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The recent economic recession hitting the automotive industry has taken serious tolls on the auto dealership industry, which is why it is more critical than ever to optimize your dealership website for maximum e-commerce potential. No matter what auto manufacturers your dealership deals—know that any dealership can take simple steps to start ranking higher in the search engines. In this guide we’re going to give you the lowdown of 5 easy-to-do steps that’ll ensure your dealership website will rocket its way up the search engine results.

1. Establish A Strong Relationship With Your Website Vendors
If you’re currently working with a website vendor, know that it’s critical that you make the most out of your relationship and try to build a working relationship that’ll be conducive to more efficient workflow. Though many website vendors have a notorious reputation for atrocious customer service, you’ll have to be patient and work through the hurdles to ensure you’re getting the service you want and need.

2. Find a way to get search-engine friendly content on your website
Whether you’re using an in-house staff writer or you’re outsourcing your content to a third party—it’s critical that you find a way to get quality content regularly posted on your website.
•  Many auto dealership websites lack severely when it comes to search-engine friendly content. In addition, most auto dealership websites are ubiquitous with flash media, which the search engines can’t spider; therefore, most have difficulty ranking in the search engines. If this is currently the case with your website, try talking to your website vendor or third-party web master to fix some of the inherent web design problems preventing the search engines from spidering your site.

• To combat the non-spiderable components installed on your website, and to make sure you’re getting adequate content refreshed on your site—create a workaround system that’ll allow you to post new content on a daily-to-weekly basis. One of the best (and cheapest) ways to achieve this is with a blog.

• Where there sometimes seems to be a negative reaction to the word “blog,” know that a blog is simply a systemized way to easily post new content. Whether you  choose to write about newly arrived vehicle models, promotions or service deals—a blog is an excellent way to nail a handful of birds with one stone. A well-crafted blog will help you generate:

• Spiderable content that’s search-engine friendly
• Link Juice
• Potential customers
• Excellent promotional possibilities
• A chance to showcase other areas of your dealership, like your service department, to boost revenue

3. Systematizing a weekly schedule to post new content
Whether you choose to generate your content in-house or you choose to outsource to a third party—make sure your copywriters or third party knows what you’re aiming for short and long-term.

•  Whether it’s a blog post or an article, you’ll want to make sure the information is informative and not too promotional.

• You’ll also want to make sure to post one to two articles or post per week at the  minimum.

•  Whether you choose to shoot for 2 articles per week or 5 articles per week, commit    to a long-term schedule and continue to meet or exceed your weekly goal.
•    Again, make sure your content is authoritative, informational and top-notch. Make sure to have a proofreader proof all your content before posting live.

4. Website Health Check
Aside from content, you’ll also want to make sure and do a routine health check examination of your website. Whether you, your web developer, or your web vendor controls your website—make sure you check the following on a regular basis:
•    Check your website for broken links
•    Depending on your link report, you’ll need to fix any broken links you might have
•    Update your sitemap
•    Optimize your Meta descriptions, title tags, and Alt tags
•    Keep track of your analytics data and optimize, adjust and week according to what   you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong
•    If you’re working with a website vendor, remain persistent with your needs and be patient when dealing with customer service despite how challenging that might be.

5.    Actively pursue high-quality/authoritative links
Another key component to help your website gain authoritativeness, search-engine friendliness, and ultimately rocket your way up the organic listings is high quality, highly authoritative links. In order to achieve this, you’ll want to:

• Include your URL on all promotional materials

•  If you belong to auto associations, the chamber of commerce, or any other community, statewide, or nationwide organizations or institutions—make sure to use those links as well as generate back linking.

• Make sure to list your website in the top directories. Use Strongest Links to find the top-rated directories on the web as well as detailed information on each of the directories. Aim to list in the top 20 directories.

Bottom Line

Whether your dealership’s website is operating in the black or operating in the red, use these 5 surefire steps to outrank your competition and dramatically increase your web traffic and subsequently your showroom traffic.

In our previous blog, How To Save $300,000 On Your Car Dealership Webpage In Over 5 Years, we discussed how dealer website vendors like Cobalt Group, BZ Results, Izmo Cars, ADP and others often offer SEM services with an expensive price tag and a host of unforeseen technical tribulations after you sign up. In today’s blog, however, we’re going to take an investigative look at the industry at large and disclose some of the shady business practices and conflict of interest issues that have steadily grown ubiquitous in the major-money-making auto-dealer website vendor industry.

Know What You’re Getting Into
For some time, a number of dealer website vendors have been suspected of unethical policies and shady biz tactics regarding conflict of interest issues and non-compete business practices with their auto dealership clients. Since dealer website vendors, by in large, monopolize the SEM markets for auto dealerships, it’s critical that the auto dealerships opting for the services first know what they’re getting into before they agree to relinquishing their e-commerce over to a vendor!

