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Tim Martell SLAMS Industry SEO Vendors

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#41
This thread would be dead if we let dealers alone speak.. What like 1 person commented after it was requested dealers only... Why do you want dealers to post about this only? Vendors are giving out awesome advice and digging into stuff, but you just want to ignore it.

Any dealer can chime in and post at anytime.. Not like vendors talking to each other prevent that..
 
#42
Eley Duke said:
Yago, did you read this;

You must have missed those parts about why Jeff started this thread. It's not about vendors opinion on SEO, about Tim or other SEO vendors. Go start another one if you want that please. I certainly don't think Jeff started it to promote Tim or a platform for you to attack Tim. Jeff asked Dealers to answer a poll on what they think about their SEO providers. He asked this to Dealers! It got hijacked once so please don't hijack it a second time for reasons it wasn't intended for so that we can here from Dealers!

Thanks for letting dealers speak, after all, this is "dealer" refresh!
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Eley,

I did read Jeff's entry. I took the last piece as a request to participate and assumed that the tittle of the blog entry was the most relevant part.

I don't think Jeff wants to promote Tim, I think Tim wants to promote himself by insulting other's and I just didn't want to put up with that.

I don't have anything against Tim; I don't know the guy, we don't compete, etc. But taken his comments

Jeff Kershner said:
Tim is going on a RANT and calling industry services OUT on their SEO reporting. Basically, sorta calling them liars and criminals.
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as an attack to the vendors in general I felt it was worth it to send my 2 cents about what many of us do.


Eley Duke said:
Thanks for letting dealers speak, after all, this is "dealer" refresh!
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I wouldn't think that by me writing comments will inhibit anyone from voicing their opinion. However and with no phun intended, without dealers there is no vendor and without vendor there is no dealers. If vendors pull out of DR there will be little left. Let me point out that Jeff, Joe Pistell, and Alex are all vendors!
 
#43
yagoparamo said:
I wouldn't think that by me writing comments will inhibit anyone from voicing their opinion.
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You're as long winded as a debutante in a hair salon. You inhibit by your long drawn out need to reason and voice your opinion. I'm sure you'll take these 3 sentences, break them up into 3 chunks and comment extensively... and no one will bother to read it, which will inhibit the conversation from flowing.
kcar said:
Any dealer can chime in and post at anytime.. Not like vendors talking to each other prevent that..
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It does because it fragments what should be the real conversation... (I admit, this is fragmenting it even more)

Now that that's off my chest - I think it's a ballsy move for Tim to come out and make some noise (especially because of his aforementioned business model, but i digress) . Accountability is a great thing for everyone, maybe SEO vendors will be proactive (yeah right) and bring transparency to their reports if there's enough noise made and more people take a stand like Emily and call out their "SEO Experts". I feel like it would be more valuable if Tim put together a (unbiased as possible) checklist of q's for dealers to ask rather then just calling out SEO vendors.

We use PCG for our SEO and I'll admit that their reporting isn't stellar and that they show overall traffic increases rather then the targeted organic search increases that they work towards. They do provide a list of all work completed each month... anyone else use them and have thoughts on their reporting? It seems to evolve often enough, maybe 2 or 3 times since we've been with them.
 
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#44
Mitch Gallant said:
You're as long winded as a debutante in a hair salon. You inhibit by your long drawn out need to reason and voice your opinion. I'm sure you'll take these 3 sentences, break them up into 3 chunks and comment extensively... and no one will bother to read it, which will inhibit the conversation from flowing.

It does because it fragments what should be the real conversation... (I admit, this is fragmenting it even more)

Now that that's off my chest - I think it's a ballsy move for Tim to come out and make some noise (especially because of his aforementioned business model, but i digress) . Accountability is a great thing for everyone, maybe SEO vendors will be proactive (yeah right) and bring transparency to their reports if there's enough noise made and more people take a stand like Emily and call out their "SEO Experts". I feel like it would be more valuable if Tim put together a (unbiased as possible) checklist of q's for dealers to ask rather then just calling out SEO vendors.

We use PCG for our SEO and I'll admit that their reporting isn't stellar and that they show overall traffic increases rather then the targeted organic search increases that they work towards. They do provide a list of all work completed each month... anyone else use them and have thoughts on their reporting? It seems to evolve often enough, maybe 2 or 3 times since we've been with them.
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Mitch,

I apologize if my English is not good enough yet, it is harder than you imagine to put thoughts together and then write them down. When I finished my BS degree in computer science and started my business 10 years ago I was told by my sales manager at the dealer that the owners of the dealers would not take seriously a guy that spoke like a Mexican. For that I refused to call dealers and drove from door to door to get the business in person. I knew that it is easier for me to communicate when I face someone than when i just write in a computer (even though I have a BS in Computer Science from an American University). So don't worry, I'm not offended by your comments. People like you have empowered me to face adversity and make the best out of it.

