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

Google Image Ads Click For Examples

In the past 6 months Google has made some crazy changes for brick and mortar businesses involving Google searches. Now you don’t even have to put a town/city in your search. Google knows by your IP address where you are, so they will display the Google Map Listings first.

In today’s world, your seo efforts should be mixed in with your Google Places listings. Anything after that is a waste of money. Here’s why:

Organic Search Volume

Let’s say you’re a Honda Dealer in Chicago. If I do my keyword research for a search phrase like “Chicago Honda Dealer”, it shows that only 1,000 people a month search for that phrase. If you’re paying an SEO company $2,000.00 a month to setup microsites and backlinks for this phrase the results will be very expesive. On a good month you may get 75 clicks to your website (for that phrase), and if you do the math it gets very expensive. I’m sure your SEO company will rank you for more keywords than that, but just because someone clicks your website first doesn’t mean they will buy from you. Patrick and I have been tracking user sessions this month, and 90% of your visitors won’t submit a lead or call today. They will keep coming back for weeks by Googling the name of your dealership. When the lead does come in, who gets the credit? The first source or the last source?

From what we’ve seen so far, Google Pay Per Click and third party websites like AutoTrader are where your appointments are really coming from. Many SEO companies will rank you for long tail keywords like “2008 Honda Pilot Chicago”, but unfortunately not many people search these phrases. You’ll also need a microsite or blog to rank for these, especially since the infamous “Google Panda Update”.

If you have a good presence on Google Maps you should be fine, especially if your juice it up with Google Boost. If I had written this last month, I would of suggested Google Tags. Unfortunately Google ended these, effective tomorrow. If you’re struggling a bit with your Google Places listing, just be sure to complete your profile 100%. Add all videos and images they will allow.

Google, Yahoo & Bing Pay Per Click Content Network & Search

Search Text Ads

During the last year I have become a huge fan of PPC, especially Google. If your campaign is set up correctly, you can easily dominate your area by building quality landing pages and bidding on the correct search terms. If you plan on doing this yourself you must know what a quality score is.

After seeing the results of our AdLogic Tool in not only the US but 12 other countries, we have some great data. They’re a little far behind in the other countries, so I’ll stick to the US.

The Google search network is very active, and if you want your dealership to be considered you have to be here. I’m not saying you should outbid everyone, but if you have a good quality score for each term you’re looking at an average cost per click of $1.24. Our AdLogic tool creates text campaigns for every vehicle you have, and we delete each campaign as your vehicles are sold. Feel free to try your own campaign, but it will be very time consuming. Anyone who ever ran their own campaign for a dealership will appreciate our AdLogic Tool. It does the work for you!

Google Content Network Image Ads

This is an untapped market for car dealers, that why it’s my favorite tool. If you want banner ads displayed on websites like Oodle, MotorTrend, YouTube and thousands of others you have to have an image ad Campaign with Google.

This Is Just One Example Of Where Your Ads Will Show (Click To Enlarge)

We make 8 different sized banner ads for every vehicle you have in inventory and place them on every relevant website possible. This not only sends quality traffic to your website, but it’s an incredible branding tool. It’s common knowledge that car shoppers spend about 90 days researching before they buy a car. With AdLogic, you will be in their face the entire time.

The cost is incredibly cheap because the impressions are free, and our quality scores are so high. Imagine getting clicks for only .60 each? Imagine getting over 300,000 impressions in a 20 mile radius of your dealership for only $546.00?

Example AdLogic Image Ad Report

It’s important for me to note why I didn’t mention the Google Content Text Ads. I feel this runs your budget down too fast, and I’ve yet to see any solid conversion numbers to recommend this. It’s still up to you if you want to try it, I’m just not a fan.

So my opinion is obvious, PPC is a far better investment than SEO. It’s a lot more cost effective as well. It’s also obvious I’m pitching our tool, but numbers don’t lie.

How Much Is AdLogic?

We do not charge a percentage, just one monthly flat fee of $499.00. Never a contract! Schedule a webinar with Showroom Logic today.

Some larger car dealers want to dominate the market in their area, so they hire SEO Experts. A reputable SEO Company will charge at least $2,000.00 a month to get you better results.

When hired, the first thing they will do is look at your site. They will be horrified when they see you are probably using a dealer template site, but that’s not the end of the world unless you’re using old technology like Izmo Cars or BZ Results.We do not build websites, so we can honestly say that there are some “ok” ones out there, but nothing will perform better than a hand coded in house website.

So what do the car dealer seo companies really do?

They build backlinks for you. A backlink is a another website linking to yours, and the strongest backlinks come from relevant websites. This is how Google and other search engines rate your website, and decide who gets to go first when somebody searches for your keywords.

