Link Building Short and Sweet

You’ve probably heard lots about the importance of links for automotive seo. It’s true, more links are better. That’s because search engines are measuring your relative importance and relevance using links.

The more links you have from relevant sites, the more important you are. Search engines build a huge pyramid shaped structure based on all links pointing to your dealer site.

Think of links as votes. More important pages have more votes.

Search engines determine relevance based on hyper text links and the overall relevance of the linking page and site to the topic searched. So, if you have links from 500 sites that deal exclusively with the Toyota Camry, then you’ll appear more relevant for that topic.

Of course, the reality is far more complicated. But keep these basic rules in mind and you can understand how links and chatter influence rankings:

• More links from relevant sites = More leverage
• Relevant link text = More relevance
• Link position on the page matters
• Social – how many people are discussing your brand and site on social media – appears to matter too.

Keep these basic elements in mind when analyzing a link for automotive seo purposes.

Site Structure: Page by Page

Once again, link text matters. If one page on your site has 40 inward links from other pages, and the text of that link contains ‘Toyota Camry’, then search engines will judge that page more relevant.

And, once again, there’s more to this rule. Keep the basics in mind:

• Closer to your home page (fewer clicks to get from the home page to another page) = More important = More leverage
• More links with relevant link text = More relevance to that phrase

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Quick Fix

One way to solve the problem is using the the canonical tag.The canonical tag is a page level meta tag that is placed in the HTML header of a webpage. It tells the search engines which URL is the canonical  version of the page being displayed. It's purpose is to keep duplicate content out of the search engine index while consolidating your page’s strength into one ‘canonical’ page.

How is the canonical tag used?

The canonical tag is a relatively quick solution to resolve duplicate content. If your website generates and displays the same (or very similar) content on multiple URLs, the canonical tag could be used to bucket them together and assign one master (canonical) version. Lets look at a list of common duplicate content URLs.

•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm (the main page)
•  h ttp://www.dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm (all pages also resolve with the www sub-domain)
•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm?ref=dealership-referral-site (typical way to track referral sources)
•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm?sort=price (how users view the cars on stock by lowest to highest price)
•  h ttp://example.com/honda-accord.htm/print (the ad-free and graphic light print version)

A canonical tag that references the main page, h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm, could be placed in the header of all of the above pages.

How should Dealers proceed?

The canonical tag is part of the HTML header on a webpage. This is the same place where you would add meta title, description, and keyword tags.

The canonical tag is not a replacement for a solid dealer website architecture that doesn’t create duplicate content in the first place. There is almost always a superior solution to the canonical tag from a pure automotive seo best practice perspective.

Correcting the systems that generate duplicate content in the first place is the best solution. If that isn't possible, look to other solutions like 301 redirects and the meta noindex tag instead.

Summing Up...

The rel canonical tag has it's place. It is a big time saver for development. The solution isn't as solid as some of your other options but if it means being able to take action now to combat duplicate content instead of later, dealers should make the changes now. In other cases, your hosting solution may not allow you to implement 301 redirects at all and your hands are tied.

Internet Sales Managers who decide to  go the route of the rel canonical, are advised to tred carefully and test the strategy with a few pages before going sitewide. If you have the choice and the resources to work through a more effective solution, perhaps you should go that route instead. In the end the more original content you dealership site owns the better for its long term automotive seo strategy.

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The Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) welcomes Capital Ford Lincoln in Regina to their family of growing automotive dealerships. The Regina, SK used car dealership has contracted the network to handle their online advertising initiatives which will include executing Automotive SEO strategies and enhancing their Social Media activities by adding their live used car inventory via Facebook

The AAN assists local Regina car dealers advertise their new and used cars on the Internet and connect with ready to buy consumers in the greater Regina, Saskatchewan area. The Network gives member dealers a national, regional, and local footprint on the search engines so they appear on top of the search results for the vehicles they sell.

The Automotive Advertising Network promotes member dealers inventory nationally through websites like CarDealerSale.com in addition to hundreds of regional and local websites that are strategically positioned on top of the search engines for the most popular national, regional and local search phrases.

Visit Captial Ford Lincoln, the top Regina used car dealer, for your next purchase.

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Automotive SEO Study by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com

The Automotive SEO Study is co-sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com . The study will be documented and presented at the 2011 NADA Convention. Study members will be trained and coached how to use content publishing, link building, social media and automotive websites to improve their Google Page One results for popular consumer search phrases.

Dealers who participate in the study will have an significant advantage over their local competitors because they will not have the mentoring, tools and strategy offered to study members.

The study will run from September 1, 2010 - January 1, 2011. In those four months, members in the study will document their work and record data on a number of SEO factors which will include link counts, Google ranking for specific keywords, traffic, leads, and Google Page One Management.

