Automotive SEO is part of our DNA. It’s one of the core products that has allowed our internet marketing division to differentiate itself ahead of the competitors. We’ve been doing it for a decade – longer than anyone else in the automotive industry – and we’re constantly improving on our processes and strategies which yield improved results for our clients.
Vehicle Details Pages. They’re arguably the most important type of page on your website. They’re the source of many of your leads because they’re the virtual representation of your inventory. People can get just about every bit of information they need about a particular car through the vehicle detail pages other than the way the steering wheel feels in their hands.
Make sure your online sales process matches your “on-lot” sales process
The sales process hasn’t changed, but the way customers shop for a car has. Make sure your online sales process matches your on-lot sales process.
Your Online Meet and Greet
The sales process we all know and love starts with that initial handshake and introduction. It establishes rapport, trust, and most importantly your first impression. We all know that customers shop online first, and Autotrader says that they spend an average of 11.5 hours online before they visit your lot. So technically, your meet and greet happens well before the customer ever steps foot out of their decade old trade-in. (more…)
Call it human nature to mislead in order to promote a product. Call it deceitful selling. Call it ignorance. Call it whatever you want to call it, but the concept that has been being spread around the automotive industry that you don’t need content on your homepage is absolutely incorrect. In fact, the homepage is the most important page on your website from an SEO perspective. Building a website with a homepage that has no HTML text or links is like making a hamburger without a beef patty (even though ground turkey is acceptable and ground bison is actually superior in my opinion, but I’ll save that discussion for my food blog).
Here’s a stark truth that may make some of our competitors, employees at Facebook, and even some of my own employees a little upset: car dealers don’t need social media marketing to be successful. Search, proper website maintenance, display ads, reputation management, and mobile marketing may all have a claim of being more important that social media when it comes to driving leads and foot traffic to a dealership.
There may be nothing more important in Facebook marketing than establishing the right goals. Most car dealers are not having as much success on Facebook as they could because they aren’t strategically defining what they want to accomplish. You might have a general goal in mind of branding, driving traffic, or simply having a social media presence, but if you set the right goals up front, allow these goals to drive your strategy, and then execute on the strategies, your chances of success go up tremendously.
NADA 2013 was a whirlwind. There was more activity, more excitement, and most importantly more hope than I’ve seen since 2008. Dealers were excited to see more, to learn how to go beyond the survival mode that has been fading in recent years and to concentrate on thriving mode. It was the most encouraged I’ve been about the industry in decade, but there was one thing that has me a little concerned.
There’s one thing that permeates throughout the car industry (and most industries in general) in regards to Facebook that needs to change. We look at our dealership Facebook pages and judge much of our success based upon how we’re doing there. Normally, we check the results and monitor the pages from a desktop. This is strange since most of us who use Facebook do so primarily on mobile devices.
The Department of Labor has issued a revised Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) posting that includes important changes regarding the expansion of coverage of job-protected FMLA leave for families of eligible veterans and airline personnel and flight crews. Employers with more than 50 employees should make sure that they have the latest posting displayed in a conspicuous place where employees and applicants for employment can see it. In addition to displaying the revised posting, covered employers who have any employees eligible for FMLA leave must provide employees with the same information that is in the poster through an employee handbook or other written materials about leave and benefits.
KPA HR Management clients have access to the DOL model forms (valid through 2015) and the new posting the “Toolkit” section of HotlinkHR or may purchase complete sets of 2013 state and federal labor posters at http://kpa.theoshastore.com/shop-all-departments/labor-law-poster.html
Too often, dealers and other businesses are given intangible ideas that they’re supposed to use to try to master Facebook. They’re told to “be engaging” or “be a part of the community” on Facebook, but what does any of that really mean?
