With car leasing facing extinction and the economy in a rut, many car dealers are seeing an increased INTEREST in used cars.  If used car sales increase due to various economic conditions, car dealers will want to capitalize on this new trend.  Unfortunately, over 80% of car dealer used car platforms are NOT optimized for organic search.

Here’s a great test. Pick any car model and any local town/state name and do a search in Google.  For my first example, I’ll pick this search phrase “2007 Infiniti QX56 Los Angeles”.  There is only ONE California Infiniti car dealer in the free (organic) listing on Google Page One.  The NON-Infiniti car dealers on page one include:

• www.trucktrend.com
• www.thecarconnection.com
• www.autotrader.com
• http://autos.aol.com
• www.leasetrader.com

Our client, Infiniti of Santa Monica, is the only Infiniti dealer on Google Page one and they have 2 listings of the 10.  This is not to brag but to show how well third party lead generation websites have been designed to capture used car leads.  They have pushed every other Infiniti car dealer in California off page one.  

California is a big market and Infiniti of Santa Monica has taken the lead in used car marketing in California using PCG lead generation websites. If Infiniti car dealers outside of California want to take advantage of the trend of renewed used car sales interest, they should call us to discuss how to better market their inventory.

By the way, Infiniti of Santa Monica has a used car website that we designed.  It is ranked #2 in the USA, just under www.automotive.com  for the search phrase “Infiniti used cars“.   Our work speaks for itself.  Call us to discuss how we can help market your used car inventory.

A new player in the market that provides automotive leads to car dealers, going under the name ConnectWithLife, is owned by Reply.com.  The ConnectWithLife web platform is impressive in its SEO architecture which gives it strong visibility in Google and somewhat less effective in Yahoo.

I decided to test the system. I requested an Infiniti car quote.  When I provided my information to ConnectWithLife, I checked-off the box that asked not to be contacted by third party partners.  What I didn’t know at the time was the Reply.com operates a number of lead collection and email marketing platforms.  This allows Reply.com to send me emails for offers unrelated to cars without additional permission since I gave my information, in effect, directly to them.  There is nothing illegal in this model.

I’m writing about the Reply.com business model because of the potential long term effect it could have on consumers.   Since I first requested an Infiniti car lead, I have received 37 email solicitaions from Reply.com affiliates.  Twenty emails were related to cars and Seventeen emails were related to real estate.  These 37 emails come to about ONE EMAIL PER DAY.  Wow.  One request generated 36 follow-up solicitations.

My question is how long will it take for consumers to stop using third party portals because of being over marketed by emails? 

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Car dealers are waking up to the fact that they need to own their Automotive SEO Strategies and not farm them out to third parties without their direct involvement.  Internet Sales Managers have to become better acquainted with the fundamentals of search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising.  Dealers can not just “hope” that their SEO consultants are doing a good job.  Dealers need to inspect and validate Internet marketing strategies.

With traditional print media, dealers always proof their printed ads before it goes to print.  In today’s world of Internet Marketing, dealers need to review the automotive SEO strategies proposed by outside consultants. Dealers need to check the data to see if they are achieving the goals of the franchise. If dealers do not inspect their SEO results, they will end up wasting value time and money.

Dealers are also coming to the understanding that changing their automotive dealer platforms every few years is killing their organic page indexing.  Selecting an effective automotive SEO platform is not as easy as some may think.  We have tested many of the current automotive website platforms on the market and MANY come up short of an ideal situation for Internet Marketing. 

However, when you do decide to switch your automotive website platform, it should be done with the advice of an SEO consultant to minimize broken or orphaned links in Google and Yahoo.

The Pasch Consulting Group is an automotive SEO consulting firm that has proven strategies for car dealer website search engine optimization.   We will optimize your existing website platform and then build dealer owned “microsites” to gain back control of your automotive SEO strategies. Over time, these dealer owned websites will produce valuable leads and SERP rankings to supplement your existing dealership website.

For more information on what the Pasch Consulting Group can offer your business, contact then at 732-842-4720.

Recently our client, BMW of Peabody, decided to change their website platform from DataOne Software to Dealer.com. Their decision to change had nothing to do with our business relationship.  In fact, we worked very well with DataOne Software to achieve a perfect balance between dealer owned SEO web microsites and a main dealer website provided by DealerOne Software.

When we were first informed of this change we were first concerned about all the indexed pages on the DataOne website that could be lost in the cutover.  We were comforted by the fact that ALL of the microsites designed by PCG, that are owned by BWM of Peabody, would not be damaged in this cutover.  The only things we would have to do is “re-skin” the websites to look more like the new hosting platform.  The good news is that 100% of the pages that are in Google indexes would not be changed.

This is not the normal case when car dealers change website platforms.  When car dealers do a cut from one website platform to another there is no guarnatee that you’ll be able to use the exact page names that were indexed in Google for the new website.  This is NOT a small matter to ignore.

If you are a BMW dealer that is considering changing to a new website platform, be very careful.  If you want the bottom line, give us a call to discuss your cutover.  We can help you avoid big mistakes and costly drops in search engine indexes.