Find out how Carrera & Fiorini Search Marketing improved sales for Dewey Ford & Dewey Dodge Jeep – a major Automotive dealers in Iowa – Read the full story here in Digital Dealer

In Automotive SEO choosing the right keywords to optimize your website is crucial. Typically, there are 2 steps involved. The 1^st step is to generate a candidate list of phrases that are to be optimized.  The 2^nd step is to obtain traffic volumes and estimated conversion ratios phrases identified in Step 1 and generate a “final list” of phrases to be optimized.

Concerning Step 1, for auto dealers, we have found 5 classes of phrases that, when optimized, consistently results in a highly converting website: Branded phrases, Broad phrases, Dealer phrases, Used Car phrases, and Long Tail phrases. These phrases are typically garnered from weblogs, client business objectives, experience, intuition, etc. To be clear:

• Branded phrases – consist of terms that have your dealerships name in them (e.g., Dewey Ford of Ankeny).  Most sites typically rank high for their brand so limited SEO or PPC efforts should be placed on them.
• Broad phrases – consists of terms that have the Make the Dealer sells (e.g., Ford) and the location. Some examples of phrases are: Ford Iowa, Buy Ford Des Moines, New Ford Iowa, Ford Des Moines, Ford Parts Des Moines, Ford Service Ankeny, etc.
• Dealer phrases – are similar to broad phrases, but have the term (or some variant of) “Dealer” in them (e.g., Ford Dealer Iowa, Ford Dealers Des Moines, Ford Parts Dealership Des Moines, Ford Service Dealerships Ankeny, etc.). It should be noted that these phrases important to rank high for since they tend to be highly converting.
• Used Car phrases – are prefaced by the term “used” or “pre-owned” and are followed by the Make and/or Model and a location (e.g., Used Cars Iowa, Used Trucks Des Moines, Pre-Owned F-150 Iowa, etc.).
• Long Tail phrases – tend to be very specific searches and typically have many terms in them. It’s important for a website to rank well for them since they tend to be highly converting. Some examples include:  2010 Ford F-150 Iowa, 2007 Ford Focus Brake Repair Shop near Des Moines IA, etc.

Finally, when this candidate list is complete, the next step is to estimate search volumes and pick phrases that generate the most traffic (Broad, Used Car) and the most conversions (Dealer, Long Tail) for inclusion in the “final list”. This will ensure your site will have the most traffic and conversions possible.

For PPC, the search phrases to bid on are similar to those identified by SEO. Usually, you’ll want to spend a higher proportion of your budget on known converting phrases that you don’t rank well on organically (e.g., Dealer phrases, Long Tail phrases). This is part of a strategy that we have employed successfully on the PPC engines for many years – I.e., leveraging the Synergy between SEO & PPC. In other words, until SEO efforts are able to get your site ranked high for key business phrases, PPC phrases you don’t rank high organically until this is realized. When your key business phrases are sufficiently ranked high in the search engines, then limit (or eliminate) PPC for those phrases since this saves money (i.e., why pay $3.00 for a “click” in PPC when you can it for free organically!). These additional funds can then be used to bid on other phrases that bring in additional traffic and conversions.

It’s also important to also bid on broader phrases (Ford Iowa) even though they don’t convert as well. This is done for branding purposes since you want to attract potential customers at the top of the search funnel. Lastly, a portion of your PPC budget should be spent on Branded phrases (e.g., Dewey Ford). This helps your PPC campaigns since a major factor in the cost of your campaign is the “quality score” of the campaign given to it by the search engines. I.e., the more people that click on ads in your campaign, then the search engines perceive this to be a “quality” (and relevant) campaign. The search engines reward you by giving you a lower “cost-per-click” (CPC) and this saves money.

Introduction

In recent months, the automotive industry has quickly established a sizable presence on Twitter, the Web’s most popular micro-blogging service. A high-level review of its presence, however, reveals that – like many industries – it’s making the leap to the still newish communication venue with varying degrees of success. While some participants have taken to the medium swimmingly, it’s surprising how many treat Twitter almost solely as an opportunity for naked self-promotion, seldom or never engaging directly with their customers, providing customer support or other useful information.

Engage with your audience

Twitter offers such profound reach for very low overhead, it’s a shame to see some companies using it with so little actual engagement. As you’d hope, Ford Customer Service does a great job of engaging with customers on Twitter. A recent review of FordCustService activity on Twitter indicates that the marketing specialist managing the account is responding directly to customer inquiries and researching answers for those customers where necessary. So, too, Honda is regularly engaging with U.S. customers via the Alicia_at_Honda account created by a corporate communications staffer.
And, quite smartly, Toyota USA is interacting with its customer base, via the toyotanewsroom account, rather than simply posting press releases. That’s an example the folks running the BMWConceptX1 account could benefit from examining. They’ve posted eight updates since Sept. 30th, 2008 and all have them have been simple links to promotional content – photos on Flickr, a new Facebook page, a microsite, a trailer. Not exactly a visionary use of the medium.

