- Apr 13, 2009
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Matt, there are close 5300 active editors on DMOZ... Try regional first rather then Business related cats as regional get less spam.
SEO 101 For Dealers
- Thread starter CAORYAN
- Start date
I am curious....what is the accountability to the editors? I know some are good but it just seems that it only depends on who it is and if they are even interested in doing it anymore. So much for the open source expectations of dmoz.
Alex, while I agree with much of what Ryan says, the truth is that, to some degree, the advice becomes somewhat speculative. There is one simple truth... Anyone claiming to be a SEO guru is anything but (Ryan that is not directed at you). My company's results are atypical. Does that truly make me an SEO guru? Maybe. Maybe it just means I know how to market my brand, in my area, better than anyone else in my area.
Ryan mentions flash as being a detractor. Well for some, perhaps this holds true. In my market broadband penetration is extremely high..(10 megs? god I cam't imagine speeds that slow! LOL 50down25up) Additionally, while it is not stated on google's webmaster guidelines I happen to know some information from a very well respected source inside google that would contradict some of what Ryan stated as it pertains to flash and video. Since I value my sources as it keeps me on the forefront I won't go into detail on this. But suffice it to say that there are valid ways to have html content behind the flash indicating what is contained in the flash for the specific purpose of proper SEO. I just used a flash site for over a year and moved our site traffic from 4,500 visits last september to 39,684 visits this past August. The site was completely flash content. Now I have significantly reduced the amount of flash we use, but it is not for SEO reasons that I have moved away from this platform.
What I can tell you is that you can absolutely game any system with the right process. You can game google without breaking a single google rule if you are willing to learn and put in the man hours.
I'm not sure what Ryan's point was with regard to reading blogs. Why would anyone suggest that, as professionals, we not continually seek more information regarding aspects of our profession. By your own statement, shouldn't we ignore everything you just wrote since we're reading it on a blog from a "guru"? Perhaps I completely misunderstood. I recommend reading everything and anything you have time to absorb. And don't take anyone's word as gospel. Question my advise! Question Ryan's and Alex's and Jeff's and anyone else who puts content out there. Hell it might not hold true by the time I click submit! This is the internet! Look at google caffeine if you don't believe me. Even google can't make up it's mind from day to day. Everything is always in flux and the rules are continually changing. Read, learn, test, conclude, apply, then do it again...and again and again, etc.
Not sure about your intentions for this post but I clearly stated I AM NOT A SEO GURU nor will I ever claim to be. I don't believe you read through the entire thread. I simply have a passion for helping dealers get caught up to whats going on in search today. Your "INSIDE SOURCE" i am sure is very helpful. I prefer not to use flash for many reasons not just SEO. Content is meant to be read and content hidden behind video has never been said to be "Black hat" nor "White hat". Maybe we should ask Cutts. I did read a lot of blogs etc.... while I was just learning but many of them sent me in different directions. While growing and learning I have found many great sources that I posted. Not sure why I am defending myself for someone who didn't really read my posts nor hears my heart. If you have a problem with my helping dealers with what I have learned please don't read it.
I do value what you have to say being that you have a source at google that obviously will tell you whats, what. Please feel free to contribute and I will follow along. I am a student and this is a forum for the public. I am the public and love the car business therefore I want to help.
So I've been scanning through what has become a somewhat lengthy forum. There is no question, that there is a plethora of great info here. There is no question that Ryan backs his statements with correct explanation for higher level implementation of proper site structure.
THE PROBLEM IS...