Registration ends on August 30, 2010. There is no cost to participate however members should budget approximately $100 for domain purchases, blog hosting and/or fees paid to third party marketing sites, directories and related sites as needed. Members in the study will be required to dedicate 3-4 hours a week to complete the tasks required to deliver measurable results for their dealership.

Dealers interested in participating should register online at www.automotiveseostudy.com.

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The AAN utilizes the power of local and regional search optimized automotive web sites, managed by PCG Digital Marketing, which can advertise your car inventory to drive clicks to car detail pages.

Participating dealers are using the AAN to generate more leads and sales for a lot less money and they can measure everything they spend. The Automotive Advertising Network places your cars for sale in front of consumers on the most popular search engines, for national, regional and local search phrases.

Member's cars are listed without competitors ads, distracting Adsense advertising and clutter.

In addition to the network of websites in the AAN, the CarPort App™ also allows you to add your inventory to existing blogs and social media web sites that you own. Drop your inventory on a new Facebook Fan Page tab, Social media communities like NING or popular blog platforms like Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Vox, Squidoo and HubPages.

The combination of CarPort App™ and CarDealerSale.com gives car dealers unlimited publishing opportunities on web sites that they own and control. Participation in the Automotive Advertising Network also gives car dealers advertising visibility on hundreds of web sites managed by PCG in major markets across the USA.

For additional information on the Automotive Advertising Network, contact Elvis Arias by calling 732-982-4848

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1. All the buzzes are given separate ids which provide separate urls for each buzz making it easier for search engines like google, yahoo and bing to index them separately. This will make the url of the buzz to act as a backlink for your dealer website if you have used one in your buzz.
2. Since buzz is google’s service, you can trust google to index each and every link present in your buzzes. If it happens, then you should use Google Buzz as your first choice to buzz about your new automotive microsite.
3. Now that google shows the twitter updates as the real time results in its SERPs, you can be assured that the Buzzes will also be shown before twitter results.
4. Google Buzz is one social networking service that is going to be used my almost all Gmail users which are more than 150 million number. Means your probable customers might already be using Google Buzz increasing the chance of your visibility.
5. Since Google Buzz is one of the most hyped about services, non gmail users might also register with google to use this service eventually bringing google buzz to almost all internet users’ browser.
6. The inline emailing option along with each buzz makes it easier for your buzzes to get popular quickly as people can send the buzzes they like through email to their friends who they want to share with.

Botton line ....Dont fall asleep on Buzz for Automotive SEO !

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If you'd like to know my latest thoughts regarding the testing of SEO tools and websites used for link building, I will be using and testing the new social networking tool Shout'em for this end. Check out and subscribe to my  Automotive SEO Shout'em account

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Check out the latest in automotive advertising ... The CarPort App will allow you to drop in your car inventory on popular blogging platforms, Facebook and social media portals like NING. When a consumer clicks on a photo thumbnail of a car for sale, they will be taken to a custom car detail listing pages on CarDealerSale.com. The custom landing pages are free of advertising from your competitors or distracting Adsense ads.

Your customized landing pages will have:

• A custom header graphic with your name and logo
• ADF contact/quote form that feeds into your CRM system
• Links to your web site which are good for SEO
• Links to your Facebook and Twitter accounts
• Your store hours, phone number and physical address
• A map to your store

The PCG Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) landing pages are both search optimized and free from ads. These landing pages are design for conversion and follow-through.

All the cars in your feed will also be displayed on the aggregated advertising pages hosted on CarDealerSale.com as well as web sites included in the AAN. CarDealerSale.com will become a highly visible automotive vehicle advertising web site due to PCG's expertise in search engine optimization and link building strategies. The site will allow consumers to search for cars in their local communities by zip code and make or model.

Automotive Advertising Network

The Automotive Advertising Network utilizes the power of local and regional search optimized automotive web sites, managed by PCG Digital Marketing, which can advertise your car inventory to drive clicks to car detail pages.

Your cars are listed without competitors ads, distracting Adsense advertising and clutter.

The CarPort App™ delivers unlimited publishing; use it on as many websites as you like. In addition to posting cars on your blogs and social media websites outside your primary dealer site, using the CarPort App™ has other advantages. It leverages your existing inventory in new ways without any significant work.

Dealers also have the added benefit of leveraged advertising on our National car sales website located at www.cardealersale.com. Dealers utilizing the CarPort App™ join a growing community of dealerships on PCG's Automotive Advertising Network (AAN); a new model to create more first party and secondary source leads.

Special Offer: Dealer can get a FREE Month of CarPort App™ by calling Elvis Arias directly at 732-982-4848.

