http://www.autoblog.com/
http://www.autonews.com/section/BLOG
http://wot.motortrend.com/
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/

If you have any additions you think would be useful this post please let us know and we will take a look and possibly add them to our list.

Title Tag Research

This is one of the most important parts of re-writing your title tags. In fact, it is probably the most important part of any updates to meta information. Just like many other situations in life it is always important to get a feel for what you are getting yourself into. Searching around for title tag best practices is a great start. One of the first things you will find is that there is a lot of concern about title tags being too long and irrelevant. Read different blog posts and read what people have tried in the past. You will quickly find out that many suggest to keep your title tags under 70 characters. This includes spaces as well as dashes and pipes. If you happened to come across a more recent post you will see Google cut most of them off between 60 and 64 characters.

Analyzing Your Current Title Tags

Go through a large majority of your title tags. You can do this by going to Google and putting in “site:autodealershipmarketing.com” (replacing autodealershipmarketing.com with the website you would like to test). This allows you to see how your title tags and meta descriptions will show when returned in the SERPs. Now that you can actually see what is being represented in the search engines you realize how much wasted space there is. Go through several pages in the search results and make note of different sections involved in the title tag. You will see that many of them tend to be quite similar (even exact duplicates are likely on an un-tamed website or blog).

Rewrite Your Title Tags

After you have analyzed your current title tags we can finally start getting our hands dirty. You’ll want to open up the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. This will help you compare keywords that you are using to see how much traffic they receive. Try different combinations of words in different orders to see how they compare. You can then determine which of them are the most important. Now you will want to pull up the place were you edit your title tag(s). Read over it multiple times so you know every word that is being used. Go through and remove all filler words such as “a” “and” as well as commas. Your next step should be to remove all other keywords that ranked lower when doing your keyword research and put in your top keyword phrase. By following these steps your title tags should be much shorter.

Second Thoughts

If you are having second thoughts on removing keywords from your title tags you should not worry. Through your keyword research you discover some words are searched more than others. Maybe you ran into two keywords or keyword phrases that were really close. This is where some don’t want to think of an alternative and just include both which makes for a less targeted title tag. A solution to this would be to use the second keyword or phrase on its own page. If you are planning on going through every single title tag on your website you probably want to make a list of the keywords you have removed as well as new ones you found while using the keyword research tool. This will allow you to create new content on your website/blog.

Why Shortening Title Tags is Important

Throughout time search engine scientists have discovered that having longer title tags reduces their effectiveness. The longer the title tag is the less powerful and relevant it becomes. Having a short title tag that gets to the point usually makes them less confusing to a potential customer that comes across them as well.

While I may not know everything and I can’t read the future, one simple thing that will help your SEO is video. Video is a great tool that many people are not using right now and Google takes video into account when it ranks websites.

Optimizing video for your car dealership is relatively simple and can be done rather efficiently. All you need is a simple video camera, a YouTube account (or other video service provider) and someone to film and talk. You can talk about anything in the video related to your car dealership, a specific vehicle in your lot, or life in general (kidding, probably no one cares).

One example that I am going to throw out there for you is the title for a video Mazda6 in Chicago. If you have a video that you have optimized for this then you stand a pretty good chance of ranking for that term when it is searched on Google. Now, keyword research is still an important thing to do for Video SEO but you get the idea.

So, now that you have come up with a great SEO optimized title and have uploaded your video to YouTube you will want to put in keywords for your video. These keywords are important since the people that will be searching for your videos will used these to help find it. Use relevant words and keep it simple, you don’t want to overthink something that most people just type “Car” into.

Everyone knows that content is important on your site because the search engines “crawl” it and see the keywords that are used in it. Well, video is different because a search engine can’t “read” the video content. This is where YOU come in. Not everyone wants to write a transcript of the entire video and post it under the blog, understandably. Most of the time it wouldn’t make sense and it would be time consuming. This is the case where you can write a short paragraph or two and use some of the keywords that were in the title and the YouTube uploading.

Another brilliant tool that I personally use is called SpeakerText. SpeakerText takes your YouTube videos (for the small fee of $2 per minute) and makes a transcript of the video to install underneath your video called the Caption Box. This is then imported into your web page or blog and features the video and the transcript. Now, the best part about SpeakerText is that it has a tool in it that allows you to Tweet certain parts of the video by highlighting those phrases. This is called Quote Links. Quote Links, once tweeted or shared on social media will send a link that when someone clicks on it will take that person directly to a certain part of the video. This allows dealerships to “Quote Link” directly to a keyword that is searched frequently and take someone right to their video. BOOM-Video SEO optimized.

Obviously I have just spewed a ton of information at you and this is probably going to take a little to digest. Here is the simple version, Video SEO works. Right now is one of the best times to get into it because while it IS competitive, it is less so than it will be.