This is not what WE need to be learning as dealer personnel. Hey if you want to moonlight as an SEO consultant, by all means, lets keep Ryan talking and you'll all have a nice pet if he continues to puke his 10+ years of experience right in the blog. But I think the bigger issue, that everyone is missing is not that we need the control as dealers to be able to edit or Meta's and H1's. We just need to know enough to be dangerous. What the hell am I talking about? We don't need to know how to do it. We just need to know what to look for. We need to know how to hold our providers ACCOUNTABLE. We need to know if they are using the proper site structure and if not, to fix it or be replaced by someone who will. We don't need to hire a staff of coders and programmers and SEO guru's. We just need to be educated enough to call dealer.com out on not using unique title tags (I did and they fixed it). We need to be able to point out that seo friendly urls for inventory should be a no brainer (I did, and dealer.com fixed it - globally and right in front of me. I was impressed...and I hated dealer.com). We need to be able to question what things like "dynamic SEO" really get us and understand that to date, dealer.com still has no explanation for this product beyond, "we'll look at your site and make adjustments if it needs it at least once a quarter." Thats BS and as a dealer you should know its BS and know not to pay for it. As a dealer employee you should know WHY. WHY is it worth more money to have a provider like TK carsites vs dealer.com. You should know WHY your dealer might want to pay for an upgraded SEO package and what that package entails. You should know WHY it might be worth hiring an SEO consultant like Brian Pasch to teach you how to submit good PR or to setup a wordpress microsite. You should know WHY. Trust me, you don't need to know HOW. Or did you forget, you still have to manage vendors, budgets, analyze metrics, train BDC/CRC/whatever new acronym staff to learn call scripts, roll play, listen to phone calls, click EVERY SINGLE link on your website(s) EVERY SINGLE day, check that lead forms are submitting properly, check your SERP for hundreds if not thousands of keywords, fight with your GSM who still insists that "POWER WINDOWS, LOCKS AC, AM/FM/CD" is a good description and doesn't understand why you want to change the link on your website to "used cars" instead of "preowned vehicles" because google says so oh yeah and SOME OF YOU ARE ACTUALLY SELLING CARS YOURSELF TOO!!!!! Are you f'ing kidding me? Let's ad programmer/coder to the resume now? At some point we need to make a head check here. How is your time best spent as it regards value to your employer. Because when the big guy asks, "what happened last month? We had 30 less leads than the month before. What did we accomplish?" And you respond with some H1 tag story, I got news for you... He's going to have a few words for you and they ain't gonna be "Happy Birthday"! And if you don't need a box immediately following that conversation you will be walking around for the next month waiting for and maybe even hoping for a quick death to just put you out of your misery.
While I am sure a few of you got a laugh out of that rant, it isn't far from the truth. Ryan's knowledge is a wonderful asset to the group. But instead of teaching how. Talk about WHAT they need to know to look for and WHY. Then we can hold our vendor's accountable and be able to explain to the "big guy" that, we're cutting dead weight. That "I" was able to determine this product wasn't helping us and we can reallocate that money on something that will generate 80 leads to offset the 30 we lost due to declining 4th quarter consumer interest. More importantly, that "I" know WHY and "I" know WHAT to do to correct it!
Ya feel me?
THE PROBLEM IS...
This is not what WE need to be learning as dealer personnel. Hey if you want to moonlight as an SEO consultant, by all means, lets keep Ryan talking and you'll all have a nice pet if he continues to puke his 10+ years of experience right in the blog. But I think the bigger issue, that everyone is missing is not that we need the control as dealers to be able to edit or Meta's and H1's. We just need to know enough to be dangerous. What the hell am I talking about? We don't need to know how to do it. We just need to know what to look for. We need to know how to hold our providers ACCOUNTABLE. We need to know if they are using the proper site structure and if not, to fix it or be replaced by someone who will. We don't need to hire a staff of coders and programmers and SEO guru's. We just need to be educated enough to call dealer.com out on not using unique title tags (I did and they fixed it). We need to be able to point out that seo friendly urls for inventory should be a no brainer (I did, and dealer.com fixed it - globally and right in front of me. I was impressed...and I hated dealer.com). We need to be able to question what things like "dynamic SEO" really get us and understand that to date, dealer.com still has no explanation for this product beyond, "we'll look at your site and make adjustments if it needs it at least once a quarter." Thats BS and as a dealer you should know its BS and know not to pay for it. As a dealer employee you should know WHY. WHY is it worth more money to have a provider like TK carsites vs dealer.com. You should know WHY your dealer might want to pay for an upgraded SEO package and what that package entails. You should know WHY it might be worth hiring an SEO consultant like Brian Pasch to teach you how to submit good PR or to setup a wordpress microsite. You should know WHY. Trust me, you don't need to know HOW. Or did you forget, you still have to manage vendors, budgets, analyze metrics, train BDC/CRC/whatever new acronym staff to learn call scripts, roll play, listen to phone calls, click EVERY SINGLE link on your website(s) EVERY SINGLE day, check that lead forms are submitting properly, check your SERP for hundreds if not thousands of keywords, fight with your GSM who still insists that "POWER WINDOWS, LOCKS AC, AM/FM/CD" is a good description and doesn't understand why you want to change the link on your website to "used cars" instead of "preowned vehicles" because google says so oh yeah and SOME OF YOU ARE ACTUALLY SELLING CARS YOURSELF TOO!!!!! Are you f'ing kidding me? Let's ad programmer/coder to the resume now? At some point we need to make a head check here. How is your time best spent as it regards value to your employer. Because when the big guy asks, "what happened last month? We had 30 less leads than the month before. What did we accomplish?" And you respond with some H1 tag story, I got news for you... He's going to have a few words for you and they ain't gonna be "Happy Birthday"! And if you don't need a box immediately following that conversation you will be walking around for the next month waiting for and maybe even hoping for a quick death to just put you out of your misery.
