[Mitchell Brenner]

Originally Posted by AlexH

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback! This has been a tremendous help to us started thinking in the right direction. Brian I really look forward to seeing your study.

I've been doing this for 10 years and I can tell you from an SEO perspective the best I've seen are Dealer.Com and Dealeron.com. Don't fall for fancy looking flash nonsense. Both companies I mentioned will get you visitors and conversions!

[sburges2]

Originally Posted by AlexH

Who did you use to build your website? A small independent agency or a larger templated solution like Dealer.com or dealercarsearch.com? If you were picking a new vendor now, what would you look for?

I've got about 25-30 vehicles in inventory and do not have a website now.

I am courting Jazel.com....

[brianpasch]

Originally Posted by sburges2

I am courting Jazel.com....

Sue

I never hear of Jazel so I decided to check them out. My first concern is that they mention their "case studies" but provided no links to live sites. Since the mentioned in their first case study an Infiniti Dealer in California, I found the site: Parkway Infiniti Los Angeles | New & Certified Used Cars and SUV?s

On this site when you click on new or used inventory, you leave the primary site and go to an ecarlist website which is not a great design. Off-site inventory management in this case shows that this platform is not using their own inventory management technology, so it's a hybrid system.

There has been an investment in SEO compliance in that the design elements show some SEO work was done, it gets a B- grade. However, their site ranks well for many popular Infiniti searches in Los Angeles, which is better than many platforms I have reviewed.

I'm not sure if they can be added to my review of 35 website providers at this late in the game, but thanks for sharing their name.

Just be mindful that a website is just part of the picture and you should consider ALL costs that include your CRM, ILM, Video, SEM, etc. Some platforms have integrated tools which can save you $$$$ every month in saved time, less aggravation and lost sales.

You should check out a few of these players: DealerTrend, DealerFire, DealerOn, TK CarSites and Dealer.com

These all have different strengths, for example DealerTrend has the best integration with WordPress and changeable themes on the fly. This is important for a WP microsite strategy.

TK has the best combined on-site and off-site SEO and Social Media strategy. Dealer.com has the best full set of integrated tools and their new Google Adwords integration with used car inventory is outstanding.

Do your research and take your time. I would not recommend anyone using an ad agency or anyone who has not built and delivered at least 100 car dealer websites.

[brianpasch]

Originally Posted by sburges2

I am courting Jazel.com....

Originally Posted by sburges2

I am courting Jazel.com....

Sue

I never hear of Jazel so I decided to check them out. My first concern is that they mention their "case studies" but provided no links to live sites. Since the mentioned in their first case study an Infiniti Dealer in California, I found the site: http://www.infinitiparkway.com

On this site when you click on new or used inventory, you leave the primary site and go to an ecarlist website which is not a great design. Off-site inventory management in this case shows that this platform is not using their own inventory management technology, so its a hybrid system.

There has been an investment in SEO compliance in that the design elements show some SEO work was done, it gets a B- grade. However, their site ranks well for many popular Infiniti searches in Los Angeles, which is better than many platforms I have reviewed.

I'm not sure if they can be added to my review of 35 website providers at this late in the game, but thanks for sharing their name.

Just be mindful that a website is just part of the picture and you should consider ALL costs that include your CRM, ILM, Video, SEM, etc. Some platforms have integrated tools which can save you $$$$ every month in saved time, less aggravation and lost sales.

You should check out a few of these players: DealerTrend, DealerFire, DealerOn, TK CarSites and Dealer.com

These all have different strengths, for example DealerTrend has the best integration with WordPress and changeable themese on the fly. This is important for a WP microsite strategy. TK has the best off-site SEO and Social Media strategy. Dealer.com has the best full set of integrated tools and their new Google Adwords integration with used car inventory is outstanding.

Do your research and take your time. I would not recommend anyone using an ad agency or anyone who has not built and delivered at least 100 car dealer websites.

[Oscar Vanderkooij]

We use Dealeron.com for our dealer sites and have had some great success. The 3 things a website is supposed to do are:

1. Bring you traffic.
2. Convert your traffic
3. Be informative

I think DealerOn has a platform that does very well for number one and two (number 3 is really up to us, especially with our integrated blog they provided that I have not taken advantage of enough). If you look at their platform, you will notice that they are one of the few that give you custom rewritten URLs for all your inventory pages, which is important because those are pages that change a lot and new content is important for the SERPs. Thier integrated Wordpress Blogs will allow me to take this to the next level as soon as I get my lazy *&%&$ up to set up a policy for our dealers on who posts new articles and what the content should be about to optimize for the SERPs.

The conversion of Dealeron has always been their strong point and that is what made me switch. Anyone that does not have their pop-up window on their front page, should give them a call and allow them to put it on your site for a trial period. I promise you that you will see results immediately. Of course all the vendors have some popup window, but not all are the same. I think a lot of dealer.com customers should give it a try and see your conversion improve 1.5% or more.

Enough about Dealeron already...

Since we just have two dealersips, is there anybody out there that is willing to share their conversion ratios for Acura and Audi websites? and if so, please explain what is included in your conversion (conversion = submitted leads/unique visitors) Do we include phone calls in the conversion? What tracking software do you use? etc...

Thank you...