http://www.GoogleopolyBook.com 

Win The Game Of Googleopoly Book Signing At Barnes & Noble 5th Avenue NYC February 4th

This is BEYOND HUGE NEWS! It is official, "Win The Game Of Googleopoly" will be featured in the store front (BIG POSTER of my book) of the #1 (LARGEST) BusinessBook Store in the United States!! Barnes & Noble on 5th Avenue New York City, starting February 2nd 2015!! I am so excited and honored. I am planning to do a video production shoot with friends, family, fans at the B&N store and a "Book Signing". February 4th I will be onsite with my Dealer Synergy Video Production team! I am hoping that you all will meet me in NYC to share this AMAZING experieince with me! Afterwards I am taking everyone to lunch! THANK YOU so much for your support and friendship!

http://www.GoogleopolyBook.com 856-546-2440

Order "Win The Game of Googleopoly" Book and Unlock The Secret Strategy Of Search Engines!

Rank higher in search results with this guide to SEO and content building supremacy Google is not only the number one search engine in the world, it is also the number one website in the world. Only 5 percent of site visitors search past the first page of Google, so if you're not in those top ten results, you are essentially invisible. Winning the Game of Googleopoly is the ultimate roadmap to Page One Domination. The POD strategy is what gets you on that super-critical first page of Google results by increasing your page views. You'll learn how to shape your online presence for Search Engine Optimization, effectively speaking Google's language to become one of the top results returned for relevant queries. This invaluable resource provides a plan that is universal to any business in any industry, and provides expert guidance on tailoring the strategy to best suit your organization. Coverage includes an explanation of the mechanics of a search, and how to tie your website, paid ads, online reputation, social media, content, images, and video into a winning SEO strategy that pushes you to the front of the line. The Page One Domination strategy incorporates all the ways in which you can beef up your Internet presence and online reputation. This book is a clear, straightforward guide that will knock down the silos of the Internet and teach you exactly how to integrate all aspects of content creation into a synergistic, SEO strategy. Understand how search engines return results Design an effective, all-encompassing SEO strategy Create the content that gets page views and improves rank Optimize social media and video as part of an overall SEO plan The rules of SEO are always changing, and following outdated rules can actually work against you, burying you at the bottom of the pile. This book will spark a paradigm shift in how you think about SEO and gives you the tools you need to craft a strategy tailored to your specific market. To be successful, you need to be on page one of Google, and Winning the Game of Googleopoly can show you how to get there.

If you've spent any time on the marketing side of your dealership, you know how valuable organic search traffic is. But in order to receive a large amount of search traffic, you need to rank for a variety of different keywords, which means having a properly-optimized website, high-quality content, and inbound links from authoritative sites.

Now, on the desktop side, there have been plenty of studies that prove that the #1 organic result on Google receives the brunt of the clicks. As Google users become more familiar with searching for information online, and Google updates its algorithm to provide better overall results, though, the number of people who click on the first result has gone down significantly.

(This is also a sign that your metadata--which is the information displayed about your page on Google and other search engines--needs to be optimized so users can understand what your content is about, which will increase clickthroughs to your dealership's website.)

Mobile Users Click the First Result More Than Desktop Users

On the mobile side, however, we're seeing the #1 position as a more important positon than on desktop. According to a study by seoClarity, 27.7% of mobile search users click on the first result, as opposed to 19.3% on the desktop side.

To make matters better (or worse depending on your dealership's rankings), CTR rates for the #2 position drop all the way down to 9.2% on mobile. The reason this is so important is because the #2 position on desktop search results gets an average of 11.4%.

For dealerships ranking on page one from position 6-10 of mobile results, though, there is little change compared to desktop results. In fact, this study shows that you should see more clicks at the bottom of the page of mobile results than desktop results.

What Do I Take Away from This New Information?

The biggest takeaway from the mobile search CTR study is that it's still really important to claim the #1 result through proper SEO. You want a diverse range of content on your site to rank for a variety of different keywords and longtail search queries. The better quality content you have, combined with great optimization, the more your site will move up the ranks and the more organic traffic and leads you'll receive.

Have a question about SEO and/or Google search rankings? Ask in the comments below and I'll provide as much insight as I can to help you grow your dealership's organic traffic!

In the latest addition of Google’s human search rater guidebook, the company introduced a new page rating concept used to manually rate the quality of a website and its pages. The practice of using human search raters is a crucial part of the way Google updates its search algorithm. Because as with any experiment, you want to test your theory.

