Link Building Short and Sweet

You’ve probably heard lots about the importance of links for automotive seo. It’s true, more links are better. That’s because search engines are measuring your relative importance and relevance using links.

The more links you have from relevant sites, the more important you are. Search engines build a huge pyramid shaped structure based on all links pointing to your dealer site.

Think of links as votes. More important pages have more votes.

Search engines determine relevance based on hyper text links and the overall relevance of the linking page and site to the topic searched. So, if you have links from 500 sites that deal exclusively with the Toyota Camry, then you’ll appear more relevant for that topic.

Of course, the reality is far more complicated. But keep these basic rules in mind and you can understand how links and chatter influence rankings:

• More links from relevant sites = More leverage
• Relevant link text = More relevance
• Link position on the page matters
• Social – how many people are discussing your brand and site on social media – appears to matter too.

Keep these basic elements in mind when analyzing a link for automotive seo purposes.

Site Structure: Page by Page

Once again, link text matters. If one page on your site has 40 inward links from other pages, and the text of that link contains ‘Toyota Camry’, then search engines will judge that page more relevant.

And, once again, there’s more to this rule. Keep the basics in mind:

• Closer to your home page (fewer clicks to get from the home page to another page) = More important = More leverage
• More links with relevant link text = More relevance to that phrase

Permalink

Quick Fix

One way to solve the problem is using the the canonical tag.The canonical tag is a page level meta tag that is placed in the HTML header of a webpage. It tells the search engines which URL is the canonical  version of the page being displayed. It's purpose is to keep duplicate content out of the search engine index while consolidating your page’s strength into one ‘canonical’ page.

How is the canonical tag used?

The canonical tag is a relatively quick solution to resolve duplicate content. If your website generates and displays the same (or very similar) content on multiple URLs, the canonical tag could be used to bucket them together and assign one master (canonical) version. Lets look at a list of common duplicate content URLs.

•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm (the main page)
•  h ttp://www.dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm (all pages also resolve with the www sub-domain)
•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm?ref=dealership-referral-site (typical way to track referral sources)
•  h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm?sort=price (how users view the cars on stock by lowest to highest price)
•  h ttp://example.com/honda-accord.htm/print (the ad-free and graphic light print version)

A canonical tag that references the main page, h ttp://dealer-website.com/honda-accord.htm, could be placed in the header of all of the above pages.

How should Dealers proceed?

The canonical tag is part of the HTML header on a webpage. This is the same place where you would add meta title, description, and keyword tags.

The canonical tag is not a replacement for a solid dealer website architecture that doesn’t create duplicate content in the first place. There is almost always a superior solution to the canonical tag from a pure automotive seo best practice perspective.

Correcting the systems that generate duplicate content in the first place is the best solution. If that isn't possible, look to other solutions like 301 redirects and the meta noindex tag instead.

Summing Up...

The rel canonical tag has it's place. It is a big time saver for development. The solution isn't as solid as some of your other options but if it means being able to take action now to combat duplicate content instead of later, dealers should make the changes now