FINALLY! For all you dealers fumbling around in the darkness that is Social Media integration, it seems like somebody may have found the light switch…or at least turned on a night light.

Yesterday bing announced they would integrate Twitter updates in their search results. And because search engine land is more competitive than the NFC East conference, Google announced the same day that they, too, would integrate Twitter into their search results.

All of this is in attempts for the search engines to move to more of a “real-time” display of search engine results. Meaning, instead of typing in “Malibu Surf Report” and getting a PDF from 2003, you’ll now get real-time results from Tweeters on the sand in Malibu putting on their rash guards (in theory). This is a huge movement in the Search world, which has been really floating by over the years tossing around ideas of local search, vertical search and real-time search. Finally.

So what does that mean for you as an automotive dealer? It means getting your inventory on Google and bing directly…and in real-time.

How does it work?  The engines are going to crawl Twitter data no older than a week and display them in order.  What order?  AHHH, therein lies the question of all questions.  How does any search engine rank results - relevance and popularity.  So if your Tweet is relevant to the keyword search, and Tom’s Ford has more Twitter followers than Bob’s Ford, Tom is going to get the ranking for “2010 ford mustang”.

I am very happy to see things come together considering my last post, “YouTwitFace”, had the theme of a big thumbs down to dealership Social Media integration.  So for now, what I would recommend is promoting Twitter on your websites.  Offer incentives, coupons, car washes..whatever to people who sign up to follow you on Twitter and also facebook, who’s integration with the engines is just around the corner.

We’ll do our part by getting your inventory to Twitter.

Stay tuned.

Tweet ya later.

Do you consider yourself a progressive dealer?  Is it something innate, or learned?  I consider myself a pretty successful guy…or at least strive to be one, but I know people who still sit around watching COPS all day playing the lottery and eating Long John Silvers.  With major companies crumbling because of bureaucracy, stubbornness, fat-dumb-and-happy-syndrome…or all of the above , wouldn’t you assume that dealers more than ever would focus on bettering their processes to push themselves out in front for the new generation of car buyers?  You would assume.  As do I.

I want to talk about my favorite dealer to-date.  His name is Brian Hoskins…from Brian Hoskins Ford in Pennsylvania.  Why do I like Brian so much?  Aside from the fact he’s a super likable guy, Brian Hoskins is Brian Hoskins, yes the owner.  And he is INVOLVED.  Brian Hoskins cares about his store and shows concern about the future, and has genuine ambition to be the best regardless of how big or how small his store is.

Before Brian came to us, he had one of those OEM “Here, Use This”  Dealer Websites.  The site was convoluted, hard to navigate, outdated, mundane…and worst of all it had zero rankings on Google - even when you searched for “Brian Hoskins Ford”. (more…)

It will happen to any car dealership eventually.  Search your dealership’s name (or worse) your own name… and the search engine returns a high-ranking “complaint” result.  This happened to me this past weekend and after my lawyers were called and my blood fell from a boil – I wanted to really look at this “plague” that looms for all businesses no matter the industry and/or size.

The “complaint” is designed to resolve a dispute.  Customer complains, company reviews, and resolution options are decided.  Should the company decide to not resolve the dispute, the customer can then choose legal action to have the dispute heard in a court of law.  That is how proper business resolution has always played out.

However, the Internet has changed everything.  Complaint websites are booming and the potential damage to businesses couldn’t be greater.  These websites fail in one critical area – this type of complaint is not designed to elicit an amicable resolution, the purpose of a “complaint website” post is strictly to cause reputable harm to a business – that’s it!

From rippoffreport.com’s homepage:
“Unlike the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report does not hide reports of “satisfied” complaints. ALL complaints remain public and unedited in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question… Your Ripoff Report will be discovered by millions of consumers! Search engines will automatically discover most reports, meaning that within just a few days or weeks, your report may be found on search engines when consumers search, using key words relating to your Ripoff Report.”

So here’s the skinny…  anyone can post anything for free, remain anonymous, post disparaging remarks against any person or business – and search engines will promote these to the tops of the results?  What’s to keep your competitor from posting remarks?  Nothing!  (more…)

I’m not here to preach one way or another about dealership microsites because if used correctly they can be very effective.  I’d rather tell you a story and let you decide for yourself on how best to apply them to your dealership (if at all).

