• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

SEO (vs.) SEM

Jump to latest Follow Reply
JessicaRuth

JessicaRuth

Boss
Nov 4, 2012
461
104
First Name
Jessica
#1
war_on_free_clicks-intro-graphic-650x359.jpg

At the end of the day, you just want to be at the Top of Page One, right? Well, hell yes you do. But, so does everyone else. And, according to Google, recent reports and this infographic the cost to be on Page One is costing you and your frenemies a bit more these days.

Paid ads are gaining traction, and more often than not, getting more clicks than organic listings. But, don’t dump your quality content just yet. Not all keywords are created equal and PPC can’t replace SEO just like SEO can’t replace PPC (er, not always…)
You’ll still need to rock both paid and organic rankings and rock them well. According to WordStream’s data, if an advertiser buys ads for keywords they currently rank organically for, 89 percent of the traffic from the paid ads will be new traffic. And, don’t jump ship on Google for Facebook ads just yet. Theclick-through rates on Google ads are 600 times higher than Facebook ads.
Take a good study at this infographic. Every fraction of an inch on this is filled with information that can help you and your dealership.
 
#3
'inifiniti q50 seattle' infiniti q50 seattle - Google Search

and a custom page we created for this dealer (On page SEO) shows first: 2014 Infiniti Q50 in Seattle | Seattle Luxury Cars

Tiny money spent--#1 position

This Infiniti dealer is not located in Seattle but in a neighboring town.

There are ways to make SEO work.

PS: Just for kicks: That custom age is also mobile adaptive. Even the photos will show on mobile and will chaneg sizes depending on your devide or orientation. Not only SEO, but also great for newsletters.
 
#5
If the dealer ask we coordinate with their SEM campaign but more than anything we build these to cover areas where the website doesn't show or shows poorly due to being new data (new models), towns in between the dealer and a competitor (in between DMAs), etc.

We refer to this as SCM (Search content management) which I think you will hear a lot more this year.

This is another example, a lot shorter then the previous one, but that still shows pretty well: porsche 911 tacoma - Google Search

In this case we just brought a unique entry from their blog. Different birth reason than the pure SCM entry but works the same most of the time for not very competitive searches.

Note: This dealer is not in Tacoma, the area I searched for the 911. When I tell dealers they should have a blog they look at me cross-eyed, then they spend $5,000/month in PPC. Dealers should have both an external blog and an internal blog even if the internal blog is just a way to bring in content pages to the website.
 
#7
JessicaRuth said:
I completely agree with the power of the internal blog. Too often this is overlooked, or added to the site and rarely updated.
Click to expand...

Besides that what is even more important is that is updated with unique content that has geo-located key words.

Again, it is amzing that dealers will often say "we will do it ourselves" (OK-I know that you reading this do your own blog and you got an academy award for it. I'm talking for the other 99%) and dismiss something that is 10 times cheaper to implement than PPC and more powerful if targeted properly (you can easily target fat searches and stick there for a long time at no cost).
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person
#8
What drives me up the wall to no end is vendors who pitch SEO and brag up using long tail key terms like "Ford Focus SEL for sale at an amazing price from a great dealer in Dallas TX". A monkey could throw up a page on any dealer website and rank as the number one result in less then a week. It's an exaggeration, sure, but a look at your analytics will tell you that these searches never happen... easy answer on how many cars it sells.

There is a big difference between content creation and content marketing. There is no one in our space doing GREAT content marketing. At least none that I've seen. And there sure as heck isn't a vendor, without exception, who is doing great content marketing.

It's too hard.

In my opinion that is.

Please rain down a fire of examples proving me wrong backed up with data on traffic engagement and conversion, I want to burn in my cynicism!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 people
#9
Mitch,

You bet is hard, but why is this no good for content creation?

2014 Infiniti Q50 in Seattle | Seattle Luxury Cars


How is this no good for long tail search (the top dealer that shows, is 25 miles from that Geo location in that long tail):

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...0.0.0..0.0.les;..0.0...1c..6.serp.cJeqjwCDF6k

What about this one? 'hyundai elantra smokey point' and my dodge dealer shows! and there are 2 Hyundai dealers around.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...0.0.0..0.0.les;..0.0...1c..6.serp.w5yDQLdOqqA

Not easy-- agreed. But it can be done, and for not a lot of $$$.
 
#10
Mitch, it's all about which keywords you select. What I basically do is this:

Monthly Search Volume x Click Thru Rate of Top 3 Listing x Conversion Rate x Closing Rate x Value of car deal = Value of keyword

So, let's say you find a keyword with 1100 searches a month:

1100 x 12% (rough estimate) x 5% x 15% x $2000 = $2000/month.


However, that doesn't account for walk in traffic. So I also do a rough estimate, based on historical trends from the dealer, usually around 2% of unique traffic converts to sales. This is just correlation, and not causation, but with the companies I've worked with I see this number stay about the same as we grow the visitor total with SEO.

This equation goes like this: Search Volume x click thru x conversion x Value of sale

So, that same 1100 monthly search keyword would look like this:

1100 x 12% x 2% x $2000 = $5200


From there I just create a range. So, I can estimate between a $2000-$5200/month from that keyword if I can get in the top 3.



As for content not being worth it, I would disagree. One of my websites was getting around 1000 visitors a month for used car searches, but the bounce rate was in the high 20% range. So, I created a landing page specifically for used cars, optimized it with internal links so that it ranked well, and now the majority of the traffic goes through that landing page with a bounce rate below 10%. I did the same thing for other searches, too. SEO isn't just about acquiring new visits, it's also about improving the experience of your current ones.

In the same sense as Yago, if you search "Toyota Tundra Crewmax 4x4 for sale" you will see this page: 2013 Toyota Tundra Crew Max 4x4 for Sale | Ressler Motors : Enjoy one of the most dependable trucks in its class: The new 2013 Toyota Tundra Crew Max 4x4

that page is not optimized well, and essentially just exists. However, it ranks very well for that phrase, and generates about a car sale a month. That being said, that specific dealer has partnered with a shipping company, and is able to get great rates on shipping cars across country. I saw a Facebook post by Subaru of Wichita saying that they offer free shipping in the U.S, so more dealers are doing it.
 
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Jump to latest Follow Reply
Menu