• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

Advice for a Newbie to SEO

Jump to latest Follow Reply
#11
Taking a look over the website, I do have some critical thoughts that I would like to make, some of which have already been pointed out by others (credit due to the first posters), and others will be new. I hope you take this as constructive criticism and use it to better your website.


  1. As mentioned before, your title tags, meta keywords, and meta descriptions are too long, far too wordy, and are not unique to each page. Now while we are on the subject of meta keywords, Google has already stated they pretty much ignore meta keywords, but I still think you should spend the time to use well worded keywords (keep it short) for the other search engines to pickup on. (see YouTube - Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking )
  2. Each of your pages (homepage, inventory pages, and vehicle details pages) all use far too many JavaScript and CSS files. It is far better to strip out the relevant codes needed for the page and load only what is needed. This single change alone will dramatically decrease your load times, which can increase your Google Page Rank ( see YouTube - Is speed more important than relevance?)
  3. The link structure to your vehicle listing pages has too many parameters, which causes confusion for Google. If you look at page Defilippo Brothers :: Autos Asearch : Auto Listings -- there are 7 parameters for this page. Google will attempt to try out various combination in each one of those parameters. Each time you risk have duplicate content pages which negatively affects your Google Page Rank.

  4. Your secure credit app has two issues.

    First, and most importantly, is the way the site was designed with all of the JavaScript files that must be loaded (see #2) and the fact they are hosted on a different domain (that of your website provider), the customer's web-browser will show a 'broken padlock' rather than a fully secured site. This leaves question and doubt in people's minds if their information is secure or not. 



    Secondly, and I see this all over the internet, when a customer clicks on the secure credit app from your site, he leaves your domain and goes over to autosearchsecure.com. While this is a proper SSL secure connection (keep in mind above), your customers have left your site and, in today's climate of internet phishing attacks, people are scared. They do not like being taken from one site and move to another domain. This leaves uncertainty in the minds of some of your customers. SSLs are cheap, and the cost of losing even one sale far outweighs the cost of your SSL certificate for the year.



    The stupid thing is I am pretty sure we are the only dealer management system/website provider that actually registers an SSL (the 'https' part) for our customers in their own domain name (ex: www.MyCoolCarDealer.com would get their own SSL at https://www.MyCoolCarDealer.com). This way, the customer never leaves your domain.

  5. Technical glitch - On your homepage when you hover over your 'Share This', link the Flash animation on your homepage disappears. Also, while we are on the subject of Flash: Unless you need Flash (ex: you are building an interactive application that would be too complicated in JavaScript), then go ahead and use Flash. If you just want a picture of a car blinking and spinning around, then honestly skip the Flash. There are a few reason for this:



    a) iPod/iPhone/iPad users cannot see your site. This is a large share of your market that you are basically saying "screw off" to. see ( Thoughts on Flash )



    b) Your customers that do see this do not care. Honestly, they do not. Having a pretty car spinning around isn't going to encourage them to buy from you any more than if you didn't have that Flash animation. In fact, you may just annoy the customer enough to skip past your site. Also keep in mind that flash animation is slowing down the loading of your homepage.
  6. When choosing "Browse Inventory", it is given too many choices, yet they are not given the one choice they want, to find a car. What happens if I am looking to purchase a car? I click on the inventory link, but I am not sure what make I want. I just know I want a car. I see an option for 4-Door Compact Passenger Cars. Okay, I want to save money. Let me start there. I click on that and, after looking at the inventory, I do not find what I want. What do I do? Most people would just leave and go to your competitor (and don't fool yourself, that is what the customer just did). But what if you had a really nice car in your 4-door Mid-Size Passenger Car category? I completely overlooked that and moved on. Personally, I think you should give the option do you want a 'Car, Truck, SUV, or Van', then let them look through the categories that way. Of course, you should also provide a search if they know they want that BMW 325i.
  7. Security problem: You should NEVER have a login link to your backend management area located on a public facing site. At the bottom of your homepage, there is a little 'key' picture, and clicking on that takes you to the management login area of your site. You just gave a would-be hacker 1 of the 3 pieces of information he needed to guess to hack into your site. Can't you just bookmark/favorite the login page in your browser?
  8. The homepage appears to be very cluttered. When a user goes to your website, you need to provided them a quick way to find 2 things: What you have for sale and where you are located.
  9. On your vehicle pages, try putting the make/model information as the first part of the <title> tags, before you company name. There is a very strategic reason for this and it is very simple once you think the way your customer will find you. Unless they already know of your website (then in that case SEO is not of importance), they will find you in Google by typing something like &quot;BMW 325i Kennett Square&quot;. They will not be search for 'Defilippo Brothers' (as above comment, if they where SEO is not of importance in this case, because, of course, you will rank well on your own company name). By putting the make/model first it will show up in Google like this:
uag_google.png


Also, notice that each vehicle has a custom written description in the results. Now, look at how yours currently shows in Google:
defilippo_brothers_google.png

Each description is just a list of keywords (those dang meta keywords you are currently using). But think of this from the perspective of your customer: Which link would you click on?

I hope I haven't offended you, as I am just trying to help out. I wish you the best!

Steven posted on - AutoCorner Blog, Advice for a Newbie to SEO: Used Car Dealership website review
 
Last edited:
#12
I tried to post a well written post in this forum over the weekend that included links to videos from Google to help with my point. But I think since I put too many URL links in the post the system wouldn't let me add it. Ohh well. I took the post and put it on my blog at AutoCorner Blog, Advice for a Newbie to SEO: Used Car Dealership website review

Hope the information helps and I look forward to your comments.

Steven
 
#13
I just want to shout out a huge "Thank You!" to everyone who offered some advice to my colleague.

I posted this same comment on the AutoCornerBlog but feel it has its place here as well:

"You really did go above and beyond for this! The Operations Manager is a good friend of mine, as I believe I pointed out, so I can't wait to point him in this direction.

I think what a lot of people who have been in the biz for years have a problem with is that things are-a-changin', whether they want them to or not. Where you may have been an expert at some point, you may need to learn more. I do hope he takes your fabulous advice and runs with it. People charge money for this kind of help! :)"
 
Dominion DMS
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Menu