The new concept Google introduced is called “E-A-T,” which stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.” In reality, this idea isn’t too different from what Google, search professionals, and digital marketing companies have been saying about quality content for years. But with an official abbreviation and plan laid out within the human rater guidebook, we now understand exactly how Google is thinking about these topics.

Getting to Know E-A-T

More and more, Google is placing emphasis on the quality of a website’s content. What this means is, the company understands how to rank pages better based purely on its content, rather than relying on inbound links, keywords, and other indicators that can easily be manipulated.

Expertise

As a user, when you search Google for information on a topic, especially one that may affect your life, such as financial, medical, or legal advice, you want to hear from an expert. Google understands this, which is why they’ve told human raters to consider the author of the content as a ranking factor.

How Google builds internal profiles for individual writers and tracks them across the web without fail is still questionable, but the basic takeaway here is that you want the information on your site to be backed up by facts.

But before you rush out to hire experts in your industry to produce your content, you have to understand that Google also tells its raters to keep an open mind as to what “expertise” entails.

Someone with no formal education could still, from personal experience, be able to provide sound financial advice to someone looking to get out of debt. Radio personality Dave Ramsey is a good example of someone Google would likely consider an expert in personal finance, despite the fact that Ramsey is not formally educated in any topic related to personal finances. His advice, however, is trusted by many, which we’ll delve more into later.

Authoritativeness

Authority has always played a large role in the way Google ranks websites and pages. But this new way of thinking about content weighs authority in a much different way than how many links are pointing to a page and where they came from.

Instead, Google wants its human raters to determine authority based on a website’s overall content quality, relevancy, and reputation. Keeping with the Dave Ramsey example, you’re likely to find a lot of useful, quality information that relates to personal finance on his website. The way that’s often packaged may be diverse, such as articles on budget-friendly family activities or how to properly sell your home, but they’re written around Ramsey’s financial principles.

Of course, Ramsey’s advice is often criticized, which could actually hurt his site’s ability to rank as an authority in Google’s eyes. Meanwhile, sites like CNN Money, BankRate, and DailyFinance are much more likely to rank higher because they’re less likely to post controversial advice or opinions.

Trustworthiness

From the information Google provided in its latest human rater guidebook, trust has a lot to do with your site’s reputation. If you’re a business, your site’s rating may be dependent on your business’s reputation.

Google tells its human raters to look for “reviews, references, and recommendations” to help them understand what experts and users or customers think about your business or your site’s content.

Awards are referenced as a way for raters to distinguish higher quality publications from others when thinking about news websites specifically. For example, if a publication won the Pulitzer Prize, it’s a strong indicator that the site’s quality standards are high and that those looking for quality news should visit that site over a less-reliable source. How Google values other awards that may be found on the web is not clear at this time.

What Does This Mean for the Future of SEO?

In the end, Google is looking for more and more diverse ways to distinguish good content from bad content, to make manipulating search rankings more difficult. To stay ahead of the curve and ensure future rankings, you have to work on establishing your site as a credible source of information.

Whether that information is related to your business or your site covers a specific topic like personal finance, the more work you put into your content, the more Google will reward you. It’s very basic advice, but that’s the direction in which Google is headed.

Originally posted on Wikimotive's company blog under the title "What You Need to Know About Google’s E-A-T Evaluation System."

There is complexity in SEO. Learn what you have to do to drive valuable visitors to your website. There is an art and science. Good and relevant content is HUGE but what else does it take?  Remarkable content needs to gain engagement, how do you do both? Find out more with a video tutorial.

Many people understand that it is important to share content on the web, but do not understand the guidelines and importance of Search Engine Optimization value. Any content that is syndicated should be sourced, relevant and add value to your readers. For example if you visit a bicycle site and it has reviews about the bicycles, that is relevant and good for key word targeting for SEO purposes. Learn more about this topic from the video below and become your own webmaster! 

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

Wikimotive just dropped their newest promo vid for car dealers. Let us know what you think!

SHOULD I BE USING MULTIPLE YOUTUBE CHANNELS? HOW TO DOMINATE VIDEO SEO FOR YOUR DEALERSHIP

Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy, hosted a great workshop about using online videos to improve your marketing campaigns. In this video, he answers the question of whether or not you should use multiple YouTube channels. 

Sean Bradley on Having Multiple YouTube Channels from PERQ on Vimeo.

