Finally decided to go for it. Templates are made, psd files done, just need to send them out for coding. Going to use a sub-domain for the time being for the inventory with a custom header. I've had enough of managed websites, and hidden charges, etc. I can't even upload images to pages without linking them to another server.. Everything's ready, there's no reason I shouldn't move forward, I can't get where I want to be at with providers. I'll prob make a progress thread soon.
Really debating running my own managed dealer website. Who's running their own dealer website or con
- Thread starter kcar
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- Apr 7, 2009
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Lots of PM action at me over the last month regarding DIY sites (vs vendor sites). Search DIY threads here and ck out the quote below!
HTH!
HTH!
Having recently minored in computer science, and being pretty damn proficient with computers, software, and some online programming, my GM would always ask me to give him some thoughts on all the vendor pitches he was getting.
My first piece of advice would be, it will be insanely difficult for an amateur developer, or even a $60k a year developer, to outcode a team of quality high paid developers. Sure, a quality developer having a mental seizure thus willing to work for half of what they do in the real tech industry can be found if you're lucky, but for how long and what about when he leaves? The 'cool stuff' you wish your site did, but for some reason they cant get it done for you, is most likely difficult. If it was doable, theyd do it and present this cool flexibility to all their customers. Them investing 300 man hours applied to 50 customers makes way more sense than you investing 300 for your one rooftop.
About all the SEO drama, and even some of the PPC drama..
My GM would ask about investing in SEO to create article pages tailored to our region and blah blah blah. He wanted to come up in the organic results for towns 10 minutes away in case someone searched "That town, usa ___ dealership" even though there wasnt a dealership there.
I told him:
"I think those people will find you anyway even if you dont artificially optimize to catch them. Our current manufacturer spec'd site gets us thousands of visits to the site a month. The site/Autotrader/cars/craigslist gets us hundreds of phone calls a month. We buy hundreds of leads. Floor traffic is good. But we have Bill, Jerry, and Mike selling 4-7 cars? My car is stuck in detail for 3 hours on a Saturday so Im babysitting customers instead up taking ups? How about we work on a plan to convert the thousands of opportunities we have a month better instead of funneling a few more people onto the site. I'd rather get 3% more people to put in a lead (1000 visits equals 30 more leads) than getting 100 more visits and sticking with our below average conversion. And then lets increase closing ration. And make phone calls better. Lets focus on getting all the customers into our CRM, WITH EMAILS, when they call. That will pay off better than SEO I believe".
My first piece of advice would be, it will be insanely difficult for an amateur developer, or even a $60k a year developer, to outcode a team of quality high paid developers. Sure, a quality developer having a mental seizure thus willing to work for half of what they do in the real tech industry can be found if you're lucky, but for how long and what about when he leaves? The 'cool stuff' you wish your site did, but for some reason they cant get it done for you, is most likely difficult. If it was doable, theyd do it and present this cool flexibility to all their customers. Them investing 300 man hours applied to 50 customers makes way more sense than you investing 300 for your one rooftop.
About all the SEO drama, and even some of the PPC drama..
My GM would ask about investing in SEO to create article pages tailored to our region and blah blah blah. He wanted to come up in the organic results for towns 10 minutes away in case someone searched "That town, usa ___ dealership" even though there wasnt a dealership there.
I told him:
"I think those people will find you anyway even if you dont artificially optimize to catch them. Our current manufacturer spec'd site gets us thousands of visits to the site a month. The site/Autotrader/cars/craigslist gets us hundreds of phone calls a month. We buy hundreds of leads. Floor traffic is good. But we have Bill, Jerry, and Mike selling 4-7 cars? My car is stuck in detail for 3 hours on a Saturday so Im babysitting customers instead up taking ups? How about we work on a plan to convert the thousands of opportunities we have a month better instead of funneling a few more people onto the site. I'd rather get 3% more people to put in a lead (1000 visits equals 30 more leads) than getting 100 more visits and sticking with our below average conversion. And then lets increase closing ration. And make phone calls better. Lets focus on getting all the customers into our CRM, WITH EMAILS, when they call. That will pay off better than SEO I believe".
- Apr 7, 2009
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Going to update since the thread moved back to the top.
Have been running a fully custom wordpress site for two months now, and it's a ton of work to get everything setup. Dealers who think they are internet savy, need to be webmaster savy before trying to enter into a project like this. Or pay someone to do it all for you, but did it all by hand with a some outsourcing for coding. Consider you'll have to write a ton of content for the site, make a bunch of pages, setup forms, inventory, etc it's definitely a time suck. It's an awesome feeling when you sit down and go through every single page of the site optimizing on-page seo, title tags, meta data, etc. and trump all of the cookie cutter sites from competitors.