While I am sure a few of you got a laugh out of that rant, it isn't far from the truth. Ryan's knowledge is a wonderful asset to the group. But instead of teaching how. Talk about WHAT they need to know to look for and WHY. Then we can hold our vendor's accountable and be able to explain to the "big guy" that, we're cutting dead weight. That "I" was able to determine this product wasn't helping us and we can reallocate that money on something that will generate 80 leads to offset the 30 we lost due to declining 4th quarter consumer interest. More importantly, that "I" know WHY and "I" know WHAT to do to correct it!
Ya feel me?
Ryan, I specifically stated I was not referring to you with regards to the self-proclaimed seo guru comment. Please understand, my commentary was not meant as an attack. Just a slightly differing opinion. As I said, much of our advise will be useless to anyone reading this post in 90 days because the rules will have changed again. I am not looking for you to defend yourself. I LOVE DEBATE. Ask David Kain if you don't believe me! LOL I will sometimes take an opposing view even if I agree. Just for the dialogue that can ensue as a result.
My point is that there isn't necessarily one magic formula for marketing. No, one size fits all. No "do this" and you'll have great rankings and convert a ton of traffic and champagne will fall from the heavens and velvet ropes will part... technique. That there is and will continue to be so much content out there for advise that we should read all we can. Learn it. Test it. And ultimately make our own conclusions as it regards our unique situations. Because, there is really only 1 basic truth when it comes to google. Links. Out side of that everything has changed. And even the way we link and what makes a quality link has changed over the years. Sure there are good basic practices to follow and I pointed out that much of what you stated adheres to that.
I may have misunderstood your meaning regarding the seo guru blogs...which I also pointed out in my post. I too have a great passion for what I do, learning my craft and contributing what I can to help others enjoy success. Keep up the passion. But I give you fair warning. I am the proverbial "bull in a china shop". My posts are not always...diplomatic in nature. If I see BS, I call it like I see it. No one is safe! LOL On that note... time for lunch... Check back later! Keep up the dialogue. This is a great thread!
Very well! You said it yourself....You will debate anything. I am not interested. However, I realized to a degree what your are telling me thats why I stopped. My intention was to raise awareness to dealers because so many website providers are not doing what they should for the amount that dealers pay them.
You obviously have time to spend on here so my thoughts would be you probably have time to work on a little seo or check to see if your seo efforts are effective.
Your post was educational and I agree with most of it.
Note to everyone....Not everyone will agree on SEO tactics. You do need to spend more time selling cars and not sitting in front of a computer but I speak to dozens of dealers every day that has plenty of time.
I'm done with this thread....alex or whom ever....feel free to delete it.
You obviously have time to spend on here so my thoughts would be you probably have time to work on a little seo or check to see if your seo efforts are effective.
Your post was educational and I agree with most of it.
Note to everyone....Not everyone will agree on SEO tactics. You do need to spend more time selling cars and not sitting in front of a computer but I speak to dozens of dealers every day that has plenty of time.
I'm done with this thread....alex or whom ever....feel free to delete it.
Maybe we could just move Tim's posts into another thread and continue with this SEO 101 thread...useful stuff in here that I'd rather not see put down/stopped.
- Apr 7, 2009
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- Joe
Even though I agree with Tim's rant, It's the readers responsibility to decide if learning the technical side of the biz can help them sell more cars.
That being said...
If an ISM wants to build DIY sites and is reading HTML for Dummies... IMO, they've picked the wrong career.
Whats more looney?
Dealer.com opening used car stores
-or-
ISM's testing SERPs for signs of Latent Semantic Indexing ?
It's the same loony-ness!
Ryan has a sincere passion for internet marketing. You can tell he spends many hours doing research and loves the opportunity to share his findings with others. Can you fault a man for that? Hell no. IMO, Ryan so loves what he does, he forgets the 100's of hours he burns up learning internet marketing. Because his day job is in sales, he intuitively conveys his knowledge in a manner that under-estimates the time, complexity and dedication needed to DIY (profitably)
Love the passion!
That being said...
If an ISM wants to build DIY sites and is reading HTML for Dummies... IMO, they've picked the wrong career.
Whats more looney?
Dealer.com opening used car stores
-or-
ISM's testing SERPs for signs of Latent Semantic Indexing ?
It's the same loony-ness!
Ryan has a sincere passion for internet marketing. You can tell he spends many hours doing research and loves the opportunity to share his findings with others. Can you fault a man for that? Hell no. IMO, Ryan so loves what he does, he forgets the 100's of hours he burns up learning internet marketing. Because his day job is in sales, he intuitively conveys his knowledge in a manner that under-estimates the time, complexity and dedication needed to DIY (profitably)
Love the passion!