Use Different Video Engines for Your Dealership

The first thing Sean recommends is not using multiple YouTube channels. Instead, he recommends using multiple video engines, like Metacafe, Vimeo, or any other video website to diversify your video platforms. He emphasizes the point that if you’re going to utilize YouTube for your videos, you should only have one channel. By having only one YouTube channel, and consistently uploading relevant videos, you will label yourself as a valuable contributor to the video platform.

Only One YouTube Channel

The old adage, “More is better,” certainly does not apply to online video marketing. It would be easy to think that by having multiple channels you will reach more consumers and make more money, but that simply isn’t true. Instead, focus on developing a single channel that’s valuable and appealing to consumers. The more videos you upload to that one channel and the more views those videos receive, the more the overall value of your channel will increase.

Be Relevant

The best way to be impactful with your YouTube channel is to be relevant. Don’t spam the Internet with useless videos—make videos that appeal to your consumers. As with a blog, if you intend to use YouTube for your marketing campaign, you need to be consistent. Upload videos that interest consumers on a regular basis. Also, try to get as many views and as many subscribers as possible. If your videos are relevant to your consumers, you won’t need to spend outrageous amounts of money making or advertising the video.

Check out this blog about how top 100 brands use YouTube for marketing.

To learn more about Sean and Dealer Synergy, check out his website or his YouTube channel. For more tips and tricks from the best and brightest in the auto industry, download our ultimate recap of NADA 2014 here.

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/

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.

If you've participated in automotive internet marketing for long enough, you've very likely heard the concept that "content is King." It was in play back in the days when I started researching search engine optimization all those years ago and it never really stopped. There was a dirty little secret that few of us in the SEO community ever mentioned, but it's been safe to say it for a little over a year now.

Content wasn't really king. It was important, but it wasn't king - not by a long shot.

When I started at TK Carsites in 2007, I wanted to prove that point. I was given a single website that belonged to the company that we wanted to rank for the important "used cars" keywords. They had a gameplan that included creating pages for every major metro in the country, populating them with tons of unique content, and playing the game the way that it's supposed to be played. I told them to hold off for a while. This was an opportunity to do some testing.

We didn't add the content... nothing. The homepage was flash and had three words in the title tag - two of them being "Used Cars". I then went through an extremely aggressive link-building process and started attacking dozens of cities. In less than two months, we were ranked in the top 3 for over 30 major metros and #1 for a dozen. These weren't easy keywords. "Baltimore Used Cars". "Dallas Used Cars". "New York City Used Cars". We Google-bombed the site and it paid off. Sadly, we didn't develop the site very much after that, but the point was made.

Fast forward about a year and we started recognizing that Google was changing the game. I was certain that they were heading towards a set of quality-control mechanisms that would make the spammy techniques obsolete. We started shifting towards a content model that included high-value sites, blogs, and guest posting. We still used some of the lesser link-building styles such as directory submissions, but we stopped all forms of footer/sidebar/signature link building. If it could be done in bulk, we weren't going to use it. Google was catching on. I was sure of it.

2009 came and went. No major change. Content was a little more important, but link-building still ruled. In fact, our high-touch, high-maintenance technique was working but not much better than the spammy techniques some were using that we had long-abandoned.

2010 - same thing. I was getting worried. I was sure Google was close. They had to be. Unfortunately, I was getting a little pressure from the SEO team because they were seeing that the techniques that I assured were evil were still working.

2011 - Panda. YAAAAY! No, wait. It didn't address the links. The spammy techniques were still working and my expensive strategy was having trouble fighting off the bulk players.

Then it happened. Penguin. April 24, 2012. The day that I thought would be coming in 2008 or 2009 finally arrived and all of the things I had hoped for came true. Some of our competitors fell of the map, Death-Star-style... "as if millions of SEO's cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."

Today, the strategy, a content- and quality-based strategy, is alive and well. Finally.

So what was the point of all that? Today, content truly IS king, but not in the way that most perceive it. The reason that I built a new company that focuses solely on content, search, and social is that the three are now part of the same digital marketing strategy. You cannot do well with any one of them without doing well at the other two. Content is king because the quality necessary for pure link earning and social media marketing is finally bridging the gap. Unfortunately, that's bad news for the vast majority of dealers because the boilerplate content that populates so many dealer websites is hurting you. Chances are you're not really feeling it because you've never experienced the difference; if nearly everyone is doing it wrong, then "bad" is actually average.

Here is a good infographic that demonstrates many of the connections that are associated with content as part of SEO and thus part of the holistic digital marketing strategy, via automotiveseo.org. Enjoy!