If you would like more information on any of the things I just talked about please CONTACT US. We have some highly advanced people here that can help you out and provide some Video SEO services to you. Keep checking back because there is going to be more written about Video SEO and I will dive into SpeakerText.

Create A New Schedule
One of the first things on your list of things to do should be to make yourself a new schedule. In order for your Automotive Blog to become successful you must first devote part of your schedule to working on it. If you don’t do this it can become very hard to stay organized and keep the content on the blog fresh. As a blogger I can’t tell you the number of times I have visited a blog where there is only a welcome post and a hand full of other posts. If people return to your blog to find more of what they like the first time they visited only to find the exact same posts, they may not try to return again. So revamp your schedule, leave some time for creating posts, and don’t fall off track.

Create Helpful Blog Posts
Writing blog posts that are helpful in the manner of answering a common question can be very useful. People read blog posts to gain knowledge and to become more skilled at the topics they are researching. A good example of this are people that search for certain issues they may need help with on their car. If you happened to write a blog post about how to replace your windshield wipers in 5 minutes or less, there is a good chance that people will be looking for help with a task like that. While writing your blog posts remember to make them relevant and helpful and they will not only show up on results pages but people will be more likely to return for more help.

Don’t Be The Only One Blogging
Nothing is harder than trying to maintain a blog by yourself. Make sure that you have someone helping you even if they are only proofreading over your posts. Since blogging takes dedication and time, your best bet is to find someone who will maintain the same duties as yourself.

Quality Over Quantity
Although this can be used in many ways throughout your life, it matters a lot when blogging as well. Especially since Google has made the recent “Panda” anti-content farming algorithm update. Writing less but making your posts count will make sure that people don’t have to weed through hundreds of “keyword” posts just to find the one that is useful to them. You can ensure your blog post is worthy by not publishing it right when your done writing. Have your partner read over your post multiple times and have them discuss it with you afterwords. After you have discussed your post sleep on it for a night and read it the next morning. This allows you time to find the troublesome areas of your blog post that you may have discussed and change them up.

Blogging is a vital part of any website, whether it be automotive or personal. Fresh content gets people to your site, but QUALITY content is what keeps them there. Remember these tips and be sure to come back to autodealershipmarketing.com for more industry related knowledge.

PS – Dust off that keyboard and get to work!

At AutoDealershipMarketing we understand that a lot of work and thought goes into writing a great automotive press release. Whether you are writing car dealership press release for your personal dealer or a more large-scale release for a new make/model release these tips and tricks should help you become more successful.

There are hundreds of press release distribution services out there and many of them are even free. Like everything else in the world though, sometimes you get what you pay for. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that you can be successful using a free press release service, but I just think that the paid ones are better and you have a better chance of ranking higher in Search Engine Results Pages.

The first step in your quest for SEO dominance in your automotive press release is to have a title with a great keyword in it. I use Google’s Keyword Tool to determine the best keyword for the release that I am looking to send out. For example, if I am writing a press release about my car dealership carrying a specific model that recently won an award, I would title the press release: “My Dealership Carries the Award Winning (Make/Model) in (City/State). Now I know this is pretty simple and Yes it is a simple explanation but not everything has to be difficult right?

Once you get the title down, you should reflect that keyword at least two times during the body of the release. The summary should also have the original keyword in it. In the example above the keyword would be, Make/Model in City/State. A simpler example would be Chevy Silverado in Chicago.

When these keywords are inserted, links should be put in them linking the keywords back to the dealership and the model that is being promoted. For example; Chevy Silverado in Chicago links to the Chevy Silverado page. Pretty simple strategy huh?

One thing to remember with a press release is that they need to be written in a news like fashion. I like to use the reverse pyramid structure. This means you start with the most basic facts and most important news notes at the beginning and work your way down to the bottom.

The press release service that I personally like to use is VOCUS PR Web. There are many services out there that offer great release options. I just like VOCUS because the people have always been friendly and I’ve had good luck with them.

Obviously this run-down of the car dealership press release has been a very simple one. In the future I will touch on some more intimate details of writing a great automotive press release but this is just to get your feet wet. If you stick with these little tips you should be relatively successful with your press release. Keep checking AutoDealershipMarketing.com for more info and if you have any questions or would like to learn more contact us via our CONTACT US page.

How to Break Free of Writers Block

Writing takes time and research. When it comes to automotive blogging many of us rely on automakers to provide us with news but there are other ways to find content. Writing for a car dealership provides a blogger with numerous topics to write about, whether it be a dealership event or local event, employee profiles, make and models that are available or a brief history, the topics are virtually endless. At times though people get stuck in a rut and they can’t think of a good post to write, in that case try out the following tips.

