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Free For 2 Months! - Articles Written, SEO For Dealer Websites

Update - 4 have joined the trial. Also extended an offer to host a new blog for each, wordpress + thesis.

As of today we have setup 2 new blogs with content posted, and links added.

Lexus Of Reno | Luxury News | Lexus and BMW | Reno Nevada
Keene Chrysler Jeep Dodge Blog — Certified Chrysler Five Star Dealer | Serving The Area For Over 35 Years

I expect to launch Younger Toyota's blog as soon as we get the URL chosen.

McGrath Lexus of Chicago provided access to their blog to post the content.

I am very pleased with how good the communication has been with everyone involved, and hope to see the blogs getting indexed in Google soon. All blogs are getting at least weekly posts so that will get them off to a good start.

To-do List - Goals for the first month:
Start getting indexed in the SE's.
Linking to inventory on the dealers site.
Installing google analytics
Work on keyword list to help shape the titles / posts for SEO
Submitting URL to Google, Yahoo, Bing
RSS feed for posts into the dealer's twitter account.
Setting up more content pages, About page, Contact page, etc.
 
Lexus Of Reno update:

When Stefan and I discussed what post to begin with he mentioned that they wanted to get something on the new Lexus hybrid HS 250h.

Stefan gave me some details on why Lexus made the hybrid, it was in response to a survey that was done by Lexus to see whether a luxury Prius would be in demand. They got something like 80% of those who were surveyed would like a luxury version.

I decided that the best way to approach this would be to leverage prius because more would be searching for that than hs 250h. My goal was to get the blog ranked highly for search phrases such as luxury prius , or true luxury hybrid.

Currently its ranking for:

#1 in google for luxury prius reno
#1 in google for reno lexus luxury prius
#2 in google for lexus luxury prius reno
#2 in google for luxury prius reno lexus
#2 in google for luxury prius dealer reno
#2 in google for luxury toyota prius reno - my favorite so far, places them right next to the Toyota dealer
#3 in google for lexus dealer hybrid reno
#5 in google for lexus toyota prius reno
#4 in google for reno luxury toyota prius - another example of getting them next to the Toyota dealer
#7 in google for prius lexus luxury dealer

Also has a few #1 rankings in Yahoo
 
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Cheers to Scott for the unique positioning within the dealer community and taking the time to actually get to know people.

For those not familiar, check out his sites...refreshing to see new automotive solutions/ideas coming from someone with a clear passion for the industry.

Best of luck Scott...

Eric,

Its been truly a pleasure getting to know you, Jeff, Alex and many others.

The support from everyone has been incredible. I hope that I can be as much help to others here as they have been to me.

People no longer just go into a dealer without first doing a bit of research. They read reviews on Yelp, or search Twitter, or check to see who with the dealer is on LinkedIn perhaps someone they are connected to. They want to hear from people who just bought the car they like. Basically, people want to experience something very good, to be greeted with enthusiasm, and because of all the information available online now they can seek that out with precision.

The dealer blogs share passion and information, like watching a preview before going to the see the movie. For years dealers have done all sorts of things to help the community, participating in charities, and building lasting relationships with people. Blogging is an extended version of that tiny fractions of the cost.

Blog and good things happen. The people who are taking part in this trial I talk to almost daily, everyone is so willing to try things and share ideas. Now we can use that same energy through the blog to reach out and bring in new business, people who come in knowing what to expect and not hesitant about buying a car, they've already decided to.
 
Here is the current rankings for two of the blogs. The keywords will continue to improve towards ones that will drive more traffic, but I'm very pleased with the results that this has brought in less than one month.

In addition, I'm starting to work on PPC optimization as well for one client and I'm excited about helping them by improving the CTR, quality score and landing page conversions. Having a good balance between paid and organic search is very important as each will have a different call to action and user experience.


 
Update:

Here's a report that I felt really good about....



They now own Hagerstown, and I'd say they are doing well for the state of Maryland now as well, a little before and after shot:

automotive-seo-work.jpg


And the new blog... Younger Toyota's Blog — Reviews | News | Maryland Area | Toyota Vehicles
 
Now we move into more high volume keywords, notice the four valuable phrases which previously were not indexed for the site.

used car maryland
maryland used cars
used cars maryland
maryland used car


These checks were done using seobook's rank checker.

Status on 12.10.09
before-seo-yt.png


Status on 12.31.09
after-seo-yt.png



Now what I can do is take those four phrases and plug them into googles keyword tool at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Once I hit submit, it spits out another larger list of keywords all related to those four:

buy a used car in maryland
buy used car in maryland
buy used car maryland
buy used cars in maryland
buy used cars maryland
buying a used car in maryland
certified used cars in maryland
certified used cars maryland
cheap used cars for sale in maryland
cheap used cars in maryland
cheap used cars maryland
find used cars in maryland
maryland used car
maryland used car dealers
maryland used car dealerships
maryland used car law
maryland used car laws
maryland used car sales
maryland used car tax
maryland used cars
maryland used cars dealers
selling a used car in maryland
southern maryland used car
used car auctions in maryland
used car dealer in maryland
used car dealer maryland
used car dealers in maryland
used car dealers in southern maryland
used car dealership in maryland
used car dealership maryland
used car dealerships in maryland
used car dealerships in southern maryland
used car for sale in maryland
used car for sale maryland
used car in maryland
used car maryland
used car sales in maryland
used car search maryland
used cars dealers in maryland
used cars dealerships in maryland
used cars dealerships maryland
used cars for cheap in maryland
used cars for sale by owner in maryland
used cars for sale by owner maryland
used cars for sale in maryland
used cars for sale in maryland by owner
used cars for sale in southern maryland
used cars for sale maryland
used cars in southern maryland
used cars maryland
used cars of maryland
used cars southern maryland
used cars under 3000 in maryland
used cheap cars in maryland
used maryland cars

Then I take that list (longtail keywords) and plug it into the rank checker and get this current status:

seo-longtail-1.png

seo-longtail.png


I can then use these keywords to incorporate them into the content on the site, into the titles, descriptions and other metadata.