http://www.amazon.com/Win-Game-Googleopoly-Unlocking-Strategy/dp/1119002583/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411159341&sr=1-1&keywords=sean+v+bradley 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/winning-the-game-of-googleopoly-sean-bradley/1120316619?ean=9781119002581

"Win The Game Of Googleopoly" Book Available For Pre-Order On Amazon & Barnes And Noble Now

Overview

Why Long Tail Search Will Change Automotive SEO and Paid Search Forever

In SEO or paid search, long tail keywords are the key to gaining more traffic and more sales. This has become even more important with Google’s new Hummingbird algorithm update, signaling huge new opportunity in search engine optimization. This is an important automotive aftermarket trend for 2013 and beyond, if you sell online.

Auto SEO and long tail search keywords defined

First, let’s define what long tail searches are and why they’re important for automotive SEO and paid search, especially in the aftermarket.

Long tail keywords are phrases used in search using three or more words, such as “Audi performance parts” or “Acura Integra GSR turbo kits.” Long tail search keyword terms and phrases are important because they make up as much as 70% of all searches according to Moz.

Long tail search terms are the opposite of “head” search terms, or the one- and two-word search terms that are most commonly used. Head terms are estimated to account for around 19% of all searches, leaving the rest of the two-word search terms in the “chunky middle.”

As of a couple of years ago, Google reported about 1 out of 6 searches were new and had never been seen before. Considering the trillions of searches done every year, it is astonishing there is such a wide variety of searches…but you’ll see why there are so many a little farther down this page.

How long tail search is used by automotive aftermarket shoppers

Now that we know about 70% of searches are for long tail keyword phrases let’s dig into how automotive parts and accessory shoppers use these phrases. Long tail searches can be divided into two groups: pre-purchase and post-purchase.

Pre-purchase long tail searches show purchase intent and are used by consumers when making buying decisions: “turbo kits for Acura Integra” or “Audi A4 suspension upgrade.” These searches are looking for reviews, specifications, recommendations, prices, availability, and technical information.

Post-purchase long tail searches are done after the consumer bought a part, or after the decision has been made on what or where to purchase: “install Integra turbo kit B18B” or “installing Bilstein PSS10.” These searches are more technical in nature and are looking for how-to instructions, videos, or reviews.

Why long tail automotive search terms are important for paid search and SEO

Automotive parts and accessory shoppers are increasingly using long tail search terms and we’ll explain that trend at the bottom of the page. The main point about long tail search is, because it is increasing, many online retailers are missing out on their share of these long tail searches which instead send consumers to discussion web sites, magazine web sites, or to YouTube.

There are two reasons for this missed opportunity. One is because many online retailers  do not have their paid search campaigns optimized to capture these long tail searches. The other, in the case of organic search, is they do not have their websites structured with correct search engine optimization (SEO) to show up for these search results.

Many pre-purchase searches, where shoppers are looking for technical information, or are using verbs like “buy” and “purchase,” or use very specific combinations of year/make/model, take shoppers to enthusiast discussion sites. Many shoppers want to end up on discussion sites anyway but online retailers can get more traffic by showing up for some of these long tail searches.

This why it is so important to understand the concept of year/make/model, or automotive part types, in automotive paid search and SEO. It’s also (…shameless plug since we’re experts at this…) why campaigns set up by agencies outside the automotive aftermarket are often ineffective.

Post-purchase long tail searches end up at YouTube, magazine web sites, or sites where enthusiasts have posted a lot of installation-related content like videos or photos. Here again, online retailers can get more traffic after the sale by optimizing for these searches, where there’s an opportunity to sell related parts.

Long tail search trend explained

Google recently rolled out Hummingbird, the first major complete replacement of their search algorithms since Caffeine in 2001.

Google recently announced their new Hummingbird algorithm, designed to produce better results for “semantic search,” which tries to understand searcher intent and the contextual meaning of search terms. You can see an example of this today by searching for “Chinese restaurant” on your phone and computer at the same time and looking at Google’s autocomplete phrases. Google’s suggestions for your search on your computer might include “Chinese restaurant near me” while suggestions on your phone might include suggestions for your city or surrounding cities since mobile searchers are probably on their way to a restaurant.

Google is obviously working hard to not only improve search results for us, but they’re anticipating the future increase in verbal searches from mobile devices and cars, spoken in natural language. As natural language and verbal search increases in the future, consumers will increase their use of long tail search phrases making this a more important trend in 2013 and beyond (and natural language search is a big reason why around 1 out of 6 searches have never been seen before).

Long tail searches produce more conversions: true or false

Many blogs on the Internet show a correlation between long tail search visits and higher conversion rates. Is the correlation true?

The answer is yes and no. It isn’t unusual to have lower conversions and higher bounce rates for long tail searches, if your site is not structured to take full advantage of these long tail visits. If you strategically plan with your digital marketing agency how shoppers should find your site today and in the coming years, and combine that with appropriate site content, you should be rewarded with an increase in qualified traffic as well as higher conversion rates and more sales.