Search Media Websites and Press Releases

Every car manufacturer has their own website where they post news topics at least weekly about what is going on in their company. There are news releases, press releases and videos readily available on these sites that are very helpful if you are in need of a topic. I personally use these every week when finding topics for blog ideas and most of the time they are very helpful. One of the benefits to using these fresh news stories for ideas is that many times they will be searched for and read about by people who are interested in that manufacturer. Thus the blog post will bring in reader traffic and in turn, sell more cars.

Maintain a Relationship with the Dealership

Maintaining a relationship with staff at the car dealership is vital to success in your dealership blogging. Whether you are employed at the dealership and converse with these people each day or if you are working in a marketing firm, it is important to keep up with daily dealership activities. The people who are in the car dealership every day are the ones who will have some of the best ideas for blogs and press releases, so listen to them.

Other Industry Related Blogs

Checking out other blogs for content is another great way to find topics. Personally, I check AutoBlog every single day. This is one great source for fresh automotive news and videos. Idea generation is key because once you get the wheels turning from ideas, your own personal writing stance comes through.

Here at Auto Dealership Marketing we try to find fresh ideas daily to bring to you to help make your dealership more successful. Feel free to leave comments about any ideas that you may have to help with new ideas for automotive content.

This site will feature blogs from the AutoDealershipMarketing team, guest blogs and relevant news and information on how to best market for your dealership. Here, we want to bring people the most recent, relevant and successful information so that you can implement it in your business.

We are not your normal, everyday SEO blog. We understand every aspect that goes into marketing an automotive website and we want to share that knowledge with you. So come back often, we have posts up almost daily and we will be one of the first in the industry to get the latest and greatest news out.

Thanks for stopping and check out some of the great information that we have here. If you have any further questions or just want to know what we are about, please feel free to email us at info@autodealershipmarketing.com. We would love to hear from you.

Screen Size

Designing for different screen resolutions is not anything new.  However the mobile world throws a few more logs into the proverbial fire.  Fortunately you can, for the most part, get away with a stock screen resolution of 480×320 pixels without alienating much of your user base.

Different Browsers

With so many different service providers and phone manufacturers it remains necessary to be conscious of the vast amounts of different browsers.  There are five major browsers that must be considered.  Opera has been the leader in terms of users however iphone, Nokia, Android and Blackberry no longer lag too far behind.  Optimizing your site for each and every mobile browser is most likely out of touch.  This is where knowing your audience comes in handy.  If your target group of users tend to lean towards business people it is probably a good idea to design your site with blackberry users in mind.  If your target group likes to hang out in coffee shops the iphone is where to be.

Spacing

Ever try to navigate a website on your phone that is not optimized for the mobile community?  It’s a hassle at best.  No one likes hitting the wrong link.  This creates frustration and can often turn into loss of interest, which means less money in your pocket.  Make sure to make your text large and your buttons larger.

Incorporate Social Media

Incorporating social media should be a no-brainer.  In today’s world people are connected more than ever.  It only takes a slit millisecond to tweet out the latest product to all of your friends.  This is guerilla marketing at its best.  Make sure to have the big ones.  Twitter, Facebook, Google+, digg etc.

Stop Using Flash! (also java)

I repeat.  Stop using flash!  Not only is flash an immense system hog but it is also incompatible with many of the mobile browsers and most of apple products in general.  Using flash on your website is the quickest way to segregate your would-be audience.

If you follow these guidelines you should have no probable reaching your viewers on the mobile information highway.

Blogging is as blogging does, so be yourself and make sure your own personal style comes through. After all, you are the expert and your readers are looking to you as an example. Make sure that you are that example.

Inspiration. 

Sometimes we’re looking too hard for things to blog about, and the simple solutions are looking right at us.  As we become more of an Internet society, we spend less and less time watching TV.  Turn on the TV, watch a few commercials, and see if they help give you ideas.  You might see a new take that a manufacturer had on their latest product.    Television has turned into a zoo of marketing, from product placement to shows that are actually long ads.

Community Anyone?

If you had a topic that worked a while back, why not tackle it again?  Odds are, something has changed and can be recycled into new content.   If many users have commented on a topic, you probably hit their niche.  Keep going with it.

Something different:

Having a guest author post on your site, can be a win win for all parties.  You can get traffic from their site visiting yours, and if you are able to guest post on their blog, you’re increasing readership across the board.  Another idea for something different is to do a giveaway.  Partner with a text marketing campaign.  Have your readers text in to enter for a chance to win an oil change, or car wash.  When they enter, they are now opt-ed into your text marking campaign.   It is a great way to target your readers, while increasing your readership.  They are more likely to tune into your posts if there is something different happening than just the same old posts.