I’m 41 years old, and I’ve been actively working the internet since 1995. Matter of fact, I was building websites before Google was born.
I’ve been around for every shift in the industry since then. My main focus has always been SEO, and I’ve worked in several industries around the US.
I got involved in the car business a few years ago, and since then my philosophy changed. I still think SEO is important, but since Patrick developed our PPC tool for car dealers my mind has shifted.
Check out this video and hear me out:
I have a dealer I help in Chicago, and I get them 30,000 visits per month..all organic
Paul, no disrespect but I don’t believe you for a minute. If it is true, supply me your stats from a trusted source like Google Analytics and you and I will have a stats hoe down. Matter of fact, I will devote an entire blog post to it. To be fair, I will let you do an entire post as well.
I suspect you made this comment for a dofollow backlink, so I removed you url. Contact me and let’s do this! I love debates
A comprehensive Automotive Digital Marketing strategy combines both the best practices in SEO and PPC. Your comments that dealers can’t compete for high volume regional search phrases is misguided. They just need a competent strategy.
For example, if you type “Miami Used Cars” you can see that a good SEO strategy can yield Page One Results for a high volume search phase. Our two month old microsite at miamiusedcars(dot)org is on Google Page One. This phrase is typed into Google 27,000 times a month which once created is an annuity of leads without ongoing costs.
The same goes for “Buffalo Used Cars”…Page One for a key regional search phrase.
If you type in “BMW Used Cars” you can see that ONE single dealer is #1 in the USA using an SEO microsite.
If you type in “Toyota Recall” you can see that a microsite is on Google Page One for this popular phrase which gets over 100,000 vistors a month. That site, toyotarecall(dot)org has sent over 30,000 leads to Toyota dealers using only SEO.
It’s all about balance. You fail to mention that PPC has an ongoing cost and that good microsites on good domains over the long term, can provide lower cost leads.
PPC has not ownership, no equity or no lasting value. It’s a drug dealer that tells car dealers not to build their own lead generation assets. Car dealers really need to build their own advertising network otherwise they will be sucking milk from cars.com, autotrader.com and Google as their only source of nourishment.
In the short term, PPC is great and for BROAD search phrases that have no GEO targeted keywords. But to say that SEO is dead, you discredit your logic.
I have SEO campaigns that are yielding 10,000 + unique visitors per month for dealers without PPC. Call Tim Martell, ISM for Marlboro Nissan and ask him how much he pays in PPC and he leads his region in sales.
The short answer is: $0 in PPC. This is not the ideal case, and he should be doing some PPC, but your conclusion shows that you are not an ally for dealers, you an ally for making cash from Google Adwords management services.
Thank you for your input. I’d like to break this down from what I can see. According to Google (right now) the term “miami used cars” is searched 18,100 times globally per month, and 14,800 times locally. I’m not sure what Google you get your stats of 27,000 times a month. That is a big difference. Plus, you are number 6, there are 5 others above you…including a dealer.
The term “Buffalo Used Cars” is searched only 6,600 times per month. Again, this is coming from Google Adwords directly.
You mention If you type in “BMW Used Cars” a dealer of yours will rank. In my video, I never mentioned the term “used cars”. Go ahead and type in “BMW” only and see if your dealer comes up.
Ok, lets go back to the Miami site. It has 1,200 backlinks pointing to it. Do these links come free with your services? The first backlink site that comes up is:
cashforclunkersfacts.com (PR5)
cashforguzzlers.net (PR 3)
Wait a minute, I am uncovering a massive link farm, the first 2 domains I look up say “”Pasch Consulting Group” owns about 2,066 other domains ” I notice your last name is Pasche……is that a coincidence? I also see you own another 883 domains under the name “PCG”. Yeah I get it, we all know Google uses the WHOIS info as well, so it will help you hide a bit better.
From only the first 2 sites, I can see you have them on different ip’s to fool Google’s current algorithm. They’re pretty close though, but I get why you do that.
The anchor text links you have pointing to dealers on the bottom right of your forum are blatant spammy anchor text links, with only one goal in mind…to manipulate the SERPS.
You know as well as I do that it’s the backlinks that are helping these sites. I’m pretty sure that what I’ve seen so far is against Google’s terms of services. I’m sure your link farm services don’t come cheap, and in all fairness do you expect another dealer to own a 2,066 domain link farm?
What I mean in the video Brian is actually this, “real seo is dead” for car dealers. What I mean by “real” is clean white hat SEO. Black hat is manipulating serps by blackhat methods. How many of the 1,200 backlinks pointing to your Miami site are natural.
