- Dec 19, 2018
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Absolutely agree on all accounts. I may have been being a little snarky there.
Pissing Up A Rope SEO and 3rd Party Sites
- Thread starter BillKVMotorCo
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This is the biggest point I make for the anti-third party site brigade. Most of them have no clue where there leads come from, because they do a piss-poor job of tracking it. We listen to all inbound calls and our salespeople ask for the source about 90% of the time. We track the conversion for internet leads as well, which is obviously easier. We only do a decent job with floor traffic, but there is data there as well. All enough data to show it's worth it. And that is, of course, just what we can track. Obviously there are plenty more conversions that we don't get to see.
- Dec 19, 2018
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To be honest, I spend $0 on SEO outside of the probably poor job (if at all) that my site providers do. Part of the reason is my location and the fact that we're the gorilla in our dma as @joe.pistell calls it, so I don't have a ton of local competition. But I should probably still do a little bit of it just to pick up a little more reach for the same reason that I spend just a little bit of money on paid search.
- Dec 19, 2018
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Isn't DealerRefresh the greatest place ever? Look at all this great feedback. Not to mention varying viewpoints.
- Apr 7, 2009
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Bill, my $.02
Uncommitted Shoppers don't like to be asked sources.
Asking for sources was filled with noise. Car shopping takes forever, outside of google, I found a share of ppl that can't name their sites.
For years, I am aligned with @Ryan Everson's take. At a high level, when you want to fly, you go to an aggregator like kayak. Even if United ranks well in SEO, I find more value in the aggregator. A dozen years ago, I wrote here on DR how it was logical that Google was hard coding aggregators for select queries based on SIC codes.
p.s. https://www.similarweb.com/website/cars.com/#overview
- Mar 21, 2012
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One other thing to consider: it is so, so easy to get screwed by an SEO vendor in the automotive space.
The majority do the bare minimum each month - maybe a landing page, a couple of title tag updates, and some obscure citation. The only party generating a meaningful ROI on these activities is your SEO vendor.
At least with third-party listings, you know what you're getting so it's much less of a gamble. So I would 100% wholeheartedly recommend dealers spend their co-op funds on third-party listings first, not SEO.
The average dealer is simply not knowledgeable enough on SEO (nor do I expect them to be) to pick the right vendor and regularly inspect their results, so it tends to become a bill that they just blindly pay because they have always been told that they "have" to do SEO.
That's not to say dealers should avoid SEO altogether, they just have to be very careful in picking the right partner and typically go outside the OEM programs and still be careful as there is a lot of snake oil (and mediocrity) in the industry as @Greg_Gifford can attest to.
The majority do the bare minimum each month - maybe a landing page, a couple of title tag updates, and some obscure citation. The only party generating a meaningful ROI on these activities is your SEO vendor.
At least with third-party listings, you know what you're getting so it's much less of a gamble. So I would 100% wholeheartedly recommend dealers spend their co-op funds on third-party listings first, not SEO.
The average dealer is simply not knowledgeable enough on SEO (nor do I expect them to be) to pick the right vendor and regularly inspect their results, so it tends to become a bill that they just blindly pay because they have always been told that they "have" to do SEO.
That's not to say dealers should avoid SEO altogether, they just have to be very careful in picking the right partner and typically go outside the OEM programs and still be careful as there is a lot of snake oil (and mediocrity) in the industry as @Greg_Gifford can attest to.
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- Apr 7, 2009
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I know of an agency boutique with a great leader and a super engaged staff. We fired the OEM cert'd vendor and they took over Reymore.com in March. Look at this AMAZING work.
We've commissioned them to create SEO for "Street Buy" traffic. The competition is low, the upside looks promising.
Message me if you want me to introduce you.
We've commissioned them to create SEO for "Street Buy" traffic. The competition is low, the upside looks promising.
Message me if you want me to introduce you.
- Mar 21, 2012
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Are these search ads? What type of keywords are they bidding on that average $0.05 CPC?
PS: For the DealerRefresh lurkers, Joe's charts are showing paid media results, not SEO, just to clear up any potential confusion.
- Apr 7, 2009
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my bad, Branded campaigns, forgot to add the header
here is non-branded. Improved yield with a significant reduction in new/used VINs.
here is non-branded. Improved yield with a significant reduction in new/used VINs.
- Dec 19, 2018
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Does it help that's it is a one ask rule? Like we don't push it at all.
