Monthly Archives: February 2014

SEO and PPC have very different costs and results. For PPC/search advertising, your ROI is pretty clear. You spent X dollars, you got Y clicks, of which Z people converted. However, when it comes to SEO and content development, the results are much less clear.

When you put the time or money into writing quality content, you might not see any benefits in the first 30 or even 60 days. Over time, though, the more high quality articles you publish, the more your traffic will improve and the more it will benefit your search ranking.

This can make SEO very discouraging to pursue, but the results are far more sustainable. With PPC, you buy a click, and boom, it’s over. You either made a sale or you didn’t. With SEO, you are building authority and relevance, which will continue to drive traffic for months or even years. This makes it hard to convince someone just starting out that it’s worth the time and money, but when it comes to long term results, a strong SEO effort will pay dividends.

To Your Success,

Kevin Drongowski
PPC Manager
PGI Auto
[email protected]

First, let’s review what’s happened in 2013. Matt Cutts released several videos talking about how guest posts for the sake of link building has become a more and more spammy practice. As a result, must websites that would actually benefit you to have links on them (the non-spammy sites) are most likely going to put “nofollow”s on your links, meaning they won’t affect your pageRank. Additionally, Google has updated their webmaster guidelines stating that any large-scale link networks or article repositories will result in penalties as well.

Ultimately, the trend is toward high quality content, and fewer links from higher quality sites instead of hundreds of low quality links. Going forward the best strategy is going to be around building your brand, and promoting as if the search engines didn’t exist. Here are some good tips to determine if a link is going to look good to Google. Taken from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2259674/Penguin-2.0-Forewarning-The-Google-Perspective-on-Links

Would you build the link if Google and Bing did not exist?

If you have 2 minutes with a customer, and the law required that you show a random sampling of your links to customer prospects, would you happily show the link to a target customer? Or would it embarrass you?

Did the person giving you the link intend it as a genuine endorsement? This is where widget and infographic links fail.

Do you have to make an argument to justify that it’s a good link? Still my favorite – truly good links require no justification.

Google still takes links into account for determining your pageRank. However, if you aren’t picking those links carefully, you could end up getting hurt by it.

Is you dealership looking to boost your search engine results and rise above the competition?  Content Motive has a variety of services that will boost your dealership’s content quality and referral links.

(Special Finance dealer Case Study)

We have a client that is running campaigns with both adwords and bing, using the same keyword strategy, ads, and budget. Over the past 30 days, these are the results we’ve seen for this client. The campaigns are targeting “bad credit auto loans”

Adwords:
Clicks: 154
Impressions: 12,850
CTR: 1.20%
Avg. CPC: $6.69
Avg Pos.: 3.1
Cost: $1030.80

Bing:
Clicks: 183
Impressions: 15,086
CTR: 1.21%
Avg. CPC: $4.61
Avg. Pos.: 1.74
Cost: $844.45

Both campaigns have the same daily budget, so we’re assuming the difference in cost is due to lower search traffic in Bing. The results are consistent with the Bing selling points for providing a higher position at a lower cost per click. The interesting thing that user behavior is very similar in terms of click through rate.

For more detail information about SEO/SEM please contact:

Kevin Drongowski
Senior Account Manager
Integrated PPC
Questions? 425-780-2774 Call or text

The Marketing Report pulls all Pay-Per-Click (PPC) statistics from Google Analytics, Google AdWords, call tracking, and chat leads, and displays them in an easy-to-understand format so you can track the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts. This report is the most transparent way to view and analyze the following data:

• The number of clicks your ads have received
• The number of impressions (appearances on a search results page) your ads have gained
• The total number of unique (new) visitors that reached your site from the ad campaigns
• The number of lead conversions that resulted from the ad campaigns
• The total amount of money spent on the campaigns
• Network specific data (Google Search vs. Google Display)

Campaign and AdGroup Breakdown

The information above is then broken down at the Campaign and Ad Group level. Campaign level data gives you an overview of how your campaign is performing based on your objectives for that campaign. For example, you can view how your New Cars campaign is performing relative to your Used Cars campaign. Within the campaign, you can view performance statistics at the Ad Group level, which allows you to get a sense for how the ads in each campaign are being searched. You can also see how much of your traffic is coming from desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, as well as what geographic areas your campaigns are targeting.