A Deeper Look At Auto Dealer Website Vendors
To get a better idea of the background of dealer website vendors, we’ll take a deeper look inside the Cobalt Group. Cobalt was one of the first auto web site vendor companies in the game; they made partnerships early on with some OEM’s. Recently, Cobalt made an agreement with General Motors that makes them GM’s preferred vendor. The result of this business marriage creates conflict for GM auto dealerships. GM dealers are now in many cases strong armed to use Cobalt solutions or else they can’t get a hyperlink to the local dealer. If, for example, Microsoft did something like this–there would be anti-trust talk; nevertheless, GM and Cobalt still get away with it.

In addition, Cobalt’s 2009 revenue is expected to hit $170 million this year. By the end of next year, John Holt—CEO of the Cobalt Group—anticipates that his company will be operating Web sites for 10,000 of the 22,000 auto dealers in the country! This is bad on a number of levels. For one, Cobalt (as do most all auto dealership website vendors) pay little attention to conflict of interest issues between competing clients. If you live in a metro area and own a GM-based auto dealership with a Cobalt website—chances are your competing GM dealership down the road also uses a Cobalt website. Secondly, dealers currently pay a monthly fee of about $500 per month for a Web site, with added services such as e-mail and search engine marketing bringing the total bill to as much as $10,000 per month for some dealers. With Cobalt’s projected growth and increasing monopoly over GM dealers, those rates may quickly jump to unprecedented levels.

Conflict Of Interest
Aside from Cobalt, many other vendors like BZ results, Izmo Cars, ADP and others are also known for having conflict of interest with their clients. If you’re curious as to how many of your dealership’s competitors also use the same website vendor, simply Google the competitors in your area and have a look at their websites. The results will undoubtedly be staggering. Another huge con to vendor services is that they offer you a website that’s not even conducive to SEO. BZ results, for example, offers “solutions” that include webpage design littered with “bling” and “flash.”  Though you may initially think it looks good, the truth is—search engines can’t even read it, much less rank it! In addition, there are much more technologically advanced programs that are more cost efficient and SEO friendly.

Bottom Line
When you look at the cost breakdown of most website vendor’s e-commerce solutions, the attached price tag is astounding: An inventory solution like IOL or others may run 200 dollars a month.  A good web site may run $2500 to $5000 a month, while a good CRM tool can cost well over $1000 a month plus all the other necessities with heavy premiums. So, if you look at the total cost these companies are charging ($5,000 to 6,000 per month) it comes out to be about $60,000 a year or more per client. The real knee jerker is that most of these companies like Cobalt serve more than 5000 dealers nationally, which equates to a revenue of upwards of $300,000,000 annually!

Why pay someone this amount of money when they clearly don’t have your dealership’s best interest in mind?

With the recent economic hard-hits to the auto and auto dealership industries, many dealerships are finding it more and more difficult to generate the sales they need to stay operating in the black. One key marketing tool that can help boost your sales is email marketing—when done correctly. Recent research done by the Direct Marketing Association revealed that email marketing in 2008 generated an average return of investment of $45.06 for every dollar spent on the initial campaign!  In this blog, we’re going to show you the top 10 ways to correctly run your dealership email marketing efforts so you can separate yourself from the competition.

1. Quality Content Is King

Above all else, quality content is king. Leave out all the noise and fluff and stick to what’s important. Spend the time getting to really know your market and send only what interests them the most. Don’t send a bunch of junk as filler. We are all familiar with the ubiquitous spam emails that pile up in our junk email boxes, yet when it comes to email marketing copy, many dealerships continue to make the same mistakes by loading their emails with a plethora of sales copy that no human wants to read. The consequence is little-to-nill conversion.  In addition, your emails are likely getting picked up by spam filters. The key to writing effective copy that will promote sales is to write engaging copy that’s authoritative, easily digestible and informative. In time, these types of emails (with the right message) will build loyalty, trust, and sales.

2. Build Your Email Lists: Once you’ve started to build loyalty with customers, keep the momentum rolling and start collecting email addresses. Use regular freebees and specials to lure them in, and once you’ve gained their trust, ask your future customer for their email address so you can inform them of upcoming, even more personalized special offers.

3. Build Trust by Announcing Regular Specials

Once you’ve started collecting email addresses, you can send your customers and subscribers regular updates letting them know what your specials are. Sending regular discount offers is a great way to get your customers familiar with you and your site. Ideally, you want to turn first-time customers into regular customers who will buy from you again and again. Offering free services like carwashes, detailing and tire rotations give the perfect opportunity for new potential customers to come down to your dealership and peruse your auto selection while they wait for their free services!

4. Split Testing

So you’ve spent the time to write great copy for your email blast and you’ve sent it out to no avail. One of the key things to remember is that nobody gets it right the first time, which is why you need to test, test, and test again—until you get it right. It is critical that you or your marketing team test the numerous variables (one variable at a time) that combine together to create an effective campaign. These variables include the offer, the creative, the list, the links and the landing page. It may take several test launches, but in the end its worth it to take the time and really examine what you did right and what you did wrong so you can better amalgamate the right marketing components to your to-be customers.