Provide helpful contributions

Twitter shouldn’t be all about explicitly pushing your product. You build more good will by providing helpful contributions – which, of course, contribute to building and presenting your brand in the best possible light, as well.  How specifically do you engage your audience then, if spraying them with press releases and video clips isn’t enough? Well, in addition to responding to consumer inquiries, consider linking to information, which may still relate to your product and brand, but would also still be relevant to your audience member’s specific interests and needs. For example, Alicia_at_Honda recently linked to a Chicago Tribune article about the best cars for dogs, which listed just one Honda among several other makes in various classifications. 

Similarly, GMblogs recently linked to a Kelly Blue Book piece, which listed the 2009 Pontiac G8 as just one of  5 Great Car Deals. This sort of linking still bolsters your brand by communicating a sense of authenticity and transparency about your product and company and where they fit in the scheme of things.

Monitor your brand

Any company not monitoring mentions of its brand on Twitter is missing an extraordinary opportunity to be a fly on the wall, observing perhaps the most open and authentic discussion of their company and products imaginable.  You have the opportunity, not only to passively observe, but also to actively intervene where your brand is being misrepresented or maligned.  Sometimes, of course, your product simply fails and how you speak to that in a public arena can have an immediate impact upon your brand.
Witness the deafening silence that follows Anthony Quintano’s tweet last month that a Hackensack, N.J. Toyota dealership left the plug out of his oilpan, causing his “car to seize while in motion.” Scary stuff. He later claims the dealership’s work almost “killed me twice” and links to a lengthy blog post on the incident.  Despite addressing the Toyota Newsroom directly on Feb. 26, the results of a Twitter search indicate that at the time of this posting a response had not been addressed to Quintano’s account, quintanomedia. What a wasted opportunity. Quintano was waging a self-declared war against a Toyota dealership and no one reached out. While Quintano was asking fellow Twitterers to Digg his blog entry, little was being done to maintain –- and in this case certainly repair –- Toyota’s brand.

Not only is it important to respond to brand- or dealership-specific complaints, you need to be mindful that managing a Twitter account can be a 24/7 responsibility. One evening earlier this month Angela Teeple tweeted Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, to say “my ‘08 Escape w/ 40K mi, AC compression unit broke, directly affects powertrain but not covered under warranty. Buying Toyota.” Within an hour, Monty replied to Teeple, suggesting she notify FordCustService. It appears Teeple may have been on the phone with Ford the previous day, so perhaps Monty’s prompt response to her situation may not have been too terribly undermined by FordCustService’s ironically tardy response. Nonetheless, Monty appears to have done his best to both meet a customer’s immediate need, while also attending to mentions of the Ford brand on the web.

It’s not hard to find angry customers venting their feelings on Twitter. Sometimes the appropriate response may be to ignore the angry and irrational. However, you should be sure you’re not actually missing an opportunity to burnish your brand and help a customer in need.

Don’t overshadow your brand

Accounts transparently maintained by individuals tend to tweet more often and more effectively. One drawback, however: heavy participation by such individuals on behalf of their companies can sometimes be perceived this as self promotion -– perhaps the wrong sort of auto-promotion for a car company.
The aforementioned Scott Monty, for example, has recently received more attention than he’d probably have preferred. Ray Wert, Editor-in-Chief of Jalponik, claims that Monty draws more attention to himself than his employer. Arguably, Monty is simply trying to do Ford a favor by forging a well-rounded presence on Twitter in contrast to many of the anemic, infrequently utilized profiles of his competitors. Referring to the incident in Ad Age, Critical Mass’s David Armano saddled Monty with the unfortunate moniker of “brandividual” for the name he has built himself online. Armano also complimented him, however, for “leveraging his personal network to help jumpstart Ford’s initiatives.”  As I’m sure Monty could attest, it can be a delicate balance.

It is common for auto dealers to have multiple locations where they sell their automobiles. When it comes time to redesign their website or when they are in the process of choosing a search marketing firm to perform their Internet marketing, one question that frequently comes up is: “How many websites should I have?”