Inventory-Based Ad Analytics

If your inventory feed is synced with our Digital AMMP Inventory-Specific Advertising Platform, then the AdWords reporting will include another level of analysis. Since we are pulling vehicle-specific information from your inventory and are placing dynamic ads related to your inventory on Google, we can view exactly what kind of activity those vehicles generate from the time they hit a Google search page until the vehicle is sold. When you click the “Details” button on your inventory-specific campaign, you will be able to see a breakdown of every vehicle that is currently being advertised or that has been on the Google network and has since been sold.

Details Page Statistics

The Details page provides a statistical overview including Total Cost. You can also view the Top-Clicked Vehicle Details Pages, Clicks versus Cost for each vehicle, and whether or not that vehicle is sold or still active in your inventory. The Top 10 Viewed Makes and Models provide a great visual to the overall interest of your customers.

Contact Integrated PPC today and we will grade your PPC Program for free!

I’ve noticed a few rumors on the web that Facebook can help your SEO, or that having more likes will boost your Google pagerank. These are (currently) inaccurate, but that doesn’t mean Facebook isn’t a legitimate way to generate traffic and leads.

Facebook falls under the “Content Marketing” strategy. Content marketing is all about putting relevant content out there for customers to find. Where Facebook comes into this strategy is providing content for the customers that have already connected with you in the hopes that they will spread the word.

The best content strategy for Facebook tends to be 1 offer/promotion to every 4 posts of useful content. The goal is to provide value to your followers so that they tell their friends, and as your reach increases, you send the offers that convince them to come to your website and convert. For each new follower, that’s another free impression you have on all future content, because your new posts will show up in their feed.
Facebook advertising can accelerate the process by putting your content in front of the people you want to target, in the hope of getting them to like your Facebook page so they’re part of your audience for future content. Alternatively, you can just have your ads take the user directly to your website.

If your dealership is interested in a Facebook posting service, click here to learn more.

When you hear about a change to a Google algorithm, the knee-jerk reaction is usually “how will this affect my SEO?” Every day, this reaction is becoming more backwards. SEO, as a product, has been inflated by digital marketers over the past 5 years. The reason is that it’s easy to sell a magic bullet that gets you on the top of the Google results for keywords related to your business.

SEO means Search Engine Optimization, so it’s safe to say that the service should be focused on making your site the first choice when a user searches for something relevant to your site. So an SEO expert should be able to make changes to your site, and take action around the web to take advantage of Google’s search algorithms. Google has changed their search algorithms twice a day on average in 2013. So how can you possibly expect to be consistently “optimized” for them.

As the algorithms evolve, and Google cracks down on link building scams, their focus is more and more on providing relevant content for the searcher. This means that the end goal for Google isn’t to pick the site with the most backlinks, or the site with the best metadata keywords. The searcher has a question, and Google wants to answer it with the site that best covers the topic. This is primarily what the Hummingbird update aimed to do: Give searchers relevant answers.

This is where content marketing comes in. Each topic, relevant to your business, that you can cover is essentially another Google query, you’re prepared for no matter what animal Google names their next update after. Sure, keywords will still be important, but I challenge you to write an article on “replacing spark plugs” without ever saying “spark plug.” Google’s bots have gotten smarter as well, they can better understand the message of a single sentence so you don’t need to inject a ridiculous keyword string to make sure all of your bases are covered.

The future of “SEO” will still include doing the essential steps like submitting a sitemap to webmaster tools, and setting up a GooglePlus account for authorship, but the greater focus will be on having content that is useful for searchers. Having great content that you spread across your entire web presence has a much more powerful effect than just showing up at the top of Google’s search results. Great content gets shared. When your content really helps someone, they’ll pass it along to their network, which gives your content extra credibility. Now you have motivated visitors that didn’t even need to perform a search to arrive on your page.

Want to learn more about how your dealership can benefit from having high quality content?  Content Motive has a variety of products that can build your web presence.

Download Flyer: 6th PGI Training Seminar

SCHEDULED EVENTS

Breakfast at 8:30am, Presentations Begin at 9am

How To Build Your Dealership Around Social
– Gary May – Founder, IM@CS Doing The Basics Brilliantly

Dynamic PPC Integration & Analytics
– Nick Gorton – General Manager, Integrated PPC

Content and Organic SEO
– Yago Paramo – Founder, PGI Auto

Social Media Strategies
– JD Rucker – Founder, Dealer Authority

February 20th
Hilton Hotel
300 Lake Washington Blvd SE
Bellevue, WA

RSVP TODAY!
LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE
ONLY 75 SPOTS AVAILABLE!

