- Apr 22, 2009
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Who writes your web content?
- Thread starter Craig
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That song kills me.....every time I hear it I am reminded of Rob & Big and the episode where they try to get pulled over, then ask the cop if he pulled them over for riding dirty. Freakin Hillarious
This is where my email address/ Twitter come from, not really the song... I like to ride boards and amongst my friends the "We ridin derty?" question comes up.
Not to kill you all with dragging this thread off topic......but in case you cats wanted to know why, now you know.
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- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Sorry Bro, when I tossed in Ling I was thinking of passion and expression, not copy n paste!
Writing is ART. To get my point across, replace your need for a writer with a guitar player. We all know it's real easy to see a bad guitar player, but it's not so easy with a writer. I guess what I am saying is that having your own personal guitar player doesn't mean they have the skills to grow into what you want. BE PREPARED FOR FAILURE. When you recruit, keep your commitment in the "freelance mode" so you can churn thru candidates until you find just the right one(s).
them back.
Sorry, I can ramble...
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Sorry Bro, when I tossed in Ling I was thinking of passion and expression, not copy n paste!
Writing is ART. To get my point across, replace your need for a writer with a guitar player. We all know it's real easy to see a bad guitar player, but it's not so easy with a writer. I guess what I am saying is that having your own personal guitar player doesn't mean they have the skills to grow into what you want. BE PREPARED FOR FAILURE. When you recruit, keep your commitment in the "freelance mode" so you can churn thru candidates until you find just the right one(s).
them back.
I may have rambled in my question myself......."wants to learn and make mistakes together on this journey" was in my question because I understand the work involved in making this fly. You know how we do things Uncle Joe.....did you think I came up with this concept yesterday?? This has been on the idea pile for some time now and I have my own ideas for sure, was hoping to get some insights as to who was already on this path and how it was working.
We're not really a churn through house....more of a work with the players you have and grow those players vibe here in Acton but until we hire someone to work in the store, we get that there could be a few freelance cats in the mix.
- May 1, 2006
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- Alex
The real trick to content writing is knowing where to put things. I see a lot of dealership websites with massive navigation options because they have so much content they want to show-off. The regular customer can easily get lost in that clutter. A blog is a great solution for pumping out content while keeping your website visitor's experience clean and simple.
A little after Checkered Flag first got started with Virginia Beach Dealers we hired a PR agency to write 5 articles per week. You can dive into the archives (Virginia Beach Dealers: Archives) to see some of the older stuff. They were great as they visited our service departments to interview customers, walked around the stores with a camera, and even tried a few podcasts. They really helped us pioneer things. Eventually, when the economy slumped, we had to discontinue using them and switched to an internal process with Christine Knowles doing most of the writing (she is the woman in the Checkered Flag videos).
During this period we also discovered that an integrated blog (Checkered Flag Blog) did a lot more for more search engine referrals. The downsides to more traffic is typically a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rates, but we did see a slight increase in form submissions and more customers mentioning things about the blog when calling.
Since I left Checkered Flag, Christine has taken over the online marketing side of things and no longer has the time to write the blog articles. She hired her sister part-time to handle things, and that is how it is done today.
Things to concentrate on:
.....actually, I'm beginning to smell a DealerRefresh blog article in the works.
A little after Checkered Flag first got started with Virginia Beach Dealers we hired a PR agency to write 5 articles per week. You can dive into the archives (Virginia Beach Dealers: Archives) to see some of the older stuff. They were great as they visited our service departments to interview customers, walked around the stores with a camera, and even tried a few podcasts. They really helped us pioneer things. Eventually, when the economy slumped, we had to discontinue using them and switched to an internal process with Christine Knowles doing most of the writing (she is the woman in the Checkered Flag videos).
During this period we also discovered that an integrated blog (Checkered Flag Blog) did a lot more for more search engine referrals. The downsides to more traffic is typically a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rates, but we did see a slight increase in form submissions and more customers mentioning things about the blog when calling.
Since I left Checkered Flag, Christine has taken over the online marketing side of things and no longer has the time to write the blog articles. She hired her sister part-time to handle things, and that is how it is done today.
Things to concentrate on:
- Integrated blogging platform within your own domain
- Consistent writing schedule - 5 articles per week was ours
- 4 to 1 content where at least 1 out of every 4 articles is specific to your locality (most customers don't like to read about cars)
- Backup blogs to help push SEO (we used Vox, but it isn't around anymore) with a good linking strategy.....this is getting a bit more advanced and should be something you approach long after you are comfortable with steps 1-3
.....actually, I'm beginning to smell a DealerRefresh blog article in the works.
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
I may have rambled in my question myself......."wants to learn and make mistakes together on this journey" was in my question because I understand the work involved in making this fly. You know how we do things Uncle Joe.....did you think I came up with this concept yesterday?? This has been on the idea pile for some time now and I have my own ideas for sure, was hoping to get some insights as to who was already on this path and how it was working.
Dood, you know I luv ya like a bro! Sometimes my big ass mouth fires off before I read it all. My Bad. BUT, don't forget, I'm older and I can still kik your ass
@Alex
We wish we had our own Christine.....she does a great job of bringing a personality to the Checkered Flag website!
When asked who we watch for other car dealers by my prospective writer guess who I told him?
@Joe
Older, and wiser maybe.....no fighting for this kid I'm too old to worry about who can kick who's ass...... I just know that digitally we're gonna kick some peoples asses this year for sure, big things on the goal sheet. No this is not an invite for vendors, we're not worried about adding tech we haven't already decided on. We are planning on working what we have in a more methodical customer facing direction than ever before.
We wish we had our own Christine.....she does a great job of bringing a personality to the Checkered Flag website!
When asked who we watch for other car dealers by my prospective writer guess who I told him?
@Joe
Older, and wiser maybe.....no fighting for this kid I'm too old to worry about who can kick who's ass...... I just know that digitally we're gonna kick some peoples asses this year for sure, big things on the goal sheet. No this is not an invite for vendors, we're not worried about adding tech we haven't already decided on. We are planning on working what we have in a more methodical customer facing direction than ever before.