From our experience, we have found that the best way to answer this question is to:  1) have a clear understanding of search engine optimization issues; and, 2) understand the “search landscape” in their DMA.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization Issues

Before any determination is made to add or not add additional websites, the organization should determine what the search engine optimization issues are. For example:

• Will creating more websites segmented by makes generate more traffic?
• Will creating more websites by segmented by location increase traffic?
• Do “Group sites” increase traffic?

Will creating more websites segmented by brand generate more traffic?

A common problem with dealers is that they have one website that host multiple makes. From a search engine optimization perspective, it’s much harder to rank sites that host many brands. I’m not saying it can’t be done (e.g., Cars.com), but it’s harder. The search engines tend to rank sites that are “siloed” or “semantically orthogonal” higher than sites that are “all over the place”; that is, they like sites that are “just one topic” – not sites that contain many.

For example, consider Website A that has 2 or more makes; for example, they sell Chevy, Buick, and Saturn automobiles. Suppose Website A has 1/3 Chevy content, 1/3 Buick Content, and 1/3 Saturn content. What this is telling the search engines that the site is “not all about Chevy” and “not all about Buick” and “not all about Saturn” – it’s a little about all of them.

Now consider Website B that only has Chevy content on it. Then, all things being equal, this site will rank higher for Chevy related searches than Website A because website B is “all about Chevy”.

In above case, it should be clear that it makes sense to have multiple websites that host distinct brands is the best option since the likelihood of the each site ranking high for competitive phrases is much higher.

Will creating more websites by segmented by location increase traffic?

Often times it makes sense to have multiple websites if the locations are different. The reason is that like it’s much easier to rank high in the search engines for a small number of locations than it is for a whole bunch – especially if the phrases are competitive. For example, suppose Website C has a Chevy dealership in Cincinnati and another Chevy dealership in Indianapolis; and, both these inventories are hosted on one site. It turns out that phrases like “indianapolis chevy dealers” and “cincinnati chevy dealers” are competitive phrases. Consequently, it’s harder to rank for both these phrases on only one site (and we haven’t even got to “used cars” phrases yet!). Thus, in this case, it makes sense to have two sites that represent, essentially, two DMA’s. Here each site can be optimized better for search phrases that drive the most traffic and leads.

In general, the rule of thumb is:

Each DMA should have its own website

Of course, there are exceptions to the rules (even for rules of thumb!). Suppose you want to get more listings in the search engine results pages (SERP), then many times it makes sense to have websites representing multiple locations. The reason is that if optimized correctly, there is a high probability that you will get more than one listing in the SERPS – even for competitive phrases since it’s much easier from a search engine optimization perspective. This is extremely important when you consider that 88% of the clicks come from listing 1-10 of the SERP; 10% come from listings 11-20, and 2% come from listings 21 higher. So suppose you have 3 out of the top 10 listings for some really competitive and highly converting phrase, then that means the click-share for the Top 10 would be about

Top 10 Click Share ≈ 0.88 · 0.30  = 0.264 = 26.4%,

which is not bad!

As an example, consider a search for “jeep dealers florida” . These guys have 3 of the top 10 listings! This means that they are getting about 26.4% of the click-share for this highly desirable broad search phrase that has a conversion rate of approximately 3% – not bad!

Do “Group Sites” increase traffic?

In the Auto SEO community there still appears to be some “debate” about whether or not Group sites are helpful, the bottom line is our experience has unequivocally shown that group sites (along with Child sites) always generate more traffic and leads than dealerships that do not have them. Period.

Intuitively, think of the group site as a set of pages “hanging around” in cyber-space just waiting around for some surfer to enter a relevant query like “chevy iowa”. When they do, one of the pages on the Group site will eventually be served by Google or Yahoo and Voila! – a qualified visitor. In other words, one way to think of a Group site is a place to host highly optimized content so that it can be directed to one of the “Child sites”.

Another great advantage of Group sites is that they add additional liking power to Child sites – especially for long tail content. For example, suppose we want to rank high  organically for some highly converting phrase like “used chevy trucks iowa”. Its easy to link related information from the Group site to the Child site thereby increasing the likelihood that the search engines will server content related to “used chevy trucks iowa” from your site.

Understanding the Search Landscape

Finally, the last component is having a good understanding of the search landscape. This is where the SEO comes in terms of having the tools to analyze search phrase competition and volume. Although in most cases, the “more websites you have the better”, having more websites may not be practical from a monetary perspective in terms of design fees, hosting fees, etc. – in particular if the search volume or competition is not there.

For example, consider Location A and Location B where competition and search volume is high in Location A, while competition and search volume is low in Location B. In this case, it does not make much sense to have mulitple sites since the ROI will likely be low. On the other hand, if competition and search volume is high both for Location A and Location B, then it makes sense to have two websites since each can be better optimized independently.