Websites, SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Marketing

Jeff Kershner advises dealers to claim their Google Local Business Center listing for SEO and local search visibility, walking through the setup steps. A contributor expands the conversation to recommend listing on Yahoo, MSN, SuperPages, DMOZ, InfoUSA, and Acxiom, while also suggesting dealers monitor their online reviews and watch Yahoo Answers for dealer-related questions. The key takeaway is that dealers should proactively claim and optimize their presence across multiple free directories to strengthen local search rankings.

A Toyota dealer responds to manufacturer incentive cuts by implementing a comprehensive digital marketing overhaul, including website navigation optimization toward lead generation, enhanced review promotion (leveraging their strong Toyota President's Award record), detailed used car descriptions, and improved inventory feed management to ensure all vehicle options appear online. The underlying strategy is to compensate for reduced pricing incentives by maximizing digital visibility, customer testimonials, and lead capture to maintain sales volume.

Jeff Kershner outlines a list of top online business directories where car dealers should submit their websites, noting it can help prevent new sites from being sandboxed and improve SEO indexing. Replies highlight that automotive-specific directories also exist and are listed separately on DealerRefresh, most offering free dealer listings. The thread serves as a practical reference for dealers launching a new website or URL.

Dealers discuss whether to use Black Book or Kelley Blue Book (KBB) trade appraisal tools on their websites, with mixed opinions on effectiveness. Several participants argue that automated appraisal tools—regardless of brand—often create customer expectations mismatches and actually hurt the sales process, with some dealers finding that simple contact forms without automated valuations generate better leads and closing rates. The emerging consensus is that human follow-up via phone call is more valuable than any automated tool, as trade-in evaluation requires professional assessment that customers ultimately expect from the dealer anyway.

Dealers discuss how to optimize follow-up processes for chat leads, which convert faster than traditional lead sources but often get lost in generic automated response workflows. The key insight is that chat leads require differentiated CRM handling—including chat transcripts attached to leads, disabling auto-responders, and implementing rapid human response systems (ideally phone calls within minutes rather than hours) to capitalize on the customer's high engagement and prevent the lead from feeling depersonalized by automation.

Dealers discuss creating "We Buy Cars" microsites to attract trade-ins and used vehicle inventory, with Chris Branum and Bruce Novicky sharing their recently launched examples (512sellcar.com and CarCashConnection.com) as working implementations of this marketing strategy. The thread demonstrates that this approach is an active trend among dealers, with CarMax cited as the industry benchmark, though the conversation remains preliminary without detailed performance metrics or strategic advice shared among participants.

Blake Arbogast partnered with DealerRater to expand their review platform into the RV dealer market, marking a significant step toward modernizing the RV industry's online reputation management. The thread celebrates this achievement as an important industry innovation, with community members congratulating Blake on the accomplishment. The expansion demonstrates how automotive review platforms are broadening beyond traditional car dealerships to serve other vehicle segments.

The thread profiles The Cobalt Group as a dealer website vendor, drawing mixed reactions from dealers, a former rep, and a Cobalt marketing director who responds directly. Key themes include poor customer service due to understaffed field reps, OEM-mandated adoption by GM dealers, outdated site designs, and platform migration challenges, though a few users report positive tech support experiences. The overall takeaway is that Cobalt's scale and OEM relationships give it market dominance, but dealers frustrated with service and flexibility are actively exploring alternatives like Dealer.com, DealerSkins, and others.

Google is retiring its $25 Tags product on April 29, 2011, prompting dealers to discuss the shift toward Google Places and Google Boost as the company's new focus for local business visibility. Users debate whether Google Boost will become the next paid service to differentiate listings, with concerns that if adoption becomes widespread, the competitive advantage will diminish since everyone will have the same "blue pin" visibility. The thread reflects skepticism about Google's product strategy while acknowledging that Boost's integration with Maps and Places makes it a logical successor to Tags.

A dealer discovered a 1959 photograph at Matt Saxe Chevrolet in Belle Plaine, MN showing an "Inventory Clearance Event" with 8 cars on display, prompting reflection on how dealership marketing tactics have remained fundamentally unchanged over 50+ years despite massive increases in inventory size and the addition of modern media channels like TV, radio, and internet. The post highlights the timeless nature of automotive sales promotions—suggesting that while the tools and scale have evolved dramatically, the core "clearance event" strategy dealers use today is essentially the same approach used in 1959.

A dealer manager asks whether creating a personal Facebook page (distinct from both his personal profile and the dealership's official page) would be an effective marketing channel for sharing incentives and dealership updates. Respondents generally discourage the idea, warning that it could dilute the dealership's main Facebook presence and create confusion, with consensus leaning toward alternative channels like a blog or LinkedIn profile instead.

