Automotive SEO – Facts and Fiction
The automotive SEO world is heating up among the blogosphere and it is great to see many people so passionate about their trade. I too perform automotive search engine optimization in addition to helping dealers advertise on craigslist.org. My automotive career has taken a huge turn since I reached out to Jeff Kershner awhile back. Went from fighting for budget to being part of it.
Dealers are being forced to compete not only with each other online but also lead generation sites, affiliate sites, Tier II Regional Marketing and Tier I OEM marketing. This creates a virtual battle field for them to navigate especially when they are forced to make decisions about things they do not understand such as search engine optimization. While in principal it is easy to understand even for the non tech savvy person, in about 30 minutes I could have someone that cannot check their email have a decent grasp of what it is. It is the methods touted as gospel that makes the mine field tougher to navigate.
I have sat back and watched and laughed at things published by people in automotive marketing for the last two years and have rarely stepped up to the plate to cut through the BS unless I was personally involved but now that my livelihood is determined how my skill set is perceived it is time to help other consultants and dealers cut through the smoke.
Automotive Video Search Engine Optimization -
Is being touted as a marketing channel with used car photos bouncing around with a computerized voice over is garbage and spam and may even go as far as alienating a potential customer. One industry guru even suggest optimizing video tags for competitive dealers names and calls this VSEO. Video SEO is a waste of time and marketing dollars unless you are going to take the time to do professional videos and captivate your audience not bore the tears out of them. A TV commercial uploaded to youtube.com is not what people going to that site want to see unless maybe it was really outstanding such as the Badger or Super Bowl Commercials. A commercial about your midnight madness sale if it is even seen by a customer prior to the sale is a waste of time and effort in these environments unless you can find a way to drive some serious traffic to it.
What makes it attractive is it is almost instant and that makes it easy for snake oil salesmen to peddle. Matt at Vinsolutions did a great post about why it is instant and it has nothing to do with the medium as much as it has to do with where it is published. Any content on a high traffic, highly trusted site is going to have almost instant search engine optimization. However we need to remember that sites like Youtube are social networks in of themselves so be prepared to be scolded if die hards see bouncing .jpeg’s of your used car inventory as the only content you provide.
Google Base is an Automotive SEO Tool (HUH?)
Google base has ZERO Search Engine Optimization Benefit. It is not a link from Google to your inventory item. The only way to have google base listing show in the search engine results pages is for your site to be completely ecommerce enabled, meaning there is a way for people to buy it completely online with a shopping cart application and arrange shipping. One consultant claims:
Google Base is an ideal SEO tool for selling cars, trucks and other vehicles. Cutting edge car dealers have started to use Google Base as part of their Automotive SEO strategy. Because of how Google Base can be setup, an SEO consultant can use this system to create greater visibility for their car inventory on the Internet.
Any consultant who claims this really needs to be watched all the way around. Google does not even index it’s own “base”. (Googlebase Robot.txt file) All results in their search parameters and index are an <iframe> of a Java Script and the links are google redirects which means none of it is picked up by the search engines. A real SEO consultant knows this, ones selling smoke and mirrors know this too.
Having access to dealers web traffic statistics on a daily basis I have yet to see any referral traffic from Google Base. Seeing how is is primarily a “doorway” page, thus not really meeting googles own guidelines, because listing are not displayed there it is just link to listings it really provides very little value unless you are completely ecommerce enabled, that does not mean lead submission and a credit app.
For the non tech savvy please trust me when I tell you that google base provides ZERO SEO benefit unless you have a full featured shopping cart and I do not think that I have heard of a dealer selling a car ever from googlebase since they stopped populating search results with the whole index. You can contact me and I can explain it better if need be. A saving grace is your cars will show up on Google Base not the shopping search if consumers go there and look, but why would they when there are a lot better sites to shop for cars on and they are not directed to them on search queries.
Links or Content for Automotive SEO? - How about Both
I constantly debate with a good friend of mine, JD Rucker from TK Carsites, about the value of links and content. It is no doubt that both are important. Without links the search engines cannot find your content, unless you have a sitemap that pings and updates with new content, however with poor content you need more links. With static content you need a ton of links. With an .xml sitemap pinging the search engines with content updates you don’t need many links at all you just need a source of content. Sounds like a double edged sword to me.
This is something we go ’round and ’round over. Content is King, Traffic is Supreme and unless the links are from a trusted source they need to bring traffic. However enough links will cause a brick to rise in the search engines. Hiding content div tags that do not enhance the user experience is search engine manipulation not optimization. I am of the opinion that sites would be deindexed if they were given a manual review.
Where is the Automotive SEO Trust Factor?
Establishing search engine trust is something I never hear or see discussed in automotive SEO forums or on blogs. Sure some SEO consultants will pick up on what I am about to say and publish a case study and claim to be an authority on it.