I had a dealer in New York call me about two weeks ago inquiring into our dealer websites and SEO.  The first words out of his mouth were, “can you build me a bunch of microsites”?  My regretful response, “why”, led him into a 5 minute seminar on microsites helping with SEO, creating additional SEO rankings and hundreds of back-links to his website.   He also shared his theory on how automotive shoppers “hate dealers”, and that by taking the dealer’s brand away from a microsite makes the customer feel more comfortable to fill out a lead form.

My experience with microsites started in 2004 when I started an online marketing agency providing SEM/SEO services to Retail Automotive.  We were one of the first (if not the first) companies to market Search to car dealers.  Our core product was in-fact a microsite….we called it an “SEO sub-site”.  The SEO sub-site was born out of necessity because our first client’s website provider refused us access to the backend of the website where we needed upload our SEO code and content.  The client wanted SEO and we offered SEO.  Their website provider did not.  So we developed a work-around…

(more…)

I think I’ve been here long enough to post a disgruntled little blog.  During my time here at ecarlist over the past 4-ish months, I’ve spoken to a lot of dealers.  Many of them are engaging in SEO and/or SEM and many are not.  Usually I wouldn’t bash on the dealers who are proactively invovled with Search, but it seems that there is a major disconnect in regards to their spending.

I conducted my own little experiement in which I surveyed dealers who were using some of the more well-known SEM management firms which will remain un-named…uhhhreachlocaluhhhnmm.   Now this study was put together by a huge team of one with an enormous panel of 10.  Here are the results….

10 out of 10 dealers who were spending money on SEM with their “SEM Agency”  had no knowledge of  how much money was going to Google, Yahoo and/or MSN and how much was going into the pocket of their agency who was charging a percentage of the dealer’s gross monthly spend (usually with minimum spending requirements).

Does that concern anyone?  Apparantly not.  Because these firms are sending their weekly home-made Excel spreadsheets that show the dealer is getting “clicks” and apparantly that’s all that matters to the dealer.  They send nothing from the Engines themselves who have great reporting systems that show the actual spend, average Cost Per Click and Click Through Rates.

I’ve heard from some dealers who actually took the time to analyze their SEM campaigns directly with Google that the percentages their Agencies were taking were sometimes as high as 40%.   That means for every $1.00 you spend on Google, it’s actually costing you $1.40…assuming you are getting information on how much you’re spending per-click.

So anyway, for the dealer that cares about what you are spending these days I recommend going with an SEM management firm that either charges you a flat rate (i.e. ecarlist) or a  reasonable percentage with complete transparency.  In fact, I would call your SEM firm today and ask them if you can get a cost breakdown from Google - which they have readily available.  If they aren’t interested in showing it to you, you may want to reconsider who you are spending money with.

What is SERM?  Sounds like a bad case of the flu, but it’s actually a serious and rapidly growing segment of Search Engine Marketing.  SERM stands for Search Engine Reputation Management, and any company who struggles with negative PR online should get to know it well.

North Texas Nissan runs a very successful operation and uses ecarlist for Inventory Management and recently a premium website with SEM and SEO.   

Let’s just say the old management didn’t focus heavily on customer service.   North Texas Nissan suffers from serious negative online public relations just like many other dealers and companies online who may or may not be aware of it.

A Google search for “North Texas Nissan” brings up first page results for RipoffReport.com and Complaints.com that were posted by consumers (or bashing competitors)  from years ago during the previous management.

Many brand name companies suffer this same fate - Pay Pal, Bosley Medical, and countless dealers are losing an unforeseen amount of business from negative postings that appear in the search results.  And the worst part is that it’s near impossible to get these negative postings removed since they are protected under the 1st Amendment.

SERM is the process of achieving additional rankings for certain keywords in efforts to push down any negative PR websites “below the fold” or to the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results - or at least out of the way of it interfering.

As ecarlist strives to bring our dealers cutting edge online technology,  we are proud to launch a SERM program for North Texas Nissan and will be posting the results soon.

As most of us say ‘good riddance’ to 2008, it seems everyone has a heightened sense of awareness going into 2009. In regards to strategy, Dealers are making more careful choices and wiser decisions.  Ambiguity has been replaced with accountability, trust is synonymous with proof, and vendors are being audited.  But above all, the dealers who will survive in 2009 and beyond will be those who fundamentally shift their beliefs about the Internet.

