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Let's Talk About Our Blogs

Jason

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Dec 22, 2009
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Jason
Ok DealerRefresher's, I need your input....

The past couple of months I've been asking Car Peeps from across the country to take a quick 5 minute survey about their dealership's blog.

So far the results have been intriguing and I wanted to share some data with you and get your thoughts.

In the survey I ask what the #1 challenge is when it comes to your dealership's blog (check all that apply):


Limited Time/Resources
Management/Ownership doesn't see value of blogging
It's often complicated
Don't know what to write about
Not sure how to build a blog platform
Don't know how to measure it's success


Interestingly enough, all the respondents answered some combination of: Limited Time/Resources, Management/Ownership doesn't see value of blogging and/or Don't know how to measure its success.

No one has selected It's often complicated, Don't know what to write about or Not sure how to build a blog platform.

This suggests to me that of those who responded see the value in creating unique and original blog content, the benefits of doing so and have a good idea of how to go about it. What they're lacking is resources and being able to measure its success to get Management buy-in to increase their efforts.

I'd love to get your input as well. I'll be using the data I collect in my presentation at the DrivingSales Executive Summit this October.

If you could spare a couple of minutes and take the 11 Question Blog Survey, I'd appreciate it.

Also, if you have success stories or challenges of your own that you'd like to share, please do so. Thanks! :)
 
Here's two of ours Quirk Ford News | Greater Boston Ford Dealership and Quirk Chrysler Jeep News | Jeep Dealer Serving Boston there's nothing incredible about them but we do get a lot of enjoyment out of them. I've hired a college intern to maintain them and I feel she does a great job. Not sure what else there is to say about them. We use blogs to cover community events we participate in and product releases mostly. They make for good newsletter and social media content...

Filled out your survey
 
I use my blog for SEO.

I upload new vehicle brochures as they are released, and keep it strictly to a wkchevy branded resource page.

Also allows my sales consultants to attach links to brochures in emails, rather than attaching a large PDF document. I dig it.

wkchevy.com | You'll have a great day at W-K!

That's a handy resource you put together Dustin! If you haven't already, would you mind taking the dealership blog survey so I can add your data to the mix?
 
I decided to create a blog for our dealership back in Mach of this year. I have to agree that it can be time consuming but I try to update it with Original content as often as I can.
Take a look here : Wackerli Auto Center Idaho falls, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Subaru dealer

I built it on a Wix platform which is very easy to use and actually quite good for SEO as well. It is however difficult to measure it's success. Any tips or feedback ?
 
It is however difficult to measure it's success. Any tips or feedback ?

Hey Alex, great question and it's the one I'm seeing most people say is their biggest challenge in my Dealership Blog Survey.

There are a couple of different ways I measure the success of our company blog.

1. Overall Traffic

When I relaunched FamilyDealBlog.com last October, my goal was to create the same amount of monthly traffic to our blog that the average dealership website receives.

For example, according to the latest info from Dataium, the average dealership website in June and July received about 4,000 unique visitors per month.

Now think about this for a second. Think about the thousands upon thousands of dollars we spend in marketing and advertising to drive traffic to our websites.

I wanted to be able to show that we can drive similar, if not more traffic, simply by creating useful and relevant content.

It took a few months to make it happen, but I'm happy to say that we've accomplished that goal.

2. Individual Post Goals

The next step was to recognize that while traffic volume was great, it doesn't mean a whole lot if a certain percentage of visitors aren't taking an intended action as a result of the content on your blog.

So for that, I highly recommend stating an intended goal for each piece of content you publish.

If the reason for publishing an article is "Because SEO" then you're probably missing the boat.

The goal of each piece of content is for you to decide...generate a lead, add an email subscriber, convert to an inventory search, whatever it is don't lose sight of what you are trying to accomplish.

Hope you found those answers helpful Alex, and thanks for taking the blog survey I appreciate it!

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I'm more than happy to help :)

PS. Here's a recent article from BloggingWizard.com that I found useful. Perhaps you will too.
 
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