I'm disappointed though to see that you are a moderator. I sure would have hoped that you would encourage more people to participate and not do the opposite. Whether I'm a dealer or not, which you actually don't know, shouldn't make a difference specially in a time where participation in the blog seems to be its the lowest.

As for your comment about Tim; I don't think is ballsy to make noise... specially when it is based on a lie and as basis to deceitfully sell ones product. Anyone can do that. The values of accountability have always existed in the car business and fake experts have always shown in any industry that lacks a way to measure its members. I don't see anything new but a way for someone to gain notoriety by pointing at others as the cause of a problem.
 
#46
Mitch Gallant said:
B/C you're SOO oppressed. Any discouragement is simply intended to avoid off topic comments like this. I'm sick of skiping over 10 paragraph responses. PM me if you have a problem.
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No problems here (like this short response better?).

PS: I've never felt oppressed other than by women asking about where my accent is from.
 
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#47
Tim Martell said:
I appreciate Jeff's caution. No sales pitch here. I found this yesterday after two of my clients asked me to review their reporting. Both ddc clients. One asked about ddc reporting, the other about carmercial reporting. It just never occurred to me that a businesses entire platform could be based on busywork that does nothing.


With all of these BS awards out there, I'm thinking of taking a different approach and putting together something like Wikimotive's S-List. Like worst dressed on the red carpet. Point out pitfalls and snake oil to avoid and why. Seems like that would be more valuable then trying to figure out which awards are legit.


I know I'm an acquired taste. I make no apologies for my brashness. I am what I am. But I love automotive retail. I grew up in this business. My father has been at the desk for... I think this is his 44th year now at the same store as COO. I'm just passionate. I'm a car guy! And I watched friends lose their franchises for no good reason (Chrysler). I've seen dealers who couldn't adapt cling to the belief that the internet was a fad go from dynasty's to dust. Even when I worked in retail (first 20 years of career) I would never want to see my competition go out of business. I wanted them to do well as long as we sold 1 more car than they did (OK 50 more but who's counting?).


But living in that world through recessions and politicians and regulations and every other obstacle we ever faced, the margins have always been too small for all the grief dealers have to take. The last thing they need is a vendor who smiles at them, takes a check and gives 'em nothing back - just boils my blood.


Dealers deserve better. My no strings offer is really that. Send me your report and I'll tell you what I find. Or I'll tell you exactly what I'll do. I'll just take their report and import it in to our reporting tool and compile a list of all the keywords you're being ranked for and turn it around with search volume attached.


If you want to talk about hiring us after, great. Hey I'm here to make money too. But that is not the motivation for this offer. Dealers deserve to know what they're getting. Period!
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Tim,

Out of curiosity;

Since the client requested of you to check these reports; did you reach out to DDC or Carmercial to see if there is more to it or if the reports have a basic (usually mailed) then advanced (usually online) capabilities or you deducted their entire business plan and platform just from what the dealer provided you to check?
 
#49
#50
Tim, I am not sure what the monthly rate for good SEO should be. It's the only option our web provider offers and it's pretty much canned cruise control SEO, set it and forget it maybe.
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Eley, for what it's worth, my whole life prior to DealerRater was in the (real) SEO world and I continue to follow it pretty close, but not so close that I get all riled up over animal updates. Automotive, however, is the only vertical where I still see SEO services being consumed by paying a flat monthly fee. This month your SEO company did the exact same as last month and is going to do the exact same amount of work as next month??? "Canned Cruise Control SEO" (great term by the way) is exactly what it is. Whatever the "SEO" work that was provided to you this month was also provided to every other dealer on the program. Hard to get ahead, but maybe good enough for maintenance SEO work?

Every (EVERY) SEO project (run if someone calls them a campaign) I've outsourced has always had a set (projected) cost, total time to completion, and an outline of every action the consultant was going to perform and what we had to do on our own. The only line item, on going, monthly cost directed by these consultants was for content creation and it never had a price associated with it. It was a directive by them to say, "we can provide the foundation for SEO, we can target specific sites for links but without great content and continuous great content being added to your site, any improvements we provide will be short lived". They won't write the articles, they may help find someone who can deliver great articles, but really it is (and should be) on you (or someone you hire) to deliver it as no one knows your customers like you do and nothing eats up a search engine like relevant, great, original content.

Chip-
 
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