URL tips

[Dave Ferkler]

Purchase a URL that forwards directly to your credit application. www.dealershipnamecredit.com works. It is alot easier to give out a URL than navigating to the application with a customer.

Another idea is to purchase sperate URLs for your different ad sources. Forward those URLs to a page created for that source. Have a video thanking the customer for clicking over from the ad source and why they should buy from your dealership. Include a copy of the ad, links to credit, directions, inventory, testimonials and whatever other hooks you might have. You can track the effectiveness of an ad by the number of page views. Do not make the page viewable from the site map.

 

[jssimonton]

The tracking and direct landing-page plan is great. There is a major issue with people who don't do it right. For instance, the non-tech people who type EVERY URL into a search bar instead of where it belongs will fail. It would seem more effective to use this technique with strong SEO microsites rather than redirected URLs.

 

[Dave Ferkler]

I guess I forgot that there are people that do that. With a microsite you are still relying on the customer typing a URL?

 

[jssimonton]

As a microsite, even with bad SEO, the URL will come up in search. I'm gonna suggest that this is a major reason why every search engine so wants to install that toolbar... more searches, more revenue, even if the search result is obvious.

Interesting coincidence, as this just came up as an issue for us yesterday. We are in the process of acquiring a store and this topic came up. One of our key staff asked what the new store's current web site was and when I gave the vanity version of the URL (the one they put on business cards and the front door?) they said it didn't work. When I looked over her shoulder, she was typing the URL into the Google toolbar instead of the address bar. A quick "could you go to this web site for me" survey had about a third of the people tested did the same thing.

Lame story short... when the website is billybobshondatoyotascionofyourtown.com, billyshonda.com better be an actual page somewhere or a third of our staff (perhaps more of the general public?) can't find it.