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SEO 101 For Dealers

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#11
Alex Snyder said:
That is the point of DealerRefresh.

I get extremely frustrated with Google. Especially when it comes to Google Local. It has improved recently, but it still is far from perfect. I think they bit off a bit more than they can currently chew with trying to link-up review sites, phone numbers, web pages, and other things with their local listings pages.

For instance:

Judy's Book seems to be the review site that gets the most reviews in our local listings. However, there are multiple new reviews on Judy's book in the last few months and those still aren't showing. A customer even left a review directly on our Google Local page and it took 3 months for that to show up. We have done everything we can to match our local business information up with Dealer Rater and all that did was make the old Dealer Rater reviews go away. So, our Toyota store had over 40 reviews at one point and is now down to 12 - all old. So, when it comes to Google Local they're not providing customers with the most relevant info right now.

As for displaying the proper information, again, we're at the mercy of Google. I've been trying for years to get Google to display the right phone numbers, URL's, and even physical addresses for our various locations. They updated the business center and this made things a little better, but it still isn't 100% - maybe 80% currently. Of those 6 "businesses" at 5225 Virginia Beach Blvd, I can only change 2. Google will not allow me to change anymore.

We also have a single phone number 757 490-1111 that has been fantastic for us. It has been our phone number for 45 years and we are not about to change that. However, that one phone number absolutely kicks my ass with Google Local because they want to link things up by phone number. So that image I posted of "Checkered Flag BMW" is actually showing the address for "smart center Virginia Beach". It is okay because they're essentially on the same campus, but it shows the inaccuracies.

I am always reading the "SEO Guru" blogs and "Google Guru" stuff, despite what Ryan recommends, trying to figure out how to fix things in the local pages and increase exposure in the organic results.
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Yo Alex....I recommend following the right people. Everyone claims they are GURU's now. I think you read me wrong. The best way to learn is trial and error. Build a micro site on WP or something and try to dominate a keyword and see how you do. Go from there.
 
#14
#17
CAORYAN said:
Notice Matt cutts also speaks about H1 tags. Dealers are famous for having multiple H1 tags.
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Im curious, what do you think the key words are for dealers? To me, searches for dealers are pretty simple, brand and location.

When I search for a dealer I usually just type "Audi virginia beach" or "BMW Washington DC"

I guess what Im curious about is the order they are presented in Local business results?

Whats also interesting is the order they are in after the local results, its not the same.

For the DC example
A is BMW DIRECT in the local results, and the first listing after the local listings is BMW of Arlington, and thats not even DC??
 
#18
I think you are right for the most part on the make and location. I also think that you can find some really good keywords with that tool that people are searching in your location that you can get relevant traffic from. Example: "used car atlanta", "new car atlanta", "auto loan atlanta", etc...

If your site is optimized right you should come up about the same for your keywords. You no longer have to put your city in google for things like "car dealer". My search gives me local results with the map. Google changed this about 6 months ago. Everything is moving to more of a local search. My sites rank in top 2 in local and organic sections.

Local is a fickle thing. You will see so many changes and your site will probably change on a daily basis. That is my experience. Your organic search results will stay more steady.

Do a test....Take your alt tags off your pics if you have them and watch your site drop off the local search. Add them back and a week later you will be right back. I did it 3 times to see the results and it happened like that each time.
 
#19
CAORYAN said:
Do a test....Take your alt tags off your pics if you have them and watch your site drop off the local search. Add them back and a week later you will be right back. I did it 3 times to see the results and it happened like that each time.
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Remember, Im a noob so I may be way off track here.
Does that mean that if you have a really pretty flash site you're going to have fewer key words? From what I can tell after looking at the source code on a few flash sites the images are coded differently and seemed to have fewer key words.

Now , it could just be that Im using my browser to view source code, I know there are programs that will scan your page for it.

It just seems from what you're saying, the more pics the better?
 
#20
No, more pics are not better. Dealerships us a lot of images/pictures for buttons etc.... but you need to add "alt tags" to them. I do not recommend having pictures as buttons but it does look good. I would keep the images to a minimum if you can.

Flash has a disadvantage to text sites. I am also not speaking of the meta keywords. I am speaking of the keywords in the content sections (Body).
 
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