You build search engine trust buy linking out to to other sites that are not your own. This is the world wide web not the all roads lead to me to throw pop ups and auto played audio in your customers face. I see in the very near future sites being penalized for not linking out to other sites, with the changes comming down the pipe. If you have 500 links pointing to your site and have zero outbound links you are going to start looking pretty selfish in the eyes of the search engines and be penalized accordingly.
Directory Submissions have Little Value in Car Dealer SEO
Say what huh? On of the most trusted sites on the web is the hand edited directory at www.dmoz.org another is www.dir.yahoo.com they both started from zero entries too. Directory submissions can build hundreds of links in a short time and will help your site get out of the sandbox and start ranking instantly for some of your key terms money terms like the dealership name and brand and location. The other more elusive terms are tougher to rank for such as model names and competitive market areas take a little more finesse than directory submissions.
Indexed inventory is good for dealer SEO
I did a post here a while back about indexed inventory and it looks like one of the bigger players changed how they handle phantom inventory. Good thing they paid attention before all of their sites were thrown into the supplemental index. Indexing inventory is a good thing if all of the items have accurate descriptions and the sold entries are handled properly. If either one of those elements are missing you are better off to frame it in and build more site content.
Ok I have covered a lot of ground here and have other elements to cover in a later post. Things like spamming social media, redundant content, social media optimization, linking strategies and blog search engine optimization I suggest you subscribe to my feed below or email updates up top.
I have also added two new features here. One will help you with your own search engine optimization and the other will keep the troll comments off.
- All comment links are now rel=”do_follow” which means if you comment you get a link to your site with SEO value.
- Comments must use a real name and use the website field back to your business or a profile page.
If you value my content here please help support it give me a call and ask me about my craigslist service for car dealers or buy something from the sponsers. 912-266-1629
Paul Rushing912-266-1629
www.ismintraining.com
SEGA Systems, LLC
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[...] Originally posted here: Automotive SEO – Facts and Fiction about Car Dealer SEO | Internet … [...]
Paul, since I’m the person who you quote in your Google Base comments and I’m not sure what “Any consultant who claims this really needs to be watched all the way around” really means, let me respond.
When I use the term “Automotive SEO” I speak of all ways in which car dealers can get their name and inventory presented on the Internet without PPC. Google Base, Vast.com and Craigslist all offer free posting of dealer inventory that are included in my definition of Automotive SEO.
This is what Google states on their website: “Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content, which we’ll make searchable on Google (if your content isn’t online yet, we’ll put it there). You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they do related searches. In fact, based on your items’ relevance, users may find them in their results for searches on Google Product Search and even our main Google web search.”
At face value, this statement should interest any automotive marketing consultant. It interested us because Google claims eventually Google Base will appear in search results which would be free and to me that’s what SEO is all about.
The fact that some of these free services have live links and other do not is not a reason to say that they cannot effective. For Google Base it is too early to judge where this platform is going.
A year ago not many people were talking about Craigslist for selling cars and now it’s a hot topic. Google Base is still in BETA and if we can post cars into their system automatically and at little cost to see how things work for sale, why wouldn’t we add it when we are already loading their inventory into a few other systems?
So, it may be that the word SEO is bothering you when Google Base is not indexing their pages into Google main index during it’s BETA mode. However, people are using Google Base and searching their database.
If Google Base continues to grow in popularity, our clients will be there. If it does not amount to anything, at least we tried.
Automotive SEO is all about testing and measuring results and if Google Base is a bust, I’ll be the first to say it when the Google Base system matures.
Vast.com and Craigslist seem to be working well for many people so if we continue to test and measure, dealers will benefit.
Brian Pasch, CEO
Pasch Consulting Group
Brian you really need to read the guidelines before you claim that it is an automotive SEO tool when in fact dealers will not see results from google base unless it meets the guideline that have been set up.
Google uses google base to power its shopping engine. Right now they are scrapping ebay listings into the their shopping engine. The only way to get cars to show there are if the listings meet the guidelines ebay mets the guidelines.
The way you present it it looks authoritative and it is smoke. You like to do your case studies as a marketing pitch. Show me how much traffic dealers are gaining from this “exposure” from a reliable tracking source.
To submit items to google base is not rocket science and in fact almost ALL inventory providers export dealers inventory to the base. So it is inventory distribution not SEO and it does not require any effort at all for the most part for dealers.
Just like my dealers that see huge benefits from my craigslist service, they get tremendous traffic and leads, it is still not seo it is inventory distribution.
The only benefit they see seo wise is when their craigslist and back page listings show in the SERPS because the listings are only temporary the links have ZERO SEO value.
So is craigslist a SEO tool? Not at all it is a traffic and leads source.
Inventory distribution is marketing not automotive SEO.