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Read more about our Automotive SEO monthly packages or contact Elvis Arias for further details about our Automotive SEO and Internet Marketing Packages. Multi-brand discounts available elvis@claramark.com or call 732-982-4848

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Our suite of services includes Automotive SEO, Internet Reputation Management, Social Media, Microsite Development, Content Development and link building.

The monthly services included in our package contains microsite creation, blogging, press releases, link building, posting customer reviews, Google SEO compliance, Analytics, Google Maps, and more. The activities that are completed on your behalf include all the facets of Internet Marketing that have proven effective for car dealers.

Please visit my Automotive SEO page to find more details regarding the Automotive SEO monthly package for car dealerships.

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The development of sitemaps should be included by Internet Sales Managers when designing the battle plan of an Automotive SEO strategy.Sitemaps are not only important for helping visitors find what they’re looking for, but they’re also an easy way to increase the amount of internal links to your important pages. I’m not talking about XML sitemaps created for search engines (next topic), but rather a sitemap for your readers with links to all of your most important posts or pages. WordPress users can use plug-ins to automatically create a sitemap for their blog.

How To Improve Your Internal Linking Structure

There are many methods you can use to improve your internal linking structure. The three main strategies are:

1. Text link navigation
2. Footers
3. Inline text links

Most dealership websites include some form of navigation on the left hand side. This makes it one of the first things read by the Google bot. If it is one of the first things the search engine spiders sees when it goes through your site it will have a strong weight added to it so it must be optimized with care.

Text Link Navigation

If you are using text link navigation be sure to include the targeted keywords in the links. This does not mean craming your keywords into each and every link. I've seen dealer sites that try to get the main phrase in virtually every link. Not only does this look terrible but it may raise red flags and get your site penalized for spam.

Footers

Footers are the often overused and abused by dealership websites. While they are useful for getting spiders through your site they should not be used as spam tools. In some cases I've seen footers that are longer than the content areas of pages from websites linking to every single page in their site from them. Not only does this look bad but it reduces that value of each individual link.

For those of you out there responsible for the Automotive SEO of your dealership remember to keep your footers clean, use the anchor text well, and link to the key internal pages of your website. This will ensure a proper optimization of the footer. You will also want to include in your footer a link to a sitemap. On this sitemap, link to the most important pages in your site. Here is where you can simply insure that every page gets found. Well worded anchor text is a good rule on your sitemap as well. You may also want to consider a limited description of the page on your sitemap. This will give you added verbiage to solidify the relevancy of the sitemap page you are linking to.

Internal Text Links

Internal text links are links placed within the content of your work. While debatable, internal text links do appear to be given extra weight as their very nature implies that the link is entirely relevant to the content of the site.

Automotive SEO is hard work and many factors need to be considered when implementing new strategies, if you dont do your homework you website can get penalized for over optimization. If you need help or advice with your internal linking call me 732-982-4848 and let a professional link builder review your dealership website's internal link structure.

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Why is Keyword Density important for Automotive SEO purposes? Simply because Google uses density as a factor in determining whether a website is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. Hence the importance to keep this in mind when developing content for dealer websites. Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.

Internet Sales Manager should dedicate some time to to carry out keyword research before the initiation of an Automotive SEO campaign. The keywords selected are basically the words your dealership will be competing against for the top spots of Google Page One. Before you optimize anything it is imperative to draw a keyword strategy map.

Lets say for example you represent a Honda dealership in Jackson,MS. After doing your keyword research you determine that the principal keyword phrase you want to optimize is "Honda MS" Why you may ask??? Easy . . . According to Google, approximately 12,000 people in the US search for "Honda MS" every month.

Once the Internet Sales Manager has determined the group of keywords to optimize, the content developer needs to input the strategic keywords in the content and meta tags. This needs to be accomplished without sacrificing the natural flow of the text. This includes all page titles, heading tags and hyper links. It is not an easy process, but necessary for an effective Automotive SEO strategy.

When you insert your keywords throughout the content it is vital to understand the density at which the keywords are optimized on a page. The "keyword density" is referring specifically to how often a keyword is used in the corresponding page. Search engines compute the percentage of keyword density on a webpage and the more often a search term is included the more the search engine will think that your page is relevant and effectively rank your page higher for the keyword. However, there is a fine line between having an optimum density of the keyword and over-stuffing your content with keywords and terms. You need to avoid an over-saturation of keyword use in your content, if Google finds keyword stuffing on your site it will raise red flags.

Automotive SEO professionals shoot for an optimal percentage of keyword density. There is no magic number but I tend to shoot for 5 % of keyword density to be on the safe side, anything over this level is playing with fire. It is recommended that you know the formula for calculating each page. The formula for the keyword density is quite simple.