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

Having tracked data for the last seven years in the automotive marketing arena, I can tell you a few things that I've learned that have brought us to where the content marketing world is today. It's all about process and answering the questions that consumers are asking and it's something that, as I've said time and time again in the past, needs to be viewed holistically.

Rather than go into a long post about how to make it all sing properly (that's for future posts), it's important to understand the content marketing trio. No, they have nothing to do with the Three Stooges, but those who don't understand the consumers' mentality might ended up looking like stooges in 2014. This is that important.

To get this understanding, you have to put yourself in the consumers' shoes. You buy things. Take what you know about that and apply it to the mentality and process below.

Where

If they can't find you, they can't do business with you. This is a no-brainer. You can advertise on the various networks, get your branding in place through billboards and radio, put ads in third-party sites across the internet, and a dozen other ways to help people find you, but it's search marketing that truly answers all of the questions that start with "where".

Since content marketing can help your search engine optimization tremendously, it fits in as the first of the trio. Most people are probably finding your website by the name of your company. While this is fine, you don't need to be heavily optimized to be found for your name. It's the other people, the ones that are doing generic searches for you by product or service in your local area, that can have a double impact on your business. By being better optimized, you are moving yourself up in searches which means you are also moving a competitor down.

What

This is your website. "What" you're trying to sell should be easy to determine once visitors get there. The challenge is that having a website that's just like every other website in your market is silly yet so commonly practiced thanks to the mega-vendors and forced OEM adoption.

There is a psychology that goes along with websites that says, "different is usually better". If your customers visit five websites, four of which look pretty much alike and the fifth, yours, looks different, they'll wonder why. It will register, even if only on a subconscious level. If the design and content are compelling, you have an advantage.

Why

In industries such as automotive where the differences in price are measured in small percentage points, the "why" factor comes into play. Most have a page that's a variation of "Why Buy from Us" on their website but it gets very few visitors. It takes more than that to get a consumer to consider you over a competitor.

This is one of the many places where social media comes into play. When are people most likely to click on the social media buttons on your website? When they're done. In other words, they might visit a handful of websites and put in leads at two or three of them. Once they're done, there's a decent chance that they'll click through to your social media presence to see what you're up to from the human side of the company. What will they see? Will it be a ton of ads? Will it be a ton of "look at me" posts?

What if they saw your community involvement? What if they saw your happy customers? What if they saw the local community engaging with you and you engaging back with them? They might look at you and two of your competitors during the course of their browsing. Will you be the most compelling? Does you social media presence give them a good reason to want to buy from you rather than the store down the block that's posting boring or unauthentic content on their social media profiles?

Holistic

In future posts, we'll go into how the holistic method of content marketing can make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, but it's important to understand that reasons that it's all tied together. Don't think search, websites, and social. Think where, what, and why.

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.

Content has been the big play for over a year now in the world of marketing. It’s the glue that holds social media marketing and search engine marketing together and it’s becoming so prevalent that the old ways (the ones everyone started using this year) are already starting to become obsolete.

Don’t get me wrong – the techniques themselves still work. The problem is that everyone is starting to get it. The competition level for content marketing at the small business level has gone from non-existent at the beginning of 2013 to hyper-competitive before the end of the year. It’s too easy, too important, and has too many people talking about it for most companies to miss.

Perhaps as bloggers, we did our jobs right. Now, we’re faced with a dilemma – taking it to the next level. Thankfully, the strategy is pretty much the same with an expansion into a two-style mode. By going with this format, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the competition that is starting to catch up to you.

Style 1: The Local Content

This is the easy part. For localized small businesses, it’s all about talking to to and about those in the local area in order to build buzz. The concept is this: post content that is enjoyable or useful to your potential customers and they will share it on social media as well as generate an occasional link or two.

It’s the style that everyone’s starting to get. Just in the automotive industry alone, we’re seeing multiple dealers in the same city making videos about how to change a Mazda key fob battery, writing articles about their first shipment of Chevy Corvettes, and bringing in local celebrities for interviews and discussions.

Just because so many are starting to do it doesn’t mean that you should stop. It means that you have to step up your game. You have to make your content better, get more people to share it, and post more often than your competitors. It means that you have to work harder than everyone else, but that’s one of the things that are necessary in order to stay ahead of the game.

