Category Archives: automotive seo

Terrestrial radio ad spots have long been a foundation of many car dealerships marketing efforts. In the past couple of years digital radio, on platforms such as Pandora and Spotify, has increased in popularity and taken listeners away from terrestrial radio. With that shift comes a shift in ad dollars as dealerships look to reach their target audience on the new frontier of digital radio. Before dealers sign up for a digital radio campaign they need to be aware of the returns that they’ll most likely get from the campaign.

In the past, a couple of dealerships have reached out to us to investigate a rise in bounce rate on their site. In more than a few occasions I’ve poked into their analytics account to find that the culprit of the rise in bounce rate was a digital radio campaign that the dealership was running. In one case, I saw a site’s bounce rate nearly double on the days that their digital radio campaign ran.

In the analytics accounts that I’ve seen, the engagement metrics for digital radio advertising leaves a lot to be desired. You may expect to see these kinds of results:
• Bounce rate in the low 90’s
• Time on site less than 40 seconds
• Pages/Session less than 1.5

Also, you’ll see very little goal conversions, if any. With these dismal engagement metrics you’ve got to really question the quality of traffic that these campaigns are bringing to your site.

The majority of digital radio users are on mobile devices. With mobile banner ads comes the peril of the accidental clicks from fat finger syndrome. The accidental click rate on mobile banner ads is typically 65%. For digital radio campaigns I expect the accidental click rate to be much higher when you consider that oftentimes the banner ad placement is typically above the radio navigation buttons. A person who accidentally clicked on your ad when they intended to ‘Skip’ that One Direction song on their Taylor Swift Pandora station is not a likely car shopper and will most likely bounce from your site faster than Taylor Swift goes through boyfriends.

Digital radio campaigns aren’t without its benefits. The campaigns will yield lots of impressions at a pretty decent CPM (cost per thousand impressions), which has its benefits when it comes to branding. As a dealership you’ll have to weigh on whether this benefits outweighs the bounce rate hit that your site will take.

We started building a new type of set pages for content, specially focused on new cars.

The pages don’t look different than many other companies new car model pages, what is different are the links to content.

In this example for Larson Nissan, you can see that besides accessing the inventory, brochures, incentives, etc (information that most dealer websites have) we also added pages with model information and trim information. The model and trim pages are build with unique content as required by the latest Google SEO updates.

These pages are not built all at once but several each month, for example you can see that Larson Cadillac has model pages but not trims yet. Whilehttp://www.toyotaoftacoma.com/op-2013-toyota-camry-hybrid-for-sale-near-fife/ it would be easier for us to build it all at once a constant flow of content signals Google that there is new material to index and therefore increases the chances of getting our website crawled and therefore indexed.

Enhancing content with video:

We also build pages for those dealers that have been working with us for a while for the 2013 model line. Notice that in this case we also added pages for the Hybrid models and that we used Toyota Corporate Youtube account videos with custom geo-located content to create video / model pages.

Magic Toyota created high quality videos with What’s Next Media so we open those as a layover instead of cresting a new page (we created pages with them in a different section of the site for indexing purposes). These videos have a specific branding purpose for the dealer so we wanted to keep the customer’s full attention on them.

Simple pages purely for content:

BMW is known for their remarkable number of different sub-models, however we kept it simple for this dealer. Same as for this Audi dealer where links to their incentives pages were more important than other things.

For more information about creating content please check our latest article: Top 5 must knows for dealer content marketing or go to Content Motive for more dealer content marketing and SEO services.

Many auto dealerships that manage their own pay per click aren’t aware of the various guidelines that Google expects their advertisers to follow. That is until they wonder why their ads aren’t getting any traffic and they noticed the dreaded ‘your ad as been disapproved’ icon. Actually, it’s not that dreadful, but knowing what Google’s guidelines are beforehand can save you the effort of having to edit your ad copy later. Here are some of the ad copy guidelines that you need to follow when writing ad copy. For full information Google’s guidelines go to https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1331529?hl=en

A deal you claim in the ad copy has to be on the advertised site.

Example:
Nissan GTR
Be Fast & Furious.
20% Off Vin Diesel’s Stunt Car!
sokittomecars.com

This ad would be disapproved if two of the following things was not present on the site: proof that the GTR was used in a Fast & Furious movie and information about the 20% off a GTR.

Google doesn’t allow misleading or scientifically unverifiable claims.

Example:
Jelly Bean Powered Car
Cut Down On Sweets
And Save Money On Gas!
sokittomecars.com

Common sense and Google would raise a red flag at this ridiculous claim. If you’re going to make claims like these, you need a verification that your claim is accurate and sound from a third party source.

Usage of superlatives such as “best” or “#1”

Example:
Sok It To Me Cars
The #1 Car Dealership.
Best Prices In Soktopia!
sokittomecars.com

This ad would be disapproved for the superlative claims in the ad copy. The words “best” and “#1” are not allowed unless there’s a third party verification listed on the site. In this case, Sok It To Me Cars is neither the best nor #1 dealer in Soktopia.

Adding Google+ Authorship to your custom pages is becoming a vital process for search engine results. This simple process, which adds a simple line of code to your pages (much like a byline on any article), creates a “rich snippet” in Google’s search results that comes complete with the contributor/writer’s name and photo.

Google Authorship is important for several reasons. The first is that these “rich snippets” pop visually next to untagged search results. With a photo and accreditation, these search results stand out from the crowd in a search and generate more visits as a result. Another reason G+ Authorship has been gaining traction in search results is that these “rich snippets” also allow browsers to search for more pages by a listed author.

Having Google Authorship integrated into your pages is a first step toward verified identity and helps establish what Google has termed “Author Rank” (which is not a replacement for page ranking, but a separate system with ties into page rankings).

Because Google Authorship is based on the Author’s validity and reputation, along with deep ties into general page ranking, “rich snippet” author tags may not show up in search results on every single page they’re integrated into, but instead those that Google deems the most authoritative. But they do give a page added validity with the search engine and if the content is unique enough, having an author tag also lends itself to the reputation of the tagged author as well.

Looking for help with your dealership’s search engine marketing and content marketing?  Content Motive has a wide variety of products to improve your websites visits and leads.

When Google generates search results for your keywords, you’ll see a description below the page title, this is called the “Snippet.” The snippet can be an important section to optimize for driving traffic, so what can you do to optimize for that? First, let’s understand where Google looks to create your snippet.

First and foremost, Google will try to find the parts of the page content that best match the keywords you searched for, and will show snippets surrounding those parts. In this case there’s nothing you can optimize other than just having compelling content on your dealer website. Otherwise, Google will use the meta description for the snippet. In the rare case that Google is unable to crawl the page, the snippet may be pulled from the “Open Directory Project.”

This is why it’s important to have good meta descriptions on your pages. The SEO value of the meta-description is very minimal compared to a couple years ago in regard to pagerank. However, by catching the user’s eye with a compelling description, you will drive more traffic to your site.

It’s important to note that Google will also use algorithms to try to provide additional information after the snippet. For example, you may have seen organic search results that have sitelinks. These sitelinks don’t cost anything extra, they’re just pulled directly from your site. Google will also try to pull useful information from your website like the street address to add after the snippet. If your website is the official site of a publicly traded company, the stock ticker will show up.

Could your dealership be being more click throughs from SERP’s, let us optimize your results and get you more leads.  Content Motive is your online dealership marketing experts.

To Your Success,

Kevin Drongowski
PGI Auto
[email protected]

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]