It is important that you analyze your own site statistics to see if you are getting higher conversions for long tail search traffic. If you’re looking at long tail traffic from AdWords, make sure you know if you’re including your own brand term in your analysis and if your brand is one, two, or more words on its own, that will skew your analysis.

Source: http://hedgescompany.com/blog/2013/10/why-long-tail-search-will-change-automotive-seo-and-paid-search-forever/

Actually, scratch that. 

This isn't just going to be about Bounce rate, but all of your dealer website's metrics in general. 

Starting with Bounce Rate.

First, you MUST understand what bounce rate is exactly.

Bounce rate is measured by the number of people that visit your website (or a specific page on your site) and leave without a second interaction.

An interaction is measured by how deep a visitor travels through your site. A click-through from a call-to-action button on one page to another is considered an interaction. So, if your site visitors are clicking from link to link on your site and viewing a lot of pages, your bounce rate will be LOW.

BUT, there are so many people out there trying to teach you how to lower websites bounce rate, arguing that doing so will somehow help you see an increase in leads, but I'm here to prove them wrong.

While I will agree that getting deep within a site provides more opportunity for the site visitor to complete an action, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will complete an action. Catch my drift?

If you really want to get your website producing quality traffic and leads, you need to consider two things.

1.) What's the overall objective of the site as a whole, and

2.) What's the objective of each individual page on the website

Without those two things clearly defined, it doesn't matter what your bounce rate, click-through-rate, behavior flow, time on site, visitors vs. unique visitors and the butt load of other metrics are. Your website will never perform the way you want it to.

Why? Because you won't even know for yourself what the definition of performance is.

So, do me a favor right now. Take some time to identify what the objectives of your website are.

Now back to bounce rate.

There are hundreds of high-traffic blogs out there that have near 100% bounce rates. 

Any idea why?

Because, even though they didn't create a second interaction, the page or blog post that the visitor landed on had the primary objective on the same page.

In other words, they completed the desired action on the first page that they landed on.

It might've been a lead submission form to download a free whitepaper or ebook, it might even just be a sign up form to stay connected via a newsletter.

What you MUST understand is that your website's bounce rate is directly proportionate to your objectives and the path you desire the visitor to take to get to those objectives. 

Understand that if your objective (the desired action) happens on the same page that the visitor lands on, your bounce rate will be higher. 

If you want the customer to click through a funnel of links before they get to the final desired action on your site, your bounce rate will be lower.

There's a reason that some website providers refuse to place your dealership's phone number on the homepage of your website. Because they are trying to force the user to create a second interaction to find it, causing them to click deeper into your website...

If your bounce rate is low, your provider get's to boast how effective they made your website perform, and so far, a ton of you are buying into it. 

STOP!

Here's the problem. Your website isn't performing the way it should or you wouldn't even be reading this.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

Before you worry about bounce rate and the plethora of other metrics to track on your website, focus on what the objective of your website is in the first place.

Identify what path you want the customer to follow that will lead them to your desired end result.

That path may be going deep on your site from page to page, or it may be on the same page they land on.

Once you know what you want the customer to accomplish, understand what normal bounce rates look like in those scenarios.

Have questions about tracking bounce rates properly? Hit me up in the comments below. 

Inbound links still matter. Despite what you may here from SEO gurus around our industry, the power of high-quality, relevant, and natural inbound links to a dealer's website is still apparent. Google's Matt Cutts acknowledged that in the long run, this may not be the case.

That day, however, is not today.

Google is reportedly in the middle of a 10-year plan to discount links from the search algorithm. The best guess is that they're at about year 5 of this plan, which means that we still have another half-decade to make the adjustment. Many of us already are, but that does not mean that links should not be a part of the overall strategy.

Earn them. Use them appropriately. Avoid anything spammy or unnatural. Focus on incredible content that can get people to link to you rather than schemes or techniques for building them. That's what we do. That's what you should be doing as well.

Here's the video from Cutts answering the question recently about inbound links.

Google's Matt Cutts Keynote at PubCon 2013

http://www.automotivedigitaltraining.com 856-546-2440
http://www.internetbattleplan.com
Sean V. Bradley Will Be Speaking On Video SEO At The Internet Battle Plan In Atlanta

Over the past decade, advertising budgets across the country have been increasing in the automotive industry. A new eMarketer report projects that the US automotive industry will spend $5.07 billion on paid digital advertising in 2013, with that total rising to $7.80 billion by 2017.

As budgets increase so does the number of channels in which those ad dollars can be spent, making decisions about where to spend your dollars extremely challenging. One important channel that should not be overlooked is mobile advertising on Google.

For the first time, smartphones are currently on pace to outsell standard feature phones. To say that the mobile car-shopping population is growing is an understatement. A J.D. Power & Associates study found that the percentage of US vehicle shoppers who have visited an automotive website via a smartphone grew from 17% in 2010 to 31% in 2012.