I’m sure you’re aware of the consequences for black hat SEO, particularly for Google. If the dealer down the street signs on an SEO firm, the first they they will do is report the site as spam via Google Webmaster Tools. Matt Cutts is trying his hardest to clean up the index: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/calling-for-link-spam-reports/
I suggest you watch the video again. We do not resell Google Adwords. Our dealers create their own account and use our software, it’s as simple as that. Then you go on to say I am not an ally for dealers? I give free tips on a weekly basis, and help many out. I doubt your services are free, so how are you an Ally?
What I really want to know is this: When your sites get penalized and the traffic drops how are you going to explain it to your clients?
I think Mike’s title could be a bit misleading because of how general the term SEO is for car dealers. PPC is just a different version of SEO, as is organic, social media, content creation, analytics etc.
In response to Paul and Brian, I think the key here is to think about consumer behavior and conversion rates and what dealers need VS what they think they need.
Paul, I could do a viral piece and send 1MM visitors to a dealership overnight. The numbers along aren’t worth bragging about. Tell me how many of those visitors bought cars. I would rather send 500 visitors to a site and have it lead to 25 sales, rather than 30,000 and have it lead to 25. The former requires less work, and has a much higher conversion rate that can scale.
Brian, your example you mentioned “Miami used cars” which on the surface sounds like a legitimate keyword to rank a dealer. However, since all dealerships are interested in selling the cars they have on their lot at any given time, wouldn’t you agree that a keyword like “used 2007 celica” or “used ford mustang” is more likely to convert? Car buyers a lot of time get educated by word of mouth, edmunds etc. Then they come to the search engine to find the car(s) they’ve thought about.
Also, like I mentioned to Paul above, numbers alone don’t deserve bragging rights. I have given sites unique traffic in the MM in a weeks time… but who cares. How many converting visitors are coming to the sites, and what is the conversion rate of all the keywords etc? Are the long tail visitors or blog readers buying cars?
Consumers use search engines to return relevant results and to filter out what they don’t need. So, if a potential car buyer types in “used ford mustang” they are screaming to dealerships everywhere “I WANT TO BUY A USED FORD MUSTANG”. So, in this case what dealerships are going to benefit off of these people? ONLY the dealerships that have a Ford Mustang on their lot.
So, I don’t know if a more general keyword’s ranking deserves bragging rights if it doesn’t bring in more sales. Personally, I would rather put the most closely matched car in front of consumer all the time. I would rather have my dealerships pay Google than to pay me. We don’t take a cut off of their budget like most PPC management. A flat rate of $500 gets them a tool that continually ranks their AVAILABLE inventory in google ads and puts their cars in front of consumers doing specific, buying-ready keywords.
We might be an exception from other vendors out there in that we don’t create flashy or buzz-word tools just to get a buck. We scrap any products that don’t sell cars. Period.
I can see both sides of the argument. Personally, I have been in the auto industry since 1981, and I also have over 14 years online marketing experience during which I was recognized as one of the top authors on the internet.
In my area of Pensacola Florida, I have succeeded in attaining top rankings in Google Maps for our dealer website for our main keywords and we have number one and number two organic rankings for our major keywords for PensacolaUsedCars.com –
That being said I do agree with Mike and Patrick on the use of Adwords for SPECIFIC models. I DO NOT believe that spending money on Adwords on generic terms like “Pensacola Used Cars”, most of these people are probably in the looking stage. Google ads that target specific models can and will convert and I am in total support for using the Adwords program to get these leads.
A solid internet marketing program will contain both elements, organic SEO as well as paid search or PPC marketing.
Gregg
Well put Gregg. You are a unique exception in the car business, because you understand how the internet works. Your dealership doesn’t need consulting because you spend the time obtaining backlinks, etc.. yourself.
Many dealerships will have a consultant for SEO help, and depending on the price it’s a great idea. My advise is simple though…stay away from Black Hat companies and link farms. You can spend thousands of dollars using these methods, but when you get penalized the party is over.
6 months ago I would of been the first person bashing Google PPC, but since we started using it the results are just too hard to ignore.
Mike, that guy Brian P is a “know it all” in the car business. I used to read the digital dealer forum but that guy adds is 2 cents too many times. It’s annoying, so I don’t even read it anymore. I work for a dealership in Framingham, Massachusetts (which is near Marlboro).
Today I went on to Google Webmaster Tools and reported his link farm to Google. I was looking at the backlinks for that Nissan dealer in Marlboro and I see a ton a black hat backlinks. I also linked to this blog post so Google can see him bragging about his link farm. Anyway, I like the way you put him in check. Hopefully we can clean up the Google index from these black hat cowboys.
This is outdated, but err… That guy who gloated about having high ranking in serps for his site is still up there. If he was number 5 before, he’s up to number 3 now