1. Count how many words you have on your page.
2. Count how many times you have used your keyword
3. Apply this formula

Keyword density = ([key word count]) * 100 / (total word count)

If you focus too much on keyword density you can potentially lose focus on other important elements in the dynamic approach to optimizing your site. Use the formula for keyword density to ensure that you are applying relevant applications of your keywords in quality content and links so that you are getting the most out of your research.

Feel free to call me with any questions regarding content development or help with your Automotive SEO initiatives. 732-982-4848 or elvis@claramark.com

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When initiating a Automotive Internet Marketing campaign via content it is key to follow certain parameters that are highlighted on the Google SEO Starter Guide,  ensuring no red flags from the Google bot.Basically it all comes down to an avoidance of over optimization and keyword stuffing. Google hates it and your car dealer website will be penalized if stuffing is found.

Do's and Dont's when Copywriting

Copywriting for search engines is one of the more important aspects in the Automotive SEO industry. Ensuring your content is relevant and keyword rich is an effective method to "impress" the search engines. By impress, I mean that the majority of search engines value optimized content with keyword-laden text. However, if you have too much keyword density, Google and others can consider this spam, and may penalize your site.

Write the main text on your car dealer website using the same keywords contained in your title tag. If you are working on the main page os a site whose focus is "Subaru MA" then be sure that those important keywords and its derivatives are repeated at least two or three times in the main body of your text, without sounding repetitive. A well-designed and carefully written page will 'read write' and will not sound like you are repeating yourself.

Search engines will rank your page higher if they see a keyword repeated a few times on a page, and will help them "build a theme" throughout your site. However, don't go 'overboard' on this, because if you increase your keyword density too much, some search engines might think you are trying to cause spam. Generally speaking the keyword density should be around 3 to 7 percent of the entire webpage content anything less is not enough, and anything more is dangerous.

The various search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing Search consider keyword density as part of their search algorithm. Each search engine has a different mathematical equation regarding the density of keywords that is rewarded with higher search ranking placement. There is also a different level of tolerance between the different search engines as to the degree of density permitted before a penalty is imposed.

As an Internet Sales Manager for for a dealership you should incorporate these strategies when developing content for your primary site. A great way to dominate Google Page One for a particular keyword while feeding relevant links to your primary site is by implementing a microsite strategy. The microsites we create have HIGH Page Rank which ensures your primary site is fed a considerable amount of link juice while at the same time ranking high for an important keyword in your PMA. This is by far the most effective Automotive Internet Marketing strategy available.

I suggest your dealership take advantage of the affordable microsite strategy we have to offer. If you would like case studies emailed to you send me a quick note elvis@claramark.com

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Content development and fully compliant link building are imperative for any Automotive Internet Marketing initiative. Without relevant and contiuous content development in addition to link building a dealership website will be invisible on Google and other search engines for relevant keyword searches. If you are an Internet Sales Manger (ISM) or owner responsible for the Automotive SEO strategy of your dealership make sure content and link building is on the top of your to-do list or hire a professional to do it for you.

Content Development

One of the most overlooked areas of website design is content development. If your website lacks dozens of articles on the goods and services you offer, you are unlikely to develop "respect" from the search engines. Through good content you can embed and link important key search phrases about your business in your web pages and improve your search engine rankings.

We are experts at writing additional content for your website that will help you reach the coveted Google Page One results. Every website needs fresh content and updates for the search engine to consider your website viable. Often dealership owners and ISM's are too busy selling cars to update their own websites so they grow stale and ineffective. Let us take the burden of content creation off your plate and improve your search engine rankings.

If you are interested in blogging and social networking, give us a call to discuss how these tools can attract more direct consumer leads.

Link Development

Every website needs inbound links; links from other websites that point to your website. These inbound links help improve your search engine rankings. We can create a plan for creating inbounds links for your site as well and using existing networking opportunities to get your site covered in blogs, e-zines and quality business directories.

Link Building is the very foundation of Automotive SEO. Even if your website has terrific content, impressive graphics, and the latest shopping cart, it won't get any traffic without relevant one way backlinks. Getting these links can be a very arduous, labor intense and difficult task.

Because of this, many link schemes have evolved on the Internet. Webmasters and ISM's that participate in these black hat schemes are breaking the webmaster guidelines established by Google and exposing themselves to the risk of a penalty or delisting of their site. If you don't mind having your website removed from Google and other search engines, then feel free to cut corners.

If you intend to have a successful and long term Automotive SEO system in place, you need to follow and apply the guidelines established by Google or find a professional to do it for you. Time to get started, call Elvis Arias today for a free consultation 732-982-4848

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