This increased access to smart mobile devices in the hands of potential car shoppers is a largely untapped opportunity. Especially when you consider that mobile shoppers are proven to convert better than desktop shoppers.

A recent study of Nissan's digital traffic found that mobile car shoppers are 30% more likely to submit a lead than their desktop brethren. These potential customers tend to be on the go, in more of a rush, and looking to gain information--- and sometimes take action--- as quickly as possible.

If you're not advertising and promoting your brand to roving car shoppers, that will help you build a strong mobile brand

Here are four mobile musts for your dealerships website and ad campaigns that will help you build a strong mobile brand.

1. Consider Your Mobile Shopper's Experience

Before even thinking about advertising to drive traffic to your mobile site, you first need to get the site ready for proper viewing. The goal should be to make a simplified version of the full website that is user friendly and intuitive for your mobile shoppers.

First, make sure graphics and all content load quickly. Mobile users have limited time and attention spans. Aresearch study conducted by user experience expertsAkamai shows that mobile website bounce rate increases drastically if a site takes longer than 6 seconds to load.

Your next step should be to consider the varying screen sizes of mobile devices. Verify that appropriate formatting is in place to make the content appealing and easy to navigate while viewing on phones and tablets.

2. Appeal to Mobile Search Traffic

Now that you've streamlined your mobile site, it’s time to put yourself in the mind of the mobile shopper. Ask yourself:

What searches would a mobile shopper perform, and how can I utilize that search information to drive relevant traffic?

The user experience when performing a dealership search is different on a phone or tablet than it is on a desktop. For one thing the potential buyer is using a touch-screen, and therefore is less likely to type a long search query. Shorter searches mean that the keywords you need to bid on need to be very precise. It would be wise to consider possible shortenings or abbreviations. And be sure to avoid using keywords that are overly broad that will end up attracting irrelevant clicks.

3. Enhance Your Campaigns

Enhanced Campaigns in Google Adwords is a powerful feature than can help you organize your different mobile campaigns and set your mobile bids to ensure your ads perform better. Think about the size of a mobile screen and how important it is for mobile ads to rank high. On a desktop there are ten ad positions that take up close to one third of the screen, while phones and mobile devices might only feature three ad positions that occupy 50% of the screen.

That's some valuable real estate right there! This monopoly on screen space is another reason why mobile ads tend to have higher click-through rates.
And in case you were wondering... Yes, Google has effectively monopolized the mobile search market. According to Global StatCounter, Google's mobile search market share was 96.9 percent as of May 2012. This alone is more than enough reason for dealers to embrace Enhanced Campaigns in their mobile strategy.

4. Optimize Your Landing Pages for Mobile

Potential phone and tablet customers deserve the same experience as desktop shoppers. Directing users to designated landing pages with strong, relevant content--- and not just dropping shoppers on the home page--- is a big part of providing that seamless experience. These landing pages should be mobile optimized, easy to navigate and in line with the site’s overall style and layout.

These steps may seem basic, but there are still brands out there that ignore the simplest things that make the biggest impact on their dealership advertising.

What steps have you taken to make sure your advertising is reaching the growing mobile shopping community?

Source: http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A503012&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post

For the last 7 years, I've been watching Google very closely. Sure, they are in the news all the time so it's not something that's exactly hard. What has been more challenging is keeping up with their long-standing obsession with social media and understanding why it's so.

They have some big wins (YouTube, Google+) as well as dozens of losses (Orkut and just about everything else that they've touched that smells social). They looked at Facebook before Microsoft jumped on first. They took a long, hard look at Digg during the social news site's heyday, then suddenly bailed out the moment they opened the books and saw the duct tape coding underlying the site.

Google knows two things very well about social media:

1. If they have any chance of truly transcending beyond technology to gain a true understanding of intent and desires, they need to get a ton of social data.
2. They haven't been able to crack into the type of data that Facebook has about people.

Google+ is similar to people, but does not hold the attention of its users. It will get there. It has to. It's Google's last, best hope for getting this data.

The reason they want it so badly is because just about everything they rely upon (search, advertising dollars, fulfilling the hopes and expectations of their customers, just to name a few) as a company would be exponentially improved by understanding true sentiment. They have all of the data that people want. They just don't have an easy way to perfect the delivery and usage of this data.

With this understanding, it's much easier to anticipate what Google will do with their advertising platform as well as their search engine. They are close to perfecting the latter, believe it or not. Most will point to the rapid pace in which Google makes changes to their search algorithm, but that's not an accurate characterization. They made major changes with Panda and Penguin. They made a minor (and completely overblown) change with their recent Hummingbird update. What we see now is close to the end game. Now, all they need to do is tweak it and wait for the next breakthrough.

They have achieved at plateau. Rather than major algorithm changes, they are now in the mode of perfecting the results by turning knobs rather than making the major changes that have hit every year since 2007. The holistic view of Google search that allows optimization to be broken down into the three major components (content, inbound links, and social signals) will not change until the reach a tipping point of understanding social data.