Misinforming people and disguising what they are already getting from another provider as a service is as unethical as ripping off charities and calling it fund raising.
Let me say that I disagree with your casual comment that all dealers are already posting their cars into Google Base. This is just a cheap shot when you know that all dealer platform providers do not offer that by default or without a charge.
The cars we post in Google Base do comply and do get listed. We have a fully compliant XML feed into Google Base. No smoke at all and why you would claim otherwise is defamatory.
You can see many cars from Bell Honda listed and active if you go into Google Base Vehicles search and type “Honda Accord Phoenix AZ”.
As far as the benefit of Google Base long term, the jury is still out. Testing will continue.
Secondly, you seem very focused on the definition of Automotive SEO and you also seem critical of my use of the term.
To create an easier communication flor in our industry, I will start using the term Inventory Distribution when I speak about VAST, Craiglist and Google Base and not SEO.
Yes when I search google base for Honda Accord Phoenix AZ is see a ton of cars including bell Honda.
Also when I search autobase.com in Google Base I see thousands of listings. That would imply that autobase is already distributing it for them.
Now when I search for Honda Accord Phoenix AZ in the google shopping search which is powered by google base I do not see any cars for Bell Honda or otherwise.
http://www.google.com/products?q=Honda+Accord+Phoenix+AZ&hl=en
People shopping on Google are going to use the shopping engine not drill down into google base to look for that elusive car.
You can test all you want but until listings meet the guidelines they will not show in the search engine results pages or the shopping engine.
Get cars to populate like Axle Shafts then you have done something with value.
I’d like to wade in on this google Base discussion just a little:
First, while it is true that Google Base is in Beta, the fact is that it has been there in some form for over 5 years that I am aware of. Google has struggled finding a place and fuunctionality for Google Base as have many long term SEO practitioners such as myself.
Second, Google does say that it will take content, product listings, etc. and that they may appear in the standard rankings, but they do not guarantee it and the results have been very sporadic for even e-commerce applicable products.
Third, people do not tend to use Google’s vertical searches much at all, including the Shopping choice. This is why Google went to Universal Search Results to automatically serve the vertical search results in situations where it is helpful.
All in all, Google Base is something that I would utilize since it is free, but nothing that I would count on at the moment.
Thanks for your input Al. Google has set some pretty strict guidelines on having google base listings to show in the search verticals and none of the distribution partners other than ebay is meeting them.
You have to have a shopping cart application on the inventory item for listing to show in the search verticals.
Also unless you are setting the url to point back to the inventory item directly on your site you are sending visitors on your cars to another website and not your own.
[...] 17, 2009 A colleague in the office yesterday passed me an article entitled “Automotive SEO-Facts and Fiction,” but what came with it were indeed some illusory facts, opinionated fiction, and a fueled [...]
I’ll go ahead and toss out a grenade as well…the user experience of a crappy, animated still photo used car promo with a Max Headroom voice-over is obviously low, just as you said. No one should expect one of those videos to “sell” anything. Still, the concept of manipulating search results with all forms of content – even crappy used car videos uploaded to YouTube – shouldn’t be discounted. At this point, there’s no reason NOT to do it. While I think your argument that some consumers will find this form of advertising obnoxious has some legs, isn’t that the case with all forms of advertising? I say go for it – it’s not going to hurt you ever, and who knows – maybe someone will find your inventory on YouTube and hook up for a full-pop deal. If nothing else, it gives you a chance to get your name in front of someone. I just hope any dealers reading this aren’t paying much (if anything) for that service.
How about installing this plugin so I don’t have to keep checking back for your response (assuming of course my comment is blog-worthy and you’re not too busy!)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Not to tell you your business or anything, just trying to help out.
Jason the real question is how long will youtube allow stuff like that to remain?
Surely they like the free content but there are a lot better ways to use youtube as a marketing channel than spamming them with crappy vids.
btw – Took you advice and activated the plugin. I am working on a redesign as time allows and just not sure how everything will work together when I port the content over to a different server.
Thanks for your input
[...] when an automotive SEO consultant accused me of “defaming” him when I pointed out in an automotive seo post that some of the things he was claiming were false and misleading and I still stand by that. I [...]
Grand piece, Christian Dillstrom said this piece is worth of reading, you are doing a fantastic job as mobile & social media marketing shark is pointing towards you.
This is a very interesting post. Internet marketing consulting doesn’t often see such success with automotive SEO. I think this will be very helpful to a lot of people. Thanks for sharing.
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Automotive SEO – Facts and Fiction
Dealers are being forced to compete not only with each other online but also lead generation sites, affiliate sites, Tier II Regional Marketing and Tier I OEM marketing. This creates a virtual battle field for them to navigate especially when they are forced to make decisions about things they do not understand such as search engine optimization.
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