A dealer's deceptive pricing practice—advertising a vehicle at $12,977 but requiring an additional $3,500 "cash or trade" fee to reach the true price of $16,477—sparked industry-wide criticism. The nearly unanimous consensus branded this tactic as unethical and harmful to the automotive industry's reputation, with participants noting it clutters sales teams with unproductive conversations and violates policies on major listing platforms like AutoTrader and Cars.com. The thread concluded that such practices represent a small percentage of dealers (estimated at 5%) who damage the industry's credibility through short-sighted schemes designed only to generate initial phone calls.

This thread discusses Google's updated approach to URL shorteners like bit.ly, goo.gl, and j.mp, which have become increasingly common on social media platforms like Twitter. The key insight is that as social search has grown in importance, Google now properly credits shortened URLs in search rankings rather than disregarding them as it previously did. The thread appears to reference a Google Webmaster Help video by Matt Cutts explaining how shortened URLs are now treated in SEO, though the full details are cut off in the original post.

Ryan Lucia seeks dealer feedback to design an effective roundtable discussion on live chat for an upcoming automotive marketing conference, hoping to keep it educational rather than vendor-focused. Respondents emphasize keeping the discussion focused exclusively on chat functionality—covering topics like effective greeting strategies, lead qualification, objections handling, chat's applications across sales/service/parts, and real-world examples through live chat demonstrations and transcript critiques. The consensus is that chat deserves dedicated attention as a critical but often misunderstood lead-capture tool, with participants recommending against diluting the session by adding SEO or conversion rate optimization topics.

Kevin Frye shares early results from a behavioral/contextual targeting display campaign averaging a $41 cost-per-click—significantly higher than traditional PPC campaigns—and solicits feedback from other dealers on whether this approach is worthwhile. Respondents debate whether display advertising should be evaluated differently than PPC (emphasizing branding and site-wide exposure over direct clicks), with some sharing comparable costs ($15-26 per click) from similar campaigns through vendors like ADP Digital Marketing. The key insight is that display advertising ROI depends heavily on conversion tracking beyond clicks and overall brand impact, making it difficult to compare directly to traditional SEM campaigns.

A Polk/AutoTrader study confirming the internet as the dominant influence in vehicle purchases sparked debate among dealers over two key stats: 97% of buyers said social media didn't influence their decision, and print advertising continued to decline in relevance. While some saw the social media finding as vindication to avoid the channel, others pushed back on the methodology, questioning whether buyers surveyed months after purchase could accurately recall what influenced them online.

Automotive professionals debate the validity of a Greystripe study claiming 80% of smartphone users shop for cars, with critics pointing out the tiny sample size (851 users, representing 0.00001% of the smartphone market) and short timeframe (3 months vs. 6-month average sales cycles). Despite acknowledging the study's methodological weaknesses, participants reach consensus that dealerships should still implement mobile websites today, as the broader trend toward mobile shopping is clear and changing rapidly.

A dealer group questions whether .co domains can rank effectively in Google search results after launching a used car inventory site on a .co domain and ranking #110 for their target keyword. The limited responses suggest skepticism about .co domains' SEO viability, with one commenter recommending .net as a superior alternative and expressing doubt that .co will prove competitive for search rankings in the near future.

Dealers debate whether CarMax's EasyShop—an online platform that lets customers complete much of the purchase process remotely before visiting the store—represents the future of automotive retail. While most agree the industry needs modernization and greater customer control, opinions split on whether sight-unseen buying will actually gain traction, with some viewing EasyShop as primarily a productivity tool that streamlines the sales process rather than a true disruption. The key insight is that dealers must adapt to give customers more autonomy in the buying journey, though implementation approaches vary significantly between brands.

Brian Pasch asks DealerRefresh members for feedback on Digital Air Strike, a marketing company featured in Dealer Marketing Magazine, to learn what services they provide to dealerships. The thread receives minimal responses—one member mentions briefly speaking with their COO, another compliments their company name, and the COO himself responds by inviting direct contact. The thread doesn't contain substantial user reviews or detailed information about the company's services, making it primarily an introduction rather than a peer evaluation.

Jason asks for JavaScript code to dynamically display different phone numbers based on traffic source (e.g., Google vs. direct visitors) to track SEM/SEO campaign conversions. Multiple respondents recommend dedicated call-tracking services like Century Interactive, Marchex, and Mongoose Metrics rather than custom coding, as these platforms offer dynamic number pools, analytics integration, and professional tracking infrastructure. The consensus is that while technically feasible through server-side code or referrer variables, outsourcing to a specialized vendor is the more practical and reliable solution for dealers seeking accurate conversion attribution.

Ryan Thompson discusses his discovery of Contest Burner, a WordPress plugin for running viral social media contests, which Grant Cardone subsequently used for his own promotional contest. The thread debates whether contest marketing is an effective strategy for car dealers, with Ryan arguing that properly-targeted contests (like free oil changes) can generate qualified leads and followers, while davidmoon counters that most contest participants are prize-seekers outside the dealer's local market and that conversion rates are poor compared to other marketing methods.