What's the point of all this? That part is harder to explain. For years, I've been reading and experimenting the best ways to market on Google. Now that they've reached a plateau, the anticipation game has changed. Those of us who try to stay on top of current algorithm trends while looking ahead to the changes can sit back for a while. What we see is what we're going to get for a while. It's all about the three components. However, there is one thing that hasn't manifested itself yet that technically changes everything.

The primary reason that Google wants to understand social data and personal sentiment is because they are on a quest for quality beyond the empirical data itself. The data is as good as it's going to get through pure technology. They cannot advance the understanding of sentiment any further until a breakthrough. Today, the great search marketer will be doing two things:

1. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals to improve rankings today.
2. Put out quality content with the proper mix of high-quality inbound links and social signals with the understanding that once they achieve their goal of understanding sentiment, the quality component will make the search rankings soar.

As you can see, it's an approach that will kill two birds with one stone. There are challenges with the data that Google cannot reconcile today. For example, if someone wants to find a phone number for a business, they might search, click through to a website, find the number, and leave. This takes seconds and technically from Google's current perspective this wasn't a successful endeavor, especially if the searcher then clicks back to the search results and goes to a different site. Even though the mission was accomplished by the searcher, Google will count this as a bounce and a short time on site.

On the other hand, someone might be looking for something in particular, land on a page from a Google search, click around trying to find what they wanted, get frustrated when they can't find it, and leave. From Google's perspective, this was a good visit. From the searcher's perspective, it was an utter failure.

This is the type of sentiment that Google wants to understand. They want to know if you like what they presented to you. They want to know if their information was useful to you. They want to know if a website they "recommended" by having it listed first in the search engine helped you achieve a goal. Today, they can only guess. Tomorrow, they may be able to find out with a near certainty. At that point, we'll see the next major upgrade in search. One might even call it "quantum search" since it would probably take a quantum computer for them to make sense of all that data.

Thankfully for them, they're building a quantum computer right now.

And just like that... all your emails fall into the "promotions" box. 

That's right... the promotion box. The same box that will soon land all your email blast, your special offers, and anything else sales related that you wanted to get across to your customers. Google just said - "ACCESS DENIED" Now what? I can your dealer principle now... "OH NO! Its Friday and I want to do an "eblast" to over 30k customers to let them know that we have 0% and we have leases starting at $99 a month. Our customers and prospects need to know this!!"

WRONG...

They know we sell cars. They know we move metal. They know all of the above. They know the programs just we do, they know the interest rates before they walk into the dealership... They are well armed.

The game has changed again. Anything with any kind of "promotion" content will not reach your "primary" inbox. So what now??

SEND SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Like JD Rucker talks about his "content burger" send people something that they want to see. The most successful email that we ever sent out was a blooper reel. People loved it. They emailed us back "WOW, that was great. By the way, i still didn't get the Altima, can you shoot me a quote on a 24 month lease?" 

Marilyn Monroe once said "If you can make a women laugh, you can make her do anything." The same thing applies to our customers. Right now our customers are defended by their gmail shield. Best Buy just emailed me and IF i clicked on the dreaded "promotions" box... That is the only way I would view their offer. 

Break the Game open and get away from sales. Make your customers laugh, email them about an event you are having or a charity you are working with. Remember, they contacted you in order to get this "email blast." They know the deal... 

Share any and all thoughts, I would love to hear it. 

Everyone knows that im a big advocate of all things Google.  Heck, I even rooted my brand new Galaxy s4 so I could get the Google edition ROM.

This morning though, I received an email with a title that I feel may be intentionally misleading.

The email linked to a blog post by Google AdWords Titled:

New research shows that 88% of ad clicks from mobile search are incremental to organic clicks
Posted by +Mark Burke, Google Engage Ireland
(Link is below)

http://adwords.blogspot.ie/2013/07/new-research-shows-that-88-of-ad-clicks.html?m=1

This article basically says that when companoes paused their pay per click campaigns the clicls were not replaced by clicks in the organic search, so basically if you stop your adwords campaign you are in effect losing all those clicks.

It even showed a pretty infographic with Automotive being one of the biggest areas of loss with 86% of adwords clicks not being replaced by organic.

Here's why the post is BS

If you have an adwords campaign that gets 100 click per month [random number for easy math] you are usually buying that campaign because you want to be visible on Page One of Google and usually you resort to ppc because you're not on page 1 in the organic results right?

Everyone's research,  including Google research, shows that above the fold page 1 organic results get more clicks than any ppc adwords ad which is why this latest blog post by Google is so offensive.  It shows that even the great Google is willing to mislead us good old automotive industry folks if it will help keep the revenue flowing.

The problem that car dealers have is that companies lile Cars.com amd Edmunds and AutoTrader have millions of dealership vehicles they are using to optimize search for each market, plus they have your dealership name amd address in those listings too [obviously they should so a consumer knows it is your car and that they need to contact you to buy it] but what is happening by listing your cars on these sites is that  organically their links are competing with yours and in many cases you lose.

