Can your brand become diluted?

I have been working real hard lately to build a very defined brand in the auto industry.  Many of the top level vendor executives know who I am, many do not like me.  Mainly it is because I use my skill and knowledge to dissect some of the poor offerings they are putting out there.  A good example of this is a recent post I did about Dealer.com Social Media.

I have possibly diluted my brand by publishing content in many places.  One thing I have made sure of it is always unique content, meaning I will never publish the same article in more than one place.  Occasionally others will pick it to republish under a creative commons license and I am ok with that.  As an Automotive SEO professional I want people to see my name and know who I am.  I also apply this strategy too for dealers in their marketing efforts.

We are doing some very aggressive microsite strategies for dealers in several markets.  One of the site we just launched for a NC Chevy dealer is starting to pull in national traffic for people looking for infor on the Chevy Silverado and what we are doing for another dealer will effectivly knock all other Cincinnati Ford dealers out of the first page of the search engine results pages.

The question we face when deploying these strategies all the time is it right?

It could possibly affect the OEM's brand in those markets by creating a tough online marketing environment for competing dealers.  Many of these properties we create do show up really well for compenting deaelrs names.  Like this particlar site gets a dencent amount of traffic for people looking for Fairfield Ford.  The real question is it fair to the others who do not employ the same strategies?



Technorati Tags: brand dilution, cincinnati ford, fairfiled ford

Content - Content - Content - Building My Business

Many people in the auto industry take umbrage with some of the things I write.   Mainly because I hold vendors accountable.  I too am a vendor and make mistakes occasionally but with that said I do not do anything that places the client in jeopardy nor will I present things to the automotive community which I have no knowledge of.

I did a recent post about how Pasch Consulting Group violates Google's terms of service.  What was funny he just recently did an automotive seo workshop where he bragged about using this methodology.  I was not in attendance but heard a recording of it.  There were so many things he presented that were off base it was actually laudable.

I am sure Brian Pasch picks up a decent amount of business of the things he publishes.  I personally do not have a marketing site that I use to actively pick up business, but do so through referrals and through the content I publish as well because I display what I feel authority without a pitch and know the car business. 

My first job after leaving the military was selling cars and i have covered every position on the front end of a car dealership to the point of General Manager and have worked in web marketing for over a decade.  These experiences help me become a better service provider while at the same time give me plenty to talk about.

The content I have published helps car people identify with me and shows my passion for the industry.  This great content base has helped develop loyal fans and customers.  At the end of the day that is what it is all about..



Technorati Tags: automotive seo, brian pasch, content marketing

My New Truck in say 2 years?

I just caught a glimpse of the 2011 Ford Ranger as featured at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show.  This truck is going to be sweet with four full size doors.  I have always personally loved the ford Ranger and have owned a few.  I have decided that I will buy this baby from my friends at a Cincinnati Ford Dealer when it becomes available.

I am just wondering what a new vehicle like this will do for the volume of people looking for F150 Price Quotes.  I am sure it will have a negative impact on the traffic.  It should not be a big deal from my friends at Beechmont Ford because they have seen such a dramatic increase in online dealership traffic due to an aggressive automotive seo campaign.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, ford dealer, 2011 ford ranger

Automotive Search Engine Optimization - State of Affairs

I have built a very nice business doing Automotive SEO and Craigslist Posting for Car dealers and it always amazes how full of crap some consultants in the business are.  Just recently I saw a blog post where a self proclaimed automotive SEO guru was pretty much bashing website vendors for stuffing h1 tags in hidden <div tags>.  While at the same time he takes credit for the sucess of a dealers website's seo prowlness stuffed full of H1 tags.

The use of div tags to make content more user friendly is actually a sound practice.  While I agree tha tag stufing it and hiding it in the navagation is black hat.  While at the same time using at as useful user content with easy navigation is a sound practice.  Very simalar to what I did with this mini site for a Cincinnati Ford Dealer.

While each has his own method but in my opinion you should not call people out then take credit for thier work.