During the housing boom, money was flowing.  It seemed one out of two vehicles on the road had paper plates.  Meanwhile most dealers were still trying to figure out the Internet with many refusing to believe it was a lucrative means of reaching existing and potential customers because..well, they were selling cars.

Also remember, the tech bubble had burst shortly before the housing bubble began…so the theory of the Internet taking over our daily lives was in question.  But what emerged from the tech implosion was a leaner, more viable Internet.  The fat fell off and the Internet was exposed for its most essential offerings - email and search.  And with more data showing Internet usage increasing and car shoppers looking online to start their research, dealers started moving their Internet efforts higher on the priority list.  Yet although dealers were starting to embrace the Internet, they were still unwilling to relinquish their old habits.  According to NADA - in 2005 dealers on average spent $177,992 on newspapers, $72,821on radio, $58,631 on TV, $30,132 on direct mail, and $25,844 on the Internet.  As the old saying goes, “I know my advertising budget is working…I just don’t know which part”.

So now that 2008 has proven that over 90% of people planning to purchase a vehicle start their buying cycle online, what do you plan to do with that information, and are you thinking of reallocating your budgets according to proven user behavior?

(more…)

As a dealer vendor in the online advertising/marketing sector, it is your innate duty to justify the money your dealer gives you.  That’s what makes online marketing different - the accountability.  It’s easier to take radio or newspaper dollars and chalk up the lack of accountability to “branding”, but with the Internet it all comes down to Cost-Per-Lead and the ability to match leads to vendors.

Yet there are many vendors competing for the same justification of the same existence. An example - my previous company sold SEM/SEO services…but we didn’t provide the actual website. So we built “microsites” in order to segregate our leads and say “look at these great results…we deserve what you pay us for”. No harm done, but in theory why would a dealer want two different websites and who were we really helping by separating SEM visitors from the dealer’s Direct website visitors? That’s right, ourselves. We needed to justify the money our clients spent with us regardless of the TRUE value to the dealer. Allow me to be clear – I’m a huge fan of accountability…but at the end of the day, SEM visitors ARE Website visitors, and with proper analytics a dealer has the ability to track and separate out SEM visitors from their Direct or Organic visitors. But…we felt good about telling our clients they received X many leads because of us, and in the end our dealers wanted to know their ROI specific to Search.

So let’s look at a deeper-routed problem, and the real reason for this post. There are plenty vendors out there that seem to be riding coattails and molding data solely to justify their existence no matter the true value of their product. Online chat, sweepstakes providers, certain media services, talking avatars and even pop-up lead forms are all giving the dealer a report back that says “hey look what I brought you…now pay me”. Frankly some of it is just plain insulting, and below are a couple enlightening examples.

A) There’s one very large SEM provider whose sole responsibility is to manage their clients’ Paid (more…)

DALLAS, Nov 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)

Terrence Gordon has been named vice president — Search and Media at ecarlist, one of the auto industry’s fastest growing marketing and inventory management companies for the nation’s more than 70,000 franchised and independent car dealers.

The former president of Nobis Interactive in Los Angeles, Gordon will oversee the launch of ecarlist’s new full-service online marketing division catering exclusively to the retail automotive industry, according to Len Critcher, the company’s CEO.

“We have established ourselves as a leading provider of online inventory-management software and website design for mid- to large-sized dealership groups and ecarlist is excited about the opportunity to extend our product offerings with our new Search and Media division,” Critcher said. “With Gordon on our team, ecarlist will be able to provide the most cost effective, measurable, and integrated marketing campaigns available.

“The auto industry is in desperate need of pure SEM/SEO solutions that provide visibility and accountability for dealers. We not only have the absolute best inventory-management software and SEO-friendly websites I’ve seen in the industry, but our holistic and transparent approach makes it easy to develop marketing solutions that perfectly fit dealer needs. The talent within ecarlist is unmatched, and I have no doubt our company will soon dominate this industry.”

Critcher noted that ecarlist continues to experience record growth through the industry’s current “down times”, adding that its clients will benefit from the integration of ecarlist software, website products and online marketing programs.

(more…)

Oh how the acronyms flow from software/website companies, however, none seems to flow more today than SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Question: What exactly is search engine optimization?

Answer: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” search results for targeted keywords. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

First, I want to address the “snake oil” salesmen boasting to be SEO experts and guaranteeing page ranking and traffic results. ecarlist sees these claims everyday in un-solicited emails and from our clients that have (more…)