Well,  you dont necessarily 'lose'because the consumer may go through the third party to contact you but let's face it,  the third party wouldn't be in existence without your inventory and if they didn't exist you're more likely to be visible on page one because you would be a more likely relevant search result. ..I digress.

The other challenge with AdWords is that you are competing with 3rd party sites like Cars.com AutoTrader and Edmunds there too.

When I worked at Cars.com, I was told internally that we were spending as much as $20,000 per day on AdWords / pay per click to make sure we were visible when people searched for cars in local dealer markets.

Of course this was in the dealership's best interest because the more shoppers on Cars.com means more opportunity foror dealers right?

Sort of, except for the fact that they bid to grab the brand names, models and in some cases the dealership names which means dealers have to pay MORE to Google to compete with the 3rd parties that theyre already paying too much for as it is.

I say F that!

Be smart, organize, optimize, visualize and work on conquering organic results and see if you really need that adwords campaign after all.

If you're going to invest inan adwords campaign, Ask your local cars, autotrader and esmunds and CarGurus rep to get you a list of keywords they buy in your market (they have it in their adwords dashboard so their boss can get that list easy enough) and see if they are edging you out by bidding on your own name so b yiure not spending a pile of cash bidding against a company you're paying to advertise with. Heck,  if you're already paying cars.com it doesnt make sense to pay more money to compete with them via ppc.

Obviously If you are visible above the fold on page one in the organic search as it is, with relevant results of course, the chance of consumers clicking someone else's adwords ad over you is greatly reduced anywaybso let the other guys spend their money on PPC while you sneak in and crush them all using organic search. Heck, go click their ads a bunch of times so they waste budget, that'll teach them not to compete against their own dealer customers. [Just kidding, they never learn]

While I spend zero on ppc amd organically dominate my soace, I do believe at the end of the day there are great ways to use adwords as a dealer but I recommend partnering with a company that does more than just spin out an ad for you. The guys at AdSmart Online do a good job and actually create inventory level ads and my clients who use them are happy so you can see their info at www.adsmartonline.com

I would love to hear other thoughts and comments.

Helping the best get better,
Mat Koenig

If you enjoyed this post please share it, tweet it and +1 it

There have been valid business reasons to use hashtags for years. Twitter started it off. Pinterest added to it. Google+ mastered it in many ways. Instagram, Tumblr… the list of social sites on which hashtags are relevant is long. Facebook was the last major holdout. Now that they’ve joined the bandwagon, it’s go time.

Mastering the use of hashtags takes practice, testing, experimenting, and more practice. Thankfully, there are few things you can keep in mind that will make the journey much easier. Here are some basic techniques for using hashtags that should help you find your own strategy pretty easily…

Send a Message through Emphasis

This is hands-down the easiest and arguably most effective use of hashtags on a regular basis. It’s also, oddly enough, the most misused or underutilized. In the example above, there are no major hashtags that people search for or click through to on a regular basis. They aren’t designed to market anything in particular. They’re meant to make the words themselves stand out in the text and to enhance the message itself through emphasis.

Notice the words that are hashtagged – affordable, beauty, performance, reliability. There aren’t a whole lot of better words to use in a description of a used Chysler 300. It makes the message stand out in the stream and helps to punctuate the overall message of the post itself.

Latch on to Trending Topics

This is the most used technique to use with hashtags and is also arguably the least useful, especially for a local business. Trying to “trend surf” can be dangerous as some businesses have found it. It also means trying to stand out in a very large crowd. However, that doesn’t mean they’re useless.

The easiest way to make them effective is to latch onto national campaigns associated with hashtags that are relevant to business. For example, a Toyota dealer would want some posts with the hashtag #Toyotathon when the event comes around. Local trending hashtags can also be useful. For example, #Travelers and #Golf were both trending in Connecticut at the beginning of the Travelers Championship held in Cromwell, CT.

Personalized Hashtags

If you can make this one work, you’re a winner. Many big brands fail miserably at this. They can turn into debacles that allow the trolls of the internet to desecrate a brand and their message. However, it’s worth noting as something to explore when you have something really strong to promote.

The essence is this – make and spread a hashtag that is attached to your brand, then ask (hope) people will use it in a positive fashion. No need to go into the gory details here, but this backfires much more often than it works. Still, businesses will continue to try it and occasionally some of them strike gold.

* * *

Hashtags work. They should not be overused. They should not be utilized for spamming. Put in the proper context, they can be great ways to highlight your message and get it exposed to a wider range of potential customers.

http://www.internetsales20group.com
General Manager Says His Dealership Uses Skype To Sell Lots Of Cars... Does Your Store?

Penguin 2.0 landed on May 23rd. So far I'm not impressed with what I am seeing. Dealer sites are dropping off the rankings. Most are blissfully unaware. They see their dealership in the map results and assume everything is OK. But the actual search results had entirely different people in them than a week ago. In some cases the dealership is still in the results but with their mobile site. One I was keeping an eye on dropped 65 spots, that's a 7 page drop from the #1 position. Luckily they are relaunching their site this week and should settle back at the top with their less spammy site.

