are some great website providers out there that give you optimized, clean coded sites. However, it is up to you to make it work.

So I ask you, if you were a Lobsterman how many lobster traps would you set? Hopefully your answer is more than just one.

We’re all approaching a new year, and as bad as the economy is people still need cars. As bad as the unemployment rate is, 85% of us still have jobs.

Now is the time to act, and you can go it alone or ask us for help. Either way we will tell you what you should do.

First, let me start by saying there isn’t one single method out there for a car dealer’s internet success. It is up to you to monitor the performance of each vendor. Most dealers feel the simple answer is to sign up for AutoTrader and Cars.com. Although they are both great websites with boatloads of traffic, they do not own the internet. If that was the case your website and every other car related website wouldn’t get any organic traffic from Google, Yahoo and Bing.

I see car dealers paying 3.00 to 4.00 dollars a click on Google Adsense, yet they don’t think of the free organic traffic you can obtain from Search Engines.

If you are a worker and you want success, follow these tips and it will work. If you are a lazy internet sales manager, here is a link back to your Facebook.

Lobster Trap Number 1 – Get yourself a proper microsite:

Do not get a microsite from your current vendor. Many of them jumped on the microsite band wagon to make a few bucks. If you ask them to build you one I’m sure they will make it look nice. But, will it serve it’s purpose? No

Why? There will be no links pointing to it, therefore it will have no link juice to pass along to your website.

Hopefully you know what Google Pagerank is. There is some big controversy lately in the forums about the benefits of it, but it is still a report card of your website. Most dealer websites have a Pagerank of 3, if you have 4 or more than you are doing a great job.

But, what is the pagerank of your microsite? If it’s a 1 or less you will get very little value from it. If the Pagerank of your miscrosite is weak, it’s because you don’t have any links pointing to it. You need to get out there and obtain links from car bloggers. Even if it’s a link exchange that will suffice, but a “one way link” works best.

Don’t bother checking your pagerank every day, because it is only updated publicly every 3 months or so. The last update happened about a month ago, so you will not get your next report card for at least a couple of months. Now is the time to work on making it higher.

I like to call our dealer microsites “macrosites”, because that is really what they are. Not only do we provide great backlinks to juice up your website, but we list your entire inventory without using i-frames. So, if you have 75 cars you will have 76 backlinks from every vehicle listing you have (you get an extra one from your main page.

Lobster Trap Number 2 – Get A Dealer Blog:

Again, I would advise against having your current vendor set-up your blog. You need a real blog, not one that appears to be one. A self hosted Wordpress Blog works best, and even Matt Cutts from Google says so. For $96.00 a year you can have your own. Besides the link juice a good blog can give you, you can easily add many call to action widgets including Twitter & Facebook Badges, RSS Feeds and links to your dealer website. It won’t be a true blog, and it won’t ping Google every time you make a new post. We do not build dealer websites, so I can honestly say if you fell for an “Izmo Cars Blog” then call me, I have a bridge to sell you. Izmo makes some great looking dealer websites, but next to BZ Results they have the worse technology out there.

You can spend 30 minutes a week writing blog posts with unique content. Talk about the cars you just came in or promotions you are having. In all posts, be sure to mention you city state and used anchor text links.

For example, I write keyword blog posts for a few of my clients. If I was to write one today, I would look at their newest inventory. I see a 2008 PT Cruiser that just came in so I will write about it.

This is what not to do: “We just got this beautiful 2008 Chrysler PT Cruiser in. It has low miles……”

This is what you should do: “If you are looking for a used Chrysler PT Cruiser in Orlando Florida be sure to check out our newest edition….” Note the anchor test used. This will help that page rank better in search engines. Plus, there is a link to Napleton’s Dealer website from that page. Ultimately, we are juicing up the dealer’s website by doing this, not necessarily the dealer’s microsite.

It is important not to put too many anchor text links in one post, you really shouldn’t put more than two.

Let me give you one more example. It’s 3 days later and I’m looking for a topic to blog about. Let’s work on the service department:

“Have you been to Napleton Jeep Chrysler Dodge’s New State Of The Art Service Department? If you need your car repaired in the Orlando Florida area I invite you to come by and…..”

I just gave them a deep link to their main website’s service department page. How many deep links do you have pointing to your service department page coming from another website?

I sincerely hope you are understanding this. If you are an internet sales manager or director, it is your job to know this stuff. This is why the turnaround for internet sales managers is so great. Most lack the talent and skills needed. I’m sure your franchise teaches you how to manage leads, but do they show you how to get them?

Be aggressive! That’s all it takes.

Lobster Trap Number 3, 4 and 5

If you followed the first 2 steps wait about 90 days. In the meantime start monitoring your stats. Once you realize how much this works, you will be excited to move on. Now it’s time to make a microsite for your Service Department. At first, you will need to make some educated guesses on what people will search for. According to Yahoo!, the number one Service Related search is “tires”.

So obviously you want to start with that one. The easiest thing to do would be to set up a Wordpress Blog, and be sure the words “your town”, “your state”, “Tires”, repair and maybe “auto” are listed on your first post AND up in your title tag.

Work it with about 2 posts a week, be sure to link to it from your current website to get it going.

After this kicks in you may want to consider doing the same with your auto body & parts department.

So What now?

Eventually you will find yourself with a network of blogs with authority. Now you simply seek out link exchanges with authority websites on your topic. Simply make Google searches like this: “your state car” + blog”. Contact them and aske them for a link exchange. Tell them you will give them a link from one of your blogs, if they in turn link to your main dealer website. This is how the internet works.

Ever wonder why Lemonfree.com show up in search engines? Check this out . That is against Google terms of service, so I wouldn’t suggest buying links. It could get you de-indexed.

