SEO Blog

The automotive industry’s first ever Automotive Marketing Boot Camp will be held on February 12th; the day before the official start of NADA in Orlando.  One of the topics to be covered during the 1.5 day intensive training seminar is how auto dealers can use social media networking to extend their brand awareness and increase sales.  

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become major players in the world of automotive digital marketing.  Many auto dealers already have Facebook fan pages, and those that don’t will quickly need to get up to speed if they want to compete in today’s market.  JD Rucker, an expert in Social Networking, will explain how Internet Managers, General Managers, and even owners can build a strong presence in social media that translates into leads, branding, and reputation management without spending hours a day doing it.

JD Rucker is the Chief Marketing Officer at TK Carsites, an automotive marketing firm in Orange, CA. He heads up the marketing for both their dealer clients as well as the company itself, adopting the philosophy that by helping their clients succeed, they will have the best available company marketing available.  JD has gained 77,000 Twitter followers, 2700 Facebook fans, and top-level success on social news and networking sites across the Internet.

For more information on the social media class JD will be hosting, visit  http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/instructors/

In addition to social networking, the Boot Camp will also cover these important elements of automotive digital marketing strategies: blogging, video, microsites, link building, content creation, SEO and pay-per-click marketing.    

Rucker will be among 5 Automotive Marketing experts who will be sharing best practices and hands-on skills training.  The roster of speakers also includes Tim Jennings, an expert in automotive video marketing, Paul Rushing and Brian Pasch, respected leaders in Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization, and Eric Mayhew, Manager of Advertising Products at Dealer.com who will lead a class on managing and leveraging Google Adwords to increase sales for a dealership.

The full roster of speakers and class descriptions can be found online at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/instructors/

The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp will be 2 hours in length and offers attendees 10 hands-on classes which will deliver the abilities dealers need to understand, manage and catapult their online marketing strategy to the next level.  Every participant will be required to bring a laptop since the boot camp will feature hands on skills training.  This will enable participants to take back to their dealership and implement what they learned in class.

Registration is limited to 75 seats per class and is filling up quickly.  Automotive Principals, General Managers, General Sales Managers or Internet Sales Managers are encouraged to register online at http://www.automotivemarketingbootcamp.com/paypal

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, social media marketing, Social Networking

I’m frustrated.  As I started  research on Spanish language SEO strategies I was flabbergasted just how few US companies have done any Spanish SEO on their websites.  The biggest eye opener were car dealers in Miami. 

Car dealers are fiercely competing for new and used car sales in English.  Type into Google ”BMW Cars Miami” and you will see a full list of BMW car dealers; Google Maps as well as organic listings.  Now type in “carros BMW Miami” or “autos BMW Miami” and see that all but 1 or 2 dealers are invisible on Google Page one.

This is not about BMW cars  since this problem spans across all brands. From my review, less than 10% of the major car dealer brands in Miami have utilized effective Spanish SEO strategies. 

This issue applies to any business and industry which has not taken baby steps to add Spanish SEO strategies to their website.

SEO Strategies in Spanish

The Miami BMW example represents an opportunity for us and the first Miami BMW dealer that calls us. However, this example is symptomatic of how US websites are being built.  Companies that operate in areas with large segments of native Spanish speakers are missing the boat if their website does not include targeted pages to popular Spanish search phrases.

• What part of your marketing budget is allocated to reach Spanish speakers living in the United States? 
• Does your business operate near communities that contain a high percentage of native Spanish speakers? 

If the answer is yes, then you should reconsider retesting effective SEO strategies to get your message in front of US consumers who can read Spanish. 

Is Spanish Language Marketing Passe?

About six years ago there was a big buzz in the business community about marketing to “Hispanic” people in the United States.  For many business owners their marketing attempts did not result in much success.  I am suggesting that business owners reconsider how the Internet can be utilized to market to this growing demographic.

In April 2009, ComScore, Inc. released a report on the U.S. Hispanic Internet market, finding that the Hispanic online population reached a record 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, representing 11 percent of the total U.S. online market. During the past year, the growth of the U.S Hispanic Internet audience outpaced that of the total U.S. online population in terms of number of visitors, time spent and pages consumed, as Hispanic online adoption and engagement accelerated.

“It’s well known that the Hispanic market is a growing and increasingly important segment to advertisers and marketers,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “However, any business attempting to effectively reach this segment needs to understand the behavior of the U.S. Hispanic online consumer as a fundamental component of their marketing and media strategies.”  Read the full Comscore Press Release.

Spanish Internet Marketing

I encourage business owners to setup a series of tests to see how much incremental web traffic and sales can be added with just a little attention to Spanish SEO.  My initial testing looks very promising so if you are looking for new ideas to grow sales, this is one not to miss.

Technorati Tags: marketing, SEO, spanish, websites

If you have every thought that Google search engine displays a boring list of search results, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Google organic search results are getting more interesting to read as Google is adding icons to different classes of search result links. One trend that I observed are very encouraging to business owners who are using press releases to promote their business. 

Google must be in the process of creating categories of Internet posts and deciding if the category warrants a graphical icon, sort of like a universal sign.  This week I posted a press release for an upcoming SEO Briefing that I am conducting in Red Bank New Jersey.  

Three hours later, when I was doing a Google search on my name, I noticed that Google had a special graphic to call attention to my press release since it included my name. 

The graphic was a newspaper icon which not only called attention to my article but made it easier to visually categorize on the screen.  Over time, this will allow web surfers to recognize certain posts based on where the article was posted.  So it would seem that recognized press release websites are getting the newspaper icon.