Along with a total revamp of Maps, Google has announced at I/O, the forum and their blog the return to a 5 star review system. You can request an invite to the new Maps here. From their blog post:

Users who opt-in to the new Google Maps will now rate businesses on a scale that ranges from one to five stars. The system maintains the precision of the former 30 point scale while improving the readability and accessibility of the business listings. Your customers will be able to find up-to-date, accurate information on your business faster than ever. As a business owner, you’ll notice that past ratings have been mapped to the five star system.

Here is how the new scores are now calculated:

poor/fair = 2 stars
good = 3 stars
very good = 4 stars
excellent = 5 stars

Some other notes from Google:

• Users on legacy Maps, mobile (Android + iOS), Google+, Google.com, and other properties will continue to see 30 point ratings for several more weeks
  • If a user is opted into the New Google Maps and clicks on a “more reviews” they will be taken to a plus page where they will see the 5 star ratings
  • However, if the same user had just navigated to the page from plus.google.com they would see 30 point scale
  • Note that users just searching on google.com not coming from New Google Maps will continue to see the old results.
• Google will no longer be asking users to rate on specific dimensions/aspects. For example, for restaurants users will no longer rate the “food”, “decor” and “service”.
  • Google will show just one overall score (they used an algorithm to translate the food/decor/service scores into a blended overall score).

To the dismay of many, Google replaced the yellow stars with the Zagat system in May, 2012 when Google rolled Places pages into Plus. It was clear from August of last year that Google was testing a return to the 5 Star system and they were never removed from local AdWords display.

The current iteration of stars appear to be universally red and it seems that they will roll out to all properties over the next few months. The new “Places” results that were spotted earlier will apparently be the results seen when visited from the new Maps interface.

Original article from Mike Blumenthal

Jerry Hart
President
eReputationBUILDER
Schedule a free demo

There’s a saying in online marketing that has been around for a while. “Content is king.”

The truth is this – before the last year, it really wasn’t. Content has always been important, but it wasn’t until recent updates in Google and Facebook that content took a huge leap from being a portion of search and social marketing to become the actual hub through which search and social marketing flow. Today, marketing starts from content and works its way down versus recent years where content was simply a tool in the marketing strategy.

Google, Facebook, Bing, and Twitter are getting smarter every day. They have more brainpower going into figuring out how to stop spammers than the spammers have dedicated into finding new ways to spam. In other words, any tactic that involves practices that aren’t focused on quality can only bring short term benefit and can eventually lead to doing more harm than good. That’s the way that online marketing is heading and that’s a very good thing for both internet surfers as well as honest businesses and marketing agencies.

The old days of automated link-building tactics and paid social media promos (other than advertising) are long gone. Marketers can only achieve a true impact from quality content. Thankfully, this means that, in many ways, we’ve reached the end of the road of major strategy changes. That’s right, the practices that go into proper online marketing today are the type that will last for a long time, perhaps indefinitely.

It’s a bold statement, but if you think about it, that’s exactly where we are. Sure, there will be opportunities to find better channels, new tools, and make adjustment to different styles, but the end game is upon us. Quality content on and off of a website is the cornerstone of search and social marketing today and will continue into the foreseeable future.

Let’s call it what it really is, shall we? Despite efforts by Bing/Yahoo to stay relevant as well as efforts by Facebook and Twitter to enter the search game, there really is only one. For years, I’ve always had to add the caveat when discussing search marketing that “When I say Google, I mean Bing and Yahoo as well.”

I won’t be saying that any more. If we’re talking search, we’re talking Google.

It’s not that the others don’t exist. They do and they’re still somewhat relevant. Millions still use them on a daily basis so they cannot be ignored completely. However, when it comes to making decisions about search marketing, there’s only one algorithm that needs to be taken into account, one traffic source whose numbers should be used to steer the strategy.

The infographic below asks the question of whether or not Google is a monopoly. In reality, that’s not important, though the infographic points to a glaring fact that Google is the leader not only in market share but also in innovation and others, specifically Bing, are always just chasing the leader from a distance. The important takeaway is this: if you want to craft your strategy for search, particularly organic, mobile, and local search, then Google is the only thing to consider. Again, Bing and the other options are still valid, but if you build your strategy around Google, the others will eventually fall into line.

It’s been like that for a while. Google was the first to look at inbound links as a primary ranking factor and the others followed. Google was the first to truly integrate personalization and the others followed. Google was arguably the first to truly integrate social media into their search algorithm through the use of social signals, though in this case the competition wasn’t far behind. It doesn’t matter. Think Google when you’re thinking about your strategy and the rest will fall in line.

Paid search is a different thing altogether and many have found success with the cheaper clicks through other search engines, but even in that case the only way to truly hit a bulk level is through Google. Facebook is making strides in this arena, but they’re still worlds apart.

