In the upcoming issue of Auto Dealer Monthly is an important article: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Factors.
This is important because there has been a trend of late to focus on other things such as microsites, social media, and pay per click marketing. Going into 2010, SEO seems to be less “sexy” than the others. This is a mistake.
Strong search engine optimization is still an extremely important aspect of any car dealer marketing strategy. It still drives the highest volume and most relevant traffic and should not be dismissed away because of the “razzle dazzle” of the other services.
Don’t get me wrong – they are all important and automotive social media is something that I take personally, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of the basics: SEO. Here is a preview of 5 of the top 10 factors. Be sure to read the full story when the magazine comes out next month.
#10 – The Basics
You need a sitemap. Robot.txt can help. Friendly (not dynamic) URL structures are strongly recommended. I call these and other smaller factors “The Basics” because just about everyone in the industry is doing them now. If not, it’s really not that huge of a deal as these factors are small in the scheme of things, but every little bit helps.
#9 – Domain Age and Commitment
This is the one factor where the dealer and website provider have less control. The older the domain, the better, and you can’t “roll back the miles” no matter what you do. What you do have control over is the commitment aspect. While it has never been confirmed, most agree that Google considers the length of time a domain is registered in their algorithm, especially if it’s new. Registering a domain for at least 2 years is strongly recommended.
#8 – Inbound Links: Diversity
This is the least important aspect of the most important factor in SEO: link-building. Diversity is when you’re getting inbound links from many different websites on different Class-C IP addresses. The more diverse, the better, but no matter what anyone tells you, an inbound “spam” link is still worthless even if it’s diverse. More on that later.
#7 – Unique HTML Content
Content is king. It always has been and always will be. The more unique, high-quality, fresh HTML content you have on your website, the more likely it will be to rank for keywords (especially long-tail keywords). In many industries, content is even more important. Until car dealers start putting more unique content on their sites regularly, the need is not as high as in other industries. Remember, you’re not competing against Google. You’re competing against your competitors. If you have quality content and they do not, you have the advantage.
#6 – Inbound Links: Relevance
Inbound links are, again, extremely important. Relevance of the links and the sources of the links contributes to how effective they are as “votes”. Getting a link from someone’s basket-weaving blog is nice, but a link from their automotive enthusiast blog is much better.
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Don’t forget to pick up a copy of next month’s Auto Dealer Monthly to find out what the top 5 factors are. We will link to it from TK Carsites once it’s published.