Check Out The Newspaper Icon

You can see this icon for yourself by going into Google and typing “brian pasch free seo red bank“.  You will see the press release I created on Webwire.com.  I like the idea that companies who are utilizing respected press release websites get this added callout since Google’s display pages lack excitement.

If you are not publishing out a press release every month, you are missing a great opportunity to gain Google page one placement for local targeted search phrases.  If you create press releases with titles that are targeting you top keyword list you can be a big winner in drawing extra traffic to your website.  If your target marketing area is not the whole county but a few counties, press releases are even more effective.

In my previous articles I listed a number of free press releases websites that can help your Internet visibility immediately.  Now, with these icons highlighting press releases, it makes even greater sense to start writing.

Google Profile Icons Started Appearing

Another new icon on Google Page one for searches on your name is something called a Google Profile. When you do a search on my name, “Brian Pasch” Google shows my free profile listing and a graphic at the bottom of the search results.  I don’t know if Google has decided to go after profile websites but it is giving priority to its free service.

Once again, anyone doing business today will have their name Googled.  So why not have a free iconic listing showing up in Google search results.   Your profile can have all your contact information as well as a link to your website.  This free personal branding is something that should not be ignored.

Promoting Your Business and Brand

If you are looking for assistance in promoting your brand on the Internet, drop us line.  You can reach us at 732-450-8200 or send an email to info@paschconsulting.com.   There are so many great free tools to promote your business that you should be aware of all the things that really work.

Technorati Tags: branding, google profile, google search, google serp

New York business owners can take control of their Internet marketing visibility by making a commitment to at least cover “the basics”.  The basics, from our viewpoint , is reading the Google SEO Starter Guide and make sure their website is in full compliance.

From our consulting projects one of the most common problems we see is that the company name is part of many webpage titles.  For example, take a look at www.airporthonda.com. The websites has dozens and dozens of web pages that start with “Airport Honda” in the page title tag.  You can see this for yourself by going to Google and type in this command in the search box:

site:www.airporthonda.com

The reason why this is bad is because if you search for the phrase “Airport Honda” in Google their URL is an exact match and is already #1 in Google.  So there is no reason to have that phrase in the titles of dozens of web pages.  It is a waste of valuable Internet real estate.

Fixing Page Title Problems

In New York we can find many examples of websites that have the same problem as Airport Honda. To stay on theme let’s take a look at a New York Honda dealer.  Potamkin Honda has a website at www.potamkinhonda.com and they also have their business name at the start of many page titles.   On their new inventory page, this is the HTML title tag:

“Potamkin Honda is a New York Honda dealer and a new car and used car New York NY Honda dealership.”

A more focused Page Title would serve the dealership; one suggestion is: 

“New York City Honda Dealer- New Honda Cars For Sale in Manhattan”

This is consistent with Google SEO Starter Guide that encourages page titles to be unique and descriptive of the page.   If you have not read the SEO Starter Guide, you can download it as a PDF using this link:  Google SEO Starter Guide

In fact, most of Potamkin Honda main navigation pages all start with their business name. In many cases the Potamkin websites has duplicate page titles.  If they just edited each page title with the strong  keywords  they would do better in organic search.  Examples  of new page titles are: 

• Finance page:   Manhattan Honda Car Financing
• Service Page: Manhattan Honda Service Center – Honda Parts NYC
• Specials Page: New York City Honda Lease Specials – Honda Sale NYC

The good news is that for many New York business owners, we can make  small changes to the tags on their websites that can make a big difference for organic search. In this economy all business owners are looking for inexpensive solutions that can drive more Internet traffic to their websites.  We have answers.

The Pasch Consulting Group has the solutions and affordable prices to deliver an outstanding ROI and help increase Internet sales and visibility.  If you would liek us to evaluate your website, give us a call at 732-450-8200.

Technorati Tags: airport honda seo, ny honda dealers, ny honda seo, ny seo, potamkin honda, potamkin honda seo

We often are asked to give a quick diagnosis of websites as potential clients seek our feedback on the SEO health of their website.  One such request came in today from MackMark Cards, who specializes in Indian Wedding cards.  This is how the email came into us:

This mail is in regards with the SEO for our website www.mackmarkcards.com

1. Indian Wedding Cards
2. Indian Wedding Invitations
3. Scroll Invitations
4. Hindu Wedding Cards

Also, do you have a package wherein we have to pay you a certain amount and you handle the SEO for us and give us results? If yes, what is the time frame for getting on the first page and what are the payment terms? Do u guarantee the first page listing?

Our Quick SEO Analysis – Our Response

Here are a few quick points about your website.  These comments are backed up with Google’s latest guide to Search Engine Optimization.  The items listed below will hurt your ability to rank and compete well in organic search for a broad list of keywords and search phrases.

1. Your website HTML titles do not properly reflect the content of the page.
2. Many titles are duplicated.
3. Your page META description are duplicated throughout the site.
4. You have low number of diverse quality links pointing to your website.
5. Your website is listed with a “www” and without a “www” address, which will cause some problems.
6. Your images are missing ALT tags. 
7. Your home page is doing a redirect.
8. You are not using H1, H2 and H3 tags.
9. You are using iframes.
10. Your dynamic URL naming convention is not helping search.
11. Your website has broken links or links that are timing out.

Making an investment to fix these basics will greatly help your search engine visibility.  Once this is done, then embarking on a strong Internet PR and marketing campaign would help to drive sales.

Commentary

As you can see, their website was missing all the “basic” building blocks for search engine optimization.  This is not uncommon.  If you would like us to review your website, drop us a note or give us a call.  We’ll give it a quick run through and let you know the SEO health of your website.