If you are aggressive, this is the best way to analyze your backlinks:

How Many Backlinks Do You Have?

The easiest way to check your backlinks is to go to Yahoo Site Explorer. The more backlinks you have from different domains, the better you will rank.

Which Backlinks Are Better?

The best backlinks come from related websites. If it’s a car blog or third party advertiser that’s all about cars and trucks then that is great. Other backlinks from non-related sites are ok, but they won’t help as much. Another great backlink is an link coming from a web page that has a Google Pagerank of 1 or better.

Which Backlinks Are No Good?

You have to take a moment to investigate each link. If any of the backlinks are using Java Script or posses the “nofollow” tag they are of no value to helping your website.

How Do I get Backlinks Myself?

A good start is to make comments on auto related blogs. These backlinks aren’t the strongest but they are the easiest to get. Be sure to read the blog post before you comment on it or your comment will not be approved. Webmasters hate it when people make lame comments on their blog just to get a backlink.

Another good way is to write and distribute press releases about events at your dealership. There are tens of thousands of reporters nationwide looking for a story every day, and they are constantly looking at press releases. Showroom Logic performs press releases for our clients, and so far we are batting 1,000. There is no guarantee that it will be picked up, but if your article has a couple of backlinks pointing to your website it could end up on 100′s of websites nationwide. It’s always good practice to check your backlinks about 2 or 3 weeks after you launch a press release.

Directory links are pretty weak, but if you’re sitting there doing nothing then go for it. Try to get a couple a day. In a years’ time you will have almost 1,000. I had a microsite for a dealer I worked for a couple of years ago. Although the site is abandoned it still outranks both of their dealer Cobalt sites in Google searches, and the only backlinks it has is from directories. When I left there, the guy that took over thought he knew everything, so he didn’t understand how powerful it is. Plus, he lacked the skills to update it. He even called me about 14 months later and asked me to take it down. He said “I’m getting too many phone calls about vehicle we no longer have in stock”. I simply told him to learn how to update it, because it’s not costing them anything. Why would you want to shut down something that makes your phone ring? Anyway, this was 14 months later and the passwords and such were at the dealership. I didn’t have the log-in information to shut it down, and it’s probably a good thing for them because it’s still live and their phone still rings. God only know where the email leads go to! I took that job at the request of the General Manager, plus I wanted to see what was out there for the car business. The owner had us on a zero budget, and I sill managed to get 500 leads a month without the help of AutoTrader or Cars.com. Furthermore, the dealership was located in Haines City Florida, practically in the middle of nowhere. This is ultimately why Patrick Bennett and I started Showroom Logic.

Another easy way is to ask for link exchanges. If you find quality blog and article website that talk about  car related content send them an email and ask for a link exchange. Hopefully you have a dealer blog with a decent Google Pagerank, and this is where you can provide the website with their backlink. Then you simply have them provide a link from their website pointing to your dealer page. Beware, if your dealer blog lacks pagerank many webmaters will ignore your request. If you find a link exchange partner, be sure the link they are giving you is not a dofollow link or a Java Link. Most importantly, make sure their site isn’t linking to any bad neighborhoods like Gambling, Porn or Drug Sites.

Viral Campaigns are also a great way to obtain backlinks. If you find the right company that has connections this will juice up your website better than anything else. If you try to create your own viral campaign the odds are it will not work. Another thing to consider is where you put your viral campaign. It has to go somewhere, and this is where a dealer blog comes in. Here is a viral campaign we did for a car dealer in Tampa Florida. The idea is to get backlinks to this blog, then they will get one good backlink to their dealer website from a content related site. This is why Park Automall dominates their market in Tampa Florida.

This is why our clients are so successful. One big package costs less than $1,000.00, and it juices up their website like no others. Our system gives juicy backlinks to dealer websites, and helps them like no others. In a nutshell, our software incudes:

• A Dealer Blog (Formatted Correctly) with one blog post a week written by Showroom Logic.
• A Macro Site with dealers entire inventory. Each vehicle listing provides a backlink.
• Twitter Automation: Each vehicle is tweeted with a direct link to car or truck using bitl.ly. Our studies indicate that these Tweets provide relevance.
• Facebook Automation: Blast your inventory (with photos) to Facebook.

Don’t be tempted to buy links like LemonFree.com, this is against the Google Terms of service. Free organic traffic from Google is the best you can get, and if they penalize you in any way it could be fatal to your entire dealership.

We can only offer this package to one car dealer per city, so call Mike today at (863) 666-0130 or send an email to mike@showroomlogic.com. Our goal is to make your job easier and make you look like a hero at the same time.