TO RSVP, Call Courtni at
(425) 379-0483 ext. 109

Congratulations to 2014 Automotive Pinnacle Website Awards Winner Dealer e-Process and Dealerlab.com

Dealer e-Process and Dealerlab.com has been recognized independently as a 2014 Automotive Website Awards recipient for the Pinnacle Platforms award in the Websites category. The well-known automotive website platform was well-deserving of the award, and PCG Consulting is thrilled to honor its hard work through 2013.

The Pinnacle Platform Automotive Website Award in the Websites category sets apart platforms that make it easy to create and manage high-ranking dealership websites. Pinnacle Platform Award winners are recognized for providing websites that have numerous integrated tools, are easy to optimize, are easy to customize and that are adaptable to the latest digital marketing musts.

Dealer e-Process has always been on the cutting-edge of website platform technologies and has been recognized by the AWAs since their launch. This year, Dealer e-Process was recognized for its dedicated customer service, its customized website solutions, its integrated digital marketing tools and its commitment to create original software.

Automotive Website Awards Announced January 24th

PCG Consulting celebrated the 2014 Automotive Website Awards Friday night at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans. During the awards, the best of the best in automotive marketing were honored, with awards across categories such as Websites, CRM Platforms, Mobile Apps, Social Media, Call Training & Tracking, and others. For an in-depth look at all of the 2014 Automotive Website Awards and their recipients, please check out the 2014 AWA Buyer’s Guide where a comprehensive list of all winners has been published. You can order your 2014 AWA Buyers Guide online now.

Dealer e-Process Presented with DrivingSales.com Top Rated Website Provider

Dealer e-Process receives a “Top Rated” Award for Dealer Satisfaction in SEM – PPC and Websites Categories

Downers Grove, Illinois – January 24, 2014 – Dealer e-Process is the recipient of “Top Rated” awards in the SEM – PPC and Websites categories in the fifth annual DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards. The awards were presented at a special event today in conjunction with the 2014 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo.

“It’s an honor to have received a DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction award every year since its inception in the auto industry. I would really like to thank the team at Dealer e-Process for making this happen and keeping our focus where it needs to be – on great customer support and innovation for our dealers,” said Dave Page, Owner of Dealer e-Process.

Dealer e-Process’ search campaigns are designed to reach buyers in all different phases of the car buying funnel; from the highest level, exploratory purchaser, to the customer who has chosen a specific vehicle and is ready to buy. Dealer e-Process uses this knowledge to determine what ads are the most appropriate to show the user at the time of their search. This allows for a more engaging ad that will generate better click-through rates and greater results for the dealer.

“This is a big deal for us at Dealer e-Process. We recently launched “Digital AMMP”, an advanced search engine marketing strategy for dealers. This award should definitely increase our footprint. A special thanks goes out to our dealers for supporting our innovation and the industry we love so much,” said Megan Glick, Digital Marketing Director.

“You don’t work for the award, you work to be the best, but it feels good to be recognized for the efforts of the team”, said Yago Paramo.

“We congratulate Dealer e-Process on winning a ‘Top Rated’ Award in both the SEM – PPC and the Websites categories; and for being recognized by its dealer customers for high levels of excellence and customer satisfaction,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder Jared Hamilton. “In our fifth year of presenting these awards, we feel especially proud that DrivingSales Vendor Ratings continues to help dealers make smart and informed decisions through thousands of peer reviews that lead them to service providers such as Dealer e-Process. We congratulate Dealer e-Process on being recognized for top notch performance by the people to whom their services count the most: the dealer community.”

The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards measure dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services, and are based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified over the calendar year (January – December) at DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings. DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competitor comparisons, and provides dealerships with important information from actual customers who have hands-on experience using vendor products / solutions in their stores. Each rating is verified as coming from an actual dealership employee.

Full award results are available online at Dealer Satisfaction Awards. Award winners are showcased in the Q1 2014 issue of the DrivingSales Dealership Innovation Guide which, in addition to being distributed at the 2014 NADA Convention and Expo, is delivered to every new car dealership nationwide, as well as to the top 100 used car dealerships. For more information on the Dealership Innovation Guide, please visit: DrivingSales Innovation Guide.