The funny part of it all is that Google is extremely vulnerable to manipulation, second only to Twitter when it comes to ease. Both rely more heavily on real-time data than the others, which is both their strength and vulnerability.

Here’s the graphic…

Source: Franchise Gator

I have just read an eye-popping article from the fine folks over at eMarketer titled, "Auto Industry Braces for Major Shifts in Search Marketing." If you don't have time to read it, I'll point out the highlights and give you some of my own thoughts. 

As all of us know, paid, as well as, organic search helps drive leads, increase a dealership's traffic, and sell vehicles. This remains true. Yet, the emergence of digital marketing and its impact on search is changing the way your customers find your dealership online. Before we get into the nuts and bolts of it, take a moment to check out this graph.  As you can see, there's a myriad of ways your customers, when shopping online, can find your dealership.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that MORE and MORE people are going online to search for their next car. (See: ZMOT; See also: it's 2013!! Everybody is going online first to do research before buying!!) So, how do you increase your traffic? Well, in a recent survey of US Auto Dealerships for Cars.com, Datium found that 55% of respondents' digital ad spending went to paid search engine marketing (SEM).

Think of searching online like putting together a puzzle. You dump all the pieces onto the floor, and now you have to somehow make sense of the rubble and construct one collective entity. That's what customers are doing when they go online to search. They are trying to sift through all the information to eventually make a purchase, and hopefully with a sustainable and effective digital and search marketing strategy, it's made at your store!

The thing, however, that blew my mind reading eMarketer's article is this little tidbit of information: "Only 20% of new-car shoppers in the US buy the brand they first searched for, according to Google data."

As the article aptly points out, "OEM brand sites—often developed with major digital agencies, strong media support, and cutting edge SEM and search engine optimization (SEO)—attracted more attention in search results than dealerships." While this is certainly true, things are changing.

Dealership websites are becoming more and more sophisticated, user friendly, and even mobile-friendly. If we had a time machine, we could go back a few years ago and compare a dealership's website back then to what it is today. The difference would be astounding. More and more dealers are recognizing the power of  SEO as well as VSEO. The dealer with an optimized and indexed site is going to show up first on Google and as a result, draw in more traffic. After all, your goal should be to show up on the first page of Google. The recent studies have found this to be case as auto dealerships are in "direct competition for influence over U.S. Car shoppers." 

Lastly, according to a 2012 survey done by a conjunction of folks like Google, Compete, TNS Global, and R.L. Polk & Co., 74% of U.S. new vehicle shoppers visited used dealership websites via desktop. They also surveyed the sties on mobile phone and/or tablet during the buying process. 

This change in auto search marketing, due to advances in digital marketing, isn't exactly going to push OEMs out of the lineup, however. OEMs and other related agencies are still able to push foot traffic to your dealership thanks to such things like video content. 

Where do you see search in the automotive industry going in 2013? Given the advancements of digital marketing, video social, social media, online reputation, the best it yet to come when it comes to search!

What happens to all your social content when you die? Do you ever think about your private information falling into the wrong hands?

Perhaps this is why I never kept a journal online or offline, knowing someone might have the pleasure of finding dirt that is sacred to me. Today we have email, electronic calendars, and myriads of documents for work and play all filed away in Google Drive. Will anyone in the future have access to them, locked away behind our passwords?

Now I’m thinking what part of my after-life reputation I want protected from the public when I die. I don’t care about parting ways with my +1's. I’m thinking I should be able to leave someone the books, music and apps I purchased rather than fretting if my Gmail or drive folder is accessed by some fruit loop.

Lawyers, scholars and the government have been urging us to prepare to protect our post mortem reputation (our content). Write a social-media will, they plead, some sort of detailed plan for how your online life should be handled after you croak.

The will is a great idea except for one thing. What if you list all your social media information and passwords in the will and a month before you die you update a password and forget to revise your will? If the social media information in that account is not accessible by the appointed “trusted contacts” because of a wrong password, that information then becomes public information. If you’re like me, I have many passwords and will change them frequently, making it cumbersome to maintain a social media will.

Here’s a review from Google’s blog:

You’d think Google Death would make his wife's life easier by managing his digital accounts for her so she can focus on the other details of handling his death.

I’d be less concerned with my Facebook account living forever, and more concerned with the wrong person accessing my private email or Google drive information and plastering it all over the internet. Sure I’m dead and would care less about my reputation, however, my loved ones might not like what they find on the net from an adversary who only wants to damage my family’s reputation and cause harm.

Google has now rolled out a technological solution, a euphemistically titled "Inactive Account Manager" tool ("Control what happens to your account when you stop using Google," the company says, i.e. die). With this tool, you set the amount of time you want Google to wait before taking action (3, 6, 9 months, or a year). One month before that deadline, if Google hasn't heard from you, it will send you an alert by either email or text message. If that month closes out and you still have not re-entered your account, Google will notify your "trusted contacts" -- you can list up to 10 -- and share your data with them if you have so chosen. The email they would get would look something like this:

Alternatively, you can set up the manager to outright delete your account without sharing it at all. This includes all data associated with the account -- Blogger posts, uploaded YouTube videos, Picasa albums, Google Voice messages, etc.  (Note to self – this is for only your Google world content, not Facebook or other social hubs).