With that said the results are phenomenal when done right.. Gained an additional extra 45-50 e-mail leads per month and about a 15 phone call boost. Traffic is down 1,000 visits less, but my conversion rate is so high it makes up for it. Reason being as some of my new pages need some backlinks built. As well, have 6 keywords now ranking in the #1 spot for high traffic terms, and finally reaching page one for some of the harder keywords that cost around $3-4 click. Traffic is growing each month, and now I'm looking forward to re-focusing my efforts on off-page seo and ppc.
Also side note: Dealers you can rank a site without inventory pages for content. (I'm still surprised dealers put no value into their inner pages with generic text, these are the pages you need to put your best content on, they don't get deleted like inventory pages do.) Anyways, I'm harvesting data from another site onto mine in an iframe-ish manner and still killing it in the serps. Working out very very well, but I'm also wrapping up this inventory design PSD which ties into my next step of coding a Wordpress inventory plug-in. Will have an almost complete package once that's done.
Have been running a fully custom wordpress site for two months now, and it's a ton of work to get everything setup. Dealers who think they are internet savy, need to be webmaster savy before trying to enter into a project like this. Or pay someone to do it all for you, but did it all by hand with a some outsourcing for coding. Consider you'll have to write a ton of content for the site, make a bunch of pages, setup forms, inventory, etc it's definitely a time suck. It's an awesome feeling when you sit down and go through every single page of the site optimizing on-page seo, title tags, meta data, etc. and trump all of the cookie cutter sites from competitors.
With that said the results are phenomenal when done right.. Gained an additional extra 45-50 e-mail leads per month and about a 15 phone call boost. Traffic is down 1,000 visits less, but my conversion rate is so high it makes up for it. Reason being as some of my new pages need some backlinks built. As well, have 6 keywords now ranking in the #1 spot for high traffic terms, and finally reaching page one for some of the harder keywords that cost around $3-4 click. Traffic is growing each month, and now I'm looking forward to re-focusing my efforts on off-page seo and ppc.
Also side note: Dealers you can rank a site without inventory pages for content. (I'm still surprised dealers put no value into their inner pages with generic text, these are the pages you need to put your best content on, they don't get deleted like inventory pages do.) Anyways, I'm harvesting data from another site onto mine in an iframe-ish manner and still killing it in the serps. Working out very very well, but I'm also wrapping up this inventory design PSD which ties into my next step of coding a Wordpress inventory plug-in. Will have an almost complete package once that's done.
Can you send me more details on this via PM or here is fine too.
Exploring options. Thanks.
- Feb 19, 2010
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Eh I disagree. I approach it from a different perspective. But please, if you think that organic SEO is dead, then by all means don't worry about it so I can take all the real estate in that area
Let's use the example of HD Monitor that you mentioned. We have your standard PPC ads on the top and right -- no changes there. We also have the shopping results and related search above the organic listings. While they take up space and push the organic listings down, they're an essential element on the page (and great for users!). Let's say I do SEO for Amazon -- you better believe it's my responsibility to make sure Amazon is both in the shopping results and related searches AS WELL AS the PPC ads and organic listings. SEO is about page real estate and the better positioned I am in all aspects, the likelier I am to get a click through.
To generalize and say that SEO is all about organic SEO, whatever that truly means, is to completely miss the point of what SEO is about. Google is always trying to make things better for the user -- so if you're an SEO, you better adapt to those changes and make sure your business is positioned well in all sectors.
But looking forward, who's not to say that the related searches and shopping results won't become what you deem "organic" if they're naturally populated based upon effective optimization on the web?
SEO might not be dead... but PPC is making it irrelevant...
There are 4 paid links above you in this search and one organic... so even if you became #1 in this search you are still #5...
- Dec 30, 2009
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PPC is relevant for as long as:
Someone else is willing to pay.
They have a good campaign and budget.
Targeted customers don't learn that PPC is advertisement (a lot of them do already).
- Feb 19, 2010
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Who cares? When I search for something I don't mind being targeted... it means they are motivated to earn my business.
Google will kill SEO... they have to... it is cutting into their profit and you know that won't fly.
- Apr 7, 2009
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Its all about relevance.
When PPC started, the ads were dirt cheap and spammers were all over it.
Result? PPC ads were junk.
Fast Forward to today. PPC ad relevance is often equal to top 3 organics -AND- they are not cheap.
Result? PPC ads are the new google. Organic's best days are behind them.
When PPC started, the ads were dirt cheap and spammers were all over it.
Result? PPC ads were junk.
Fast Forward to today. PPC ad relevance is often equal to top 3 organics -AND- they are not cheap.
Result? PPC ads are the new google. Organic's best days are behind them.
