At last week’s Google I/O conference, Director of Google Maps Daniel Brath announced that Google Maps ratings are going to return to a 5 star scale. The move helps simplify listings, and in doing so will likely motivate car shoppers to leave reviews for their dealerships of choice. It’s also part of ongoing enhancements to Google plus. Here’s what dealers need to know about the change.
Geotargeting is “SEO-speak” for helping to ensure websites rank for searches that include specific places (cities, towns, counties, etc.).
Google research predicts that over one-fourth of all searches will be performed on a mobile device by 2016. Dealer.com’s own data backs that trend up.
Mobile web adoption is ramping up eight times faster than the desktop web did in the mid 1990s. With total ad spend on mobile expected to rise from $1.4B in 2009 to $6B in 2014, search marketers and advertisers need to understand how to harness the power of mobile. Everyone needs to begin to understand how this new channel differs from desktop.
Limiting your advertising and conversations to the social web is like a pizza delivery chain spending big bucks to run a TV ad and forgetting to include their phone number. You have to carry the message forward into the social customers research phase, or risk losing out to competitors who freeload off of your initial investment.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an art and science that largely focuses on putting your content in front of users at or near the top of the search results. But what does it matter if your content isn’t delivered in a relevant format to the searcher (video vs. blog post, for example)?
Your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns are creatures whose lives are constantly evolving. In order to accommodate the perpetual changes in the lives of your PPC advertising, it is important to continually evaluate your performance and optimize for continued success.
Have you checked your Google Places page this morning? Search Engine Land reported the news this morning that Google has eliminated third party reviews from all Places pages (except for a small attribution link near the bottom of your profile). The death of third party reviews is a move we should have seen coming.
When it comes to fixed ops there are a lot of internal efforts a dealership can make. For example, up-selling when possible, introducing car buyers to the service staff before they leave the lot in their new vehicle, just to name a few. But consider this, 8 out of 10 service customers begin their search for service and parts online. That said I have to ask, what are you doing to ensure that your dealership’s external fixed ops presence is a good one?
With so many online options for your client base, and an ever-changing social eco-system, sometimes it’s just a challenge to find where everyone is “hanging out.” Take that step further and you’ll find that the way you interact with your social sphere differs from place to place.