I suggest you print this out and make it a long term goal. This will work, and you will own your area! Good luck to you.

I have no problem answering questions. Call me direct at 863-666-0130

Thanks!

Mike Annable

Normally your domain name will be a long one, like theirs: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kissimmee-FL/Napleton-Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge/96576682301

Now you really don’t want to put that url in your newspaper ad. My advice is simple, and it took me five minutes:

• Go to Godaddy.com and buy a domain name for 10 dollars a year. Find a friendly domain, like napletonfans.com (that’s what we’re using for Napleton).
• Be sure to check “no thanks” to all of the crap they will try to sell you as you check out. You will not need any of that.
• Once purchased go to the “domain manager”. Find the domain name you just purchased and click it.
• Scroll down and click “forwarding”. A box will appear. Copy and paste your Facebook Fan Page url into that box and save. This is called a “301 redirect”.
• It will take anywhere from a few minutes up to 24 hours for your new domain to “propagate”, so don’t think you will be able to go to it right away.

If you are currently logged into your Facebook, it may redirect you to your Facebook wall. If you aren’t logged in, it will take you there. Go ahead and try: napletonfans.com.

Note: I just bought that domain about 2 hours ago, so it may not work for everyone just yet. Give it a day and everyone will see it.

The questions is are you using Twitter to sell cars or to brand? Either way it’s a great resource to get your name and inventory out there.

Two of the most powerful Car Dealer Twitter accounts in Florida is Park Automall and Napleton Jeep Chrysler Dodge. If you look at the screenshot below, they tend to stand out from other car dealers:

Car Dealers That Use A Face Get Better Results

Our constant monitoring of all our car dealers clearly shows that the face wins by a landslide. Today, Napleton has 1,040 followers. Park Automall has 1,769 followers.

The car dealers that opt to use their logo have fewer followers because Twitter users simply want to know who the person is. Plus, the stats alone speak for themselves. Car Dealer Twitter accounts that use faces get more clicks and more quality followers, it’s as simple as that.

Date: November 11, 2009

Contact: Dani Lunsford, Internet Director

Napleton Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge of Kissimmee

(866) 934-0579

Orlando Auto Dealership Ventures into Social Media

Kissimmee, FL…When Napleton Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge of Kissimmee wanted to stimulate its car sales in today’s down economy, they decided to try something new. Instead of buying more newspaper, magazine and TV ads as they’d done in the past, they opted to try their hand at social media. It was a venture into new promotional territory at a time when budgets were tight and sales were down.

With assistance from Showroom Logic, an Orlando-based social media company, the dealership began building a social networking campaign. It created a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that automatically displayed the dealer’s entire inventory. It also offered instant updates as new cars came in, complete with detailed information, pricing and 25-30 photos of each vehicle.

“It was a way to hit a different demographic than we were reaching with traditional media,” explained Dani Lunsford, Internet Director for Napleton. “Because the cost to develop our presence on social media was minimal, it meant we could explore that option without taking any resources from our other marketing efforts. That made it an easy decision.”

In addition to the automatic inventory postings, Lunsford puts updates on Facebook and Twitter several times a day, talking about new cars that have come in, promotional contests, pricing specials, the dealership’s lifetime warranties, even listing its employment opportunities. She also has a car blog on which she posts automotive-related stories.

According to Lunsford, “The results have been incredible! Even though we launched the social networking campaign less than a few months ago, we can already see a positive effect. We have a good following, and that audience is constantly growing. On Twitter alone we get about five new followers per hour, yes PER HOUR!”

Lunsford said the dealership has seen a significant increase in traffic to its website and in the number of inquiries that come in by e-mail and phone. Also, she noted that the people who are following Napleton on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube appear to be qualified leads. “These are not just tire kickers. Most plan to buy a vehicle within the next 90 days,” she said.

Another benefit that the dealership has realized from its social networking is a surge in out-of-state buyers. Whereas with traditional media like newspaper and TV, Napleton’s ads only reached people in the Central Florida area. Now the dealership finds itself fielding inquiries from all over the country.

“Buyers see something they like in our online inventory and are willing to cross state lines to make the purchase,” explained Lunsford. “Our social media marketing is transforming us from a local car dealer into a digital dealership with a much larger potential customer base.”

According to Mike Annable of Showroom Logic, activity on sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube does translate into sales. “Social media works for automobile dealerships just as it does for other businesses,” he said. “It builds the brand. It increases the company’s visibility and strengthens its online presence. It puts the dealer’s products right in front of people who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise see them and yet are genuinely interested. And here’s the best part – it’s practically free. What other advertising medium can make that claim? Talk about getting more bang for your marketing dollar!” We pride ourselves in being the largest dealer for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles in Kissimmee, FL. You can expect a world of top class New Chrysler Dodge Jeep and quality used cars, trucks, suvs at our Orlando dealership! We present a wide range of these vehicles with a variety of models and make. With us, the experience of shopping for vehicles will never be the same again!

Location of Orlando Chrysler Jeep Dodge | Used car Orlando | Napleton Chrysler Jeep Dodge Kissimmee, FL

Napleton CJD is located at 1460 East Osceola Parkway Kissimmee, FLORIDA 34744. We offer our services in localities such as Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Orlando, Haines City, Winter Haven, Clermont, Dundee, Lake Alfred, Ocoee and Ocala, Florida

Established in 1931, Napleton Chrysler Jeep Dodge is the leading dealer for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles in Kissimmee, Florida. It offers new and pre-owned vehicles.

Showroom Logic is a marketing agency that specializes in helping car dealerships establish social media networking systems. For more information, visit Showroom Logic.