5. Landing Pages

One of the biggest offenders in email marketing is the landing page. Do not just “drop off” the recipient onto the marketers’ home page. Instead, take the time and send them to a custom-designed landing page that is consistent with the offer in the email. Landing pages prevent the recipient from getting lost and ensure that they see what you want them to see first.

6. Link Placement

Perhaps the second biggest offender in email marketing is the placement of the links. You or your marketers should make sure the link is placed either as the (call to action) or just following your email’s call to action. You’re recipient’s attention span will generally be a fraction of a second unless you hook them right away!  Position your call to action and links within the first paragraph of the message. One of the biggest blunders that’ll cost you is to make the email recipient search the message by scrolling to find the link and the overall meaning of the message.

7. Follow up With Your Leads

You can use email to follow up with people you have spoken with personally, but who have not made a purchase. Offer to answer any additional questions they may have, and let them know that you are available to speak with them at their convenience. This can dramatically increase your chances of closing a sale by providing your leads with extra information they’re not expecting.

8. Market Other Departments, Not Just Auto Sales

More often than not, auto dealerships fail to market the other departments of their business including parts service, body shop finance, and auto repair, which are all huge opportunities to generate a ton of cash even when sales are down. Use engaging copy to inform both current and potential customers of your service and why its better than the competition. Let your customers know your mechanics are manufacturer-certified and are more thoroughly trained than the average Joe Shmo mechanic.

9. Make Sign-Up Easy

If you’re trying to run an email marketing campaign, remember—you only need their email address. You might want their first name, so you can personalize their email, but even this should be optional. Don’t require postal address, last name, and especially phone number. Requiring a phone number can often cut your signups by at least 80%. If you choose to go with fields like: prefixes, birthday, or gender—be prepared to get zero returns. Why make it hard?

10. Stay on Target

Know your target market and don’t allow yourself to stray off course. Some marketers randomly send emails to people who have absolutely no interest in what is being advertised. Not only will this type of desperation deliver a very low response rate it can increase your spam complaints. Ask every customer and site visitor if they are interested in receiving e-mail advertisements and promotions from you.

If your email marketing efforts are unsuccessful, take some time to mull over these points. If you think that your email marketing is loaded with sales copy, it could be a sure-fire indication why your efforts are unsuccessful. Take the time and use these tools to pinpoint what your customers want, and then give it to them.

Are you considering using a dealership website vendor for your auto dealership? If your answer is yes, then you need to know that website vendors offer a host of costly tribulations you can otherwise avoid by using professional web design services from the get go! In fact, if you factor in the costly fees associated with most website vendors, the average amount your dealership could be saving over a five year period is nearly—$300,000 dollars! Here are some of the dealership website vendors you may already know about:

• Izmo Cars
• Dealership.com
• bz.com
• Dealeron.com
• Dealersedge.com
• ADP Business Solutions

The Cons Associated With Dealership Website Vendors
Along with the sheer cost of the services, dealership website vendors also present a host of problems you probably want to avoid incurring! Here’s a list of those problems:

• Many dealership website vendors give you very little when it comes to your website’s overall control.

• If problems arise or something needs to be fixed—you’re at the dealership website vendor’s mercy.

• If you want to add a page to your website it can cost you up to $750.00 dollars just to do so.

• If you can’t pay the premiums, the dealership website vendors will literally take your site down.

• You don’t own the rights to your own site—the dealership website vendor does!

• The average cost of service is between per month is around $2,500 to 3,000 dollars!

Many of these dealership website vendors claim to offer marketing solutions that’ll generate Internet traffic, leads, profits and conversions. These services also claim to give you the best in Lead Management Technology and are conducive to Search Engine Optimization. The truth is that none of the above is true, and in the end—your website will be anything but search-engine friendly.

Start Bringing The Traffic Right To Your Showroom

If you opt to go with professional web design and and use SEO principles, your dealership will just keep gaining momentous authority in the search engines. You’ll have someone working for you, not against you. Not to mention, you’ll always be entitled to all your website’s rights regardless if you drop the service. In the end, you’ll save thousands of dollars in expenses; you’ll have your own website custom designed to where you have total control; you’ll be able to add specials easily; you’ll be able to easily support PPC and SEO marketing efforts; and you’ll be able to update inventory for well under $7000!

Bottom Line
Here’s the breakdown between dealership website vendors vs do it yourself:

* $3000 per month multiplied by over 5 years = $300,000

*  Do it yourself = $10,000

*   Savings = $290,000

Though the numbers are staggering—this is not a sales pitch. It’s a reality check! Why waist $290,000 in over five years when you could get far superior results for a fraction of the cost by opting with a website of your own?