Tags: automotive seo, cincinnati ford, craigslist for car dealers

I hate I missed it - NADA 2009

I missed the opportunity to go to 2009 NADA this but have already booked travel to Las Vegas for the Digital Dealer Conference.  I do have some great contacts that did attend but were relegated to the exhibitors area.  I am sure over the next few days we will get some great updates from some of the people in attendance.

I personally have decided to enter the fray of offering Automotive SEO services in the public arena.  Currently all of my business is coming from other vendors or through networking directly with dealers.  I have yet to finish my marketing site or even make a big direct marketing push but that is soon to change.



Technorati Tags: nada 2009, automotive seo

Help is a two way street

I deal with many automotive vendors daily some interactions are perfect and actually are teamwork between competitors. A good example is Matt Watson over at Vinsolutions helped me with an RSS feed to help my populate some content for a New Jersey Hyundai Dealer and in return I showed him some ways to improve the visibility of his Automotive CRM Software.

I am a direct competitor with him on a craigslist for car dealers product and we still helped each other.  This is very different from the interactions I had with Dealer.com, even after being contact by one of their executives. 

The online world is small and being an you get more by helping each other versus trying to protect myths.  One thing is you do what you say you are going to do or you keep loosing you your name and product descriptions.  I am suprised that when I did this article about Dealer.com Pay Per Click that they did not follow up with me like they claimed, but then again they offerend me an education and cannot get their keywords back!!

Technorati Tags: automotive crm software, dealer.com pay per click, craigslist for car dealers

Join em or beat em either way is a win

I have been toying with the idea of using wordpress for dealer micro sites for quite sometime now and finally broke down today and set one up.  It is designed to help a dealer generate leads the 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid and my friend Alvin Newton has one set up for the Saburu Impreza.  After speaking with my programmer tonight about recoding a plugin to send adf/xml leads to a dealers crm/ilm we brainstormed on using wordpress as a full fleged car dealer website and may be real close in bringing this about.

This may be the way to go to offer dealers a very low cost way to build an online presence that does not require a contract or a monthly bill for the website itself.  Basically it would just be some core file changes to wordpress to set different levels of permissions and to pull in inventory listings.  Then the dealers only cost would be their inventory solution which if they use a lot service company or do it themselves it will be really easy but eventually we would look to use a solution like AutoWebEngine which can poll a dms or pull a feed from from a lot service.

So for a basic install with limited design work a dealer will be able to have a full functioning website for less than $1500 with minimal mothly cost for hosting less than $10.00 a month and if they want top end design work it could be done for around $1000.  So they could get a high end website launced and ready to go for less than $2500.

The only downside would be content, they would have to do it themselves or hire it out as well.  Still even if they used a content service they should be under $4000.  I should have this ready to goto market by the end of first quarter 2009.   This will be a huge win for the dealer community when it happens.

What will be great about using wordpress as the CMS is that once the site indexes the SEO will be instant as I proved with a post a couple weeks ago about dealer search engine marketing.  Basically that post is still beating a website vendor for their name and product descriptions, which should be unheard of.

I have had a couple vendors approach me for white label SEO service for their dealers websites but none have entered into serious negotiations with me yet.  One of the mid size players has even offered me a reseller agreement but I would not sign it because they also wanted a no compete, not going to happen.  Now if they wanted to contract me to consult for them or provide white label SEO with a decent minimum then it may be possible for them to get a no compete out of me but without consideration I am not going to give up development plans just for the right to sell a product.

Another vendor did want me to consult them on thier platform but they wanted a NDA.  Meaning I could not list them as a client or a reference.  However they did not want to pay the fee I felt was warranted to give up that right.

I will give it until the end of the year before I start the development of an inexpensive website solution for car dealers to see if all of the cross talk means anything.  I will either join up and help a vendor market themselves and their clients or go it on my own and take business from them.  Either way it is a win, because my craigslist solution for car dealers is really catching on like wild fire and I am picking up clients daily, except over the holidays.  The good thing is I will have a client list in place no matter which direction I go.

car dealer websites, automotive digital marketing, 2009 ford escape hybrid, saburu impreza