I always say, “if you don’t have plan B, you don’t have a plan.”  Google Death is a splendid plan B when it’s time to say Ta-Ta Toots. Now you can execute your plans without you once you're gone – in a graceful way, requiring few decisions on your part. So fill out that quick form and wait for the next service from Google.

I’ll really be impressed when Google finds a way to post from the grave.

When have I seen 150 dealers and a dozen vendors in one room for 3 straight days so engaged?

Never.

Perhaps its Sean Bradley’s commitment to excellence and holding dealers accountable to walk away with action plans from a crowd of unusually focused [Internet Sales 20 Dallas] IS20 members.

Only a handful we’re checking cell phone messages while in session and when you attend the next IS20 you’ll know why; you’re captivated by the content where all the standard institutional auto conference rules and guidelines are smashed.

Instead you get a room full of all star experts and hungry to learn attendees who are captivated by their colleagues, speaking up when any one point or topic needed more explanation or would merit a rebut.

We can thank Sean for his highly conscious efforts to ringmaster a conference where the content was always relevant.  My opinion, IS20 attracts some of the most innovative in the biz, who crave the most up to date practical content that provides the highest return on money and time. 

IS20 is straight legit.

I spoke on a panel about the importance of online reputation. Based on the questions and comments I received from various dealerships, there are some looming problems in the area of managing internet reputation.

For example, Google says on their Conflict of interest page: reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased.  Dealers who are not focused on organically building reviews, and that means anything other than evoking a review from hot links in an email that leads that customer directly to 3^rd party review sites may compromise their Google ranking, score and lead to endless hemorrhaging of removed or filtered reviews. Don’t get me wrong; there are all kinds of traditional ways to gently nudge a customer to leave a review soon after leaving the dealership, i.e., handing them a request flyer with where and how to find your dealership review sites and/or instructions for customers who have a gmail or dealerrater account as to how to post a review.

From what I see with our dealer clients, Google has been very kind to dealers that only allow reviews posted from the customer’s I.P.  Yelp, different story. I couldn’t believe how much disdain I heard about Yelp from IS20 members.  Same ol’ complaint I’ve heard from hundreds of business owners; “I accrue lots of positive reviews and when I don’t advertise upon their request, our positive reviews are removed overnight and negative is all that remains.”  My suggestion; endure the pain of filtered reviews and diversify your portfolio of listing sites and offer customers other review sites to post reviews. If you’re comfortable with paying the ransom they indirectly hold dealers hostage to buy, then look forward to 5 fat stars.  Some we’re saying at IS20 the believability of the star rating system on Yelp is disingenuous. Yelp is highly ranked; on the other hand, we know Yellow Pages are the second largest review site behind Google.

If your reputation management strategy and process is not organic, you’re short term gain, if any, will be weak at best. For example, posting reviews on a dealer owned web page may paint a picture of a dealer in more control of their reputation and no longer hostage to the Google and Yelp review removing sledgehammer.  Sounds reasonable, but here’s the problem.  3^rd party review sites will rank higher, particularly on mobile, than the dealers review web pages where content is controlled and future buyers can sense manipulation or an inauthentic amount of positive reviews and stars. I still haven’t found a dealer owned customer review page with negative feedback, let alone a negative review with a manager’s response to remedy the complaint. Negative feedback that is managed, influences prospects to trust you and is fuel that can flip a sour customer to a raving advocate who tells everyone they know.  

I applaud dealers who leverage negative and respond on the dealer’s site, however responding to negative on the 3^rd party review sites, specifically Google would help lift you’re Google score much more than reviews on the dealer site.  

To the point of short circuiting negative complaints; why would you not capitalize on the moment you follow up via email, offering hot links direct to review sites like Google, and also welcome complaints from customers submitted to the Dealer. This protects your CSI, amongst a hundred other great things.

News Flash! I’m yet to see a disgruntled customer who submits an unsatisfied complaint that will also post on 3^rd party sites. Why? They’ve voiced concern to the dealer and will give the dealer a chance to remedy the problem.

What worries me most are the looming problems for dealers, especially those who encourage customers to post an invaluable review on a web page other than Google or other highly ranked 3^rd party review sites.  I have found very few customer dealer review web pages that rank on the 1^st page of Google when a “dealers name” with the keyword “reviews” is queried.

Every day I hear all the antics dealers use to capture feedback.  One review building tactic that makes me cringe is allowing an outside reputation agency to collect customer feedback who then posts the reviews on behalf of the dealer from an I.P far from the dealership. Even if the agency is in town, the methodology is manipulative and not organic. If you’re not organic then don’t expect Google algorithms to give you the top ranking when your future customers are hunting for the best dealer using local search.

p.s go claim your top review listings before your competition does

Jerry Hart
eReputationBUILDER
888-810-0441