Normally you have no idea how the competition is doing digitally, but we were shocked when we looked at these numbers. We were able to see all statistics only to realize why this rooftop needed a new GM. This is a classic example of old school General Managers running dealerships while spending most of their budget on television, print and mailers and neglecting their digital presence.

The first thing we did was look at the backend of dealer.com to see what kind of leads and traffic they were getting. The number wasn’t good at all, and here are some screenshots to prove my case:

This Store Only Received 78 Leads This Month

Our store received 391 leads so far. A Huge Difference

As far as traffic goes, we use a unique combination of SEO, Google PPC, Blogs with Unique Content and “social signals” from websites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to obtain the most relevant visitors possible. We were very excited to see the difference in traffic as well:

This website only received 1,569 visitors this month.

Compared To The Other Numbers This Website Saturates & Dominates Their Market

Now I’m not going to tell you exactly how I do it, but I’ll give you something to think about. I’ll also show you what we do different and maybe you can figure it out, but it’s obvious it makes a difference.

First I want to show you how strong this Hyundai Dealership’s website is by showing you a few examples. I could search all day with West Palm Beach Hyundai keywords, but I’m not going to go that route. That would be way too easy.

Note: Before I perform any of these searches, I clear my cache and delete all cookies so the results aren’t biased. Always do this when checking rankings. I also use a browser I don’t normally use, like Safari.

The first search I did I kept my location where I am now, which is in Miami. I did this just to show this search has nothing to do with my location. Not only are we number one for that search, Google gave us sitelinks. Very rarely will you see a car dealer get sitelinks unless it’s their dealer name. Sitelinks issued from Google is the ultimate pat on the back.

I went ahead and did another search flipping the keywords around and look, still number one and more sitelinks. This time I changed my zip code to West Palm Beach so I could show you our AdLogic Google Adword’s  Tool in action.

I flipped the keyword phrases, yet we're still first and we still have sitelinks. You can also see our adlogic tool in action.

Now I’ll start with a long tail keyword search, but I’m not going to make the easy West Palm Beach searches, I’ll make it harder by including “Florida” instead of “West Palm Beach”. This Hyundai Dealership sells a lot of Hyundai Genesis’, but they are aggressive and they want even more sales. They asked us to emphasis on Hyundai Genesis related keywords, which we did:

Thanks To YouTube, SEO and AdLogic We Dominate The Page 4 Times

Before Microsites were killed off by Google, we used to use the Hyundai Genesis website shown towards the bottom to help with sales. A while ago we decided to put our resources elsewhere, yet it still shows up on good searches like this.

Here is a tougher keyword phrases:

This is a great keyword phrase to rank on, and we're there 3 different times

So here is one more, then I’ll show you a little of how we do this:

Here is a good ranking for another Hyundai 2012 Model. Notice the YouTube Video again? That's our very own Danielle from Showroom Logic

Our formula consists of a unique blend of old school Dealer SEO and some modern methods:

1. Backlinks: In today’s internet world, backlinks still play a key role in search engine placement. Dofollow links are definitely the best, but I’ve seen nofollow links help as well. It’s really hard to find good juicy backlinks for car dealers, but they’re out there.
2. Social Signals: Think of a social signal almost the same as a backlink, only they are coming from social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. All of these links are nofollow, but Google crawls the heck out of them and find these links pointing to your website. That is why we have our Twitter and Facebook Tool, and it helps out a lot. Our Facebook inventory app goes directly to the vehicle detail page of every vehicle, and all of the search engines crawl them.
3. YouTube Videos: Besides the social signals you can get from YouTube, you must remember that more people search YouTube than Yahoo or Bing. It is the second largest search engine in the world. I’ll be the first to say that robo videos don’t work, but if you do them yourself with a real person your YouTube Channel will take it’s course. A good way to judge a dealer’s YouTube channel is video views, but what makes it truly successful is having people favorite, like and comment on your videos. How often does someone like or comment on your robo video? Robo videos are spam, and Google knows it. People don’t want to see commercials on there either. I know a dealer that spends $2,000.00 a month on these spammy commercials that target long tail keyword searches that nobody searches for.

Just so you know I’m not blowing smoke about the videos, look at this report. This is just the past 30 days:

More People Watched These Videos Than Visited The Dealers Website

Let’s say you have 20 employees using Facebook, and each have 100 friends. That’s 2,000 people that will see your inventory on a daily or weekly basis. Remember, those 2,000 people have friends too!

The first thing I would recommend is to not even try to start a “Fan Club” unless you are prepared to give something away. I’m not talking a free oil change either, I mean more like a plasma TV or a car. Otherwise you will have a fan page with very few followers.

Whoever runs your internet department should set-up a personal Facebook account, and converse with people as person to person, not dealership to person. This person must interact with their “friends”, making comments on their posts. Facebook is a 2 way street, and people love for others to comment on their status updates. You should only post updates when you  have something to say, and don’t make it all business. Share cool websites and photos with your Facebook friends.

As a car dealer I would recommend getting all of your employees involved. Do you even realize how many of your employees already have a Facebook account? This could be a gold mine in branding your car dealership. Think about it, how many employees do you have? Count up all your salespeople, service, parts, etc…

Automatic Facebook Updates

You will soon realize that most already have a Facebook account. Have a meeting with all of them and offer bird dogs. Showroom Logic can add your entire inventory (with photos) to an unlimited number of Facebook Accounts. It will also automatically update as new cars come in.

As every new vehicle is added to your inventory, it will get posted as a status update for all of your employees using it. Let’s say you have 20 employees using Facebook, and each have 100 friends. That’s 2,000 people that will see your inventory on a daily or weekly basis. Remember, those 2,000 people have friends too!

OK, that’s enought about Facebook. I hope you’re using Twitter!