Style 2: The Broader Content

The goal with all types of content is to become the authority on your topic. We have known for a while that localized content works, but it’s not able to stand alone anymore in most industries because of the competition level. To make it stand out ahead of the competitors, you need to hit the national arena.

This means that you can no longer just be the local authority. You have to get the type of content out there that can resonate with a broader audience. This is only possible if you’ve already mastered the local content style and you have a strong following for it.

Going broad is harder. It requires that the content have a more general appeal. It means that your local following will share it as well and that their friends and family from the rest of the country or world will see it and find value as well.

It could be reactions to national news about your industry. It could be universal help items that are not localized. It could be great videos, images, or infographics that anyone anywhere in the country can like.

It also requires a bit more professionalism than the localized content. An iPhone video might work for a quick walkaround of a new inventory item, but to get the national appeal, it has to be better made than that.

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This is the type of thing that many people fear. Just when you thought you had localized content mastered, hearing that it won’t be good enough to keep the gap large between you and your competitors in 2014 can be disheartening. However, if you really think about it, every new challenge like this is an opportunity to shine above and beyond them.

Change is good as long as you’re on top of it.

Most Internet marketing experts will agree that driving traffic to your website results in the most valuable leads you can get – if you can convert visitors into leads. Just like the old adage, “volume is vanity, gross is sanity,” your website traffic is only worthwhile if you’re effectively converting it into sales opportunities.

According to an advertising efficacy study by Dataium, an average of 55 percent of dealerships’ online advertising budgets are devoted to paid search engine marketing, but just six percent of dealership website traffic is referred by paid search keywords, and less than one percent of this traffic resulted in email form leads submitted on dealership websites. While effective SEO/SEM campaigns are necessary up to a certain point, eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in. How much more are you willing to spend for a search term that attracts 100 more unique visitors when only one or two of those visitors will convert into leads?

Compounding the challenge of effective SEM campaigns is the cost. Many website vendors and Internet marketing gurus push dealers to pay more for “their” search terms because other parties-- competitors, independent lead providers, auto shopping websites-- are all buying up the search terms and bidding up prices. To some extent, this is true: it's open competition, and automotive retail isn't the only industry subject to it. Companies in every industry must aggressively compete to attract online customers with increasingly sophisticated SEM campaigns.

Since search is now integrated into the consumer’s everyday experience, it’s also important to pay attention to changing consumer behavior and modify your campaigns accordingly. According to a study by Slingshot SEO, more than 80% of search terms today use five or six keywords. Users are becoming more sophisticated with their search terms and demanding results that deliver exactly what they're looking for. If you are a Toyota dealer in Chicago and you think you can attain a page one search engine ranking simply by paying a lot for the terms "Toyota" and "Chicago," or your website content is the same as it’s been since you optimized it for search 5 years ago, you will be disappointed.

As the competition, sophistication, and challenges increase, your ability to convert precious, valuable search-generated traffic must improve. The average conversion rate for dealership websites is estimated to be between two and four percent. Some dealers claim conversion rates more than double this percentage. What if you could double the number of leads you receive from your dealership website, without spending a penny more on SEO/SEM campaigns? Increasing conversion is the key to achieving this goal.

To convert more visitors, try this three-pronged approach:

1) Content. Keep the content on your website engaging, up-to-date, educational, and include "calls to action" on every page. Also be sure that your content supports your brand consistently. If you're a family-owned business heavily involved in your community, ensure that your website content reflects and promotes this.

2) Conversion Tools. An increasing number of tools are available that are designed to engage visitors and keep them on your website. Chat applications are one of the most successful conversion tools; so are payment marketing tools like trade-in calculators and shop-by-payment tools like Payment Pro. Incentives and coupons have all been shown to increase conversion rates.

3) Marketing. Conversion tools will convert, but only to the extent that your website visitors know about them and use them. Don't expect them to just stumble across the latest tool or gadget on your site and start using it, unless they know what to expect. For instance, if you have a payment marketing tool, create a marketing campaign to educate your customers about their credit score and to let them know they can get accurate payment quotes without affecting their credit score. A full-blown marketing campaign might include the following elements: e-mail, a dedicated area on your website landing page featuring the benefits of shopping by payment, a blog, a video of one of your salespeople explaining the benefits, geo-targeted banner ads, and more.

If you have found that funneling more of your budget into SEO/SEM campaigns isn't getting you a proportional increase in website visitors, try focusing on increasing your conversion rate. Customers will stay on your site if they find what they are looking for, so figure out what that is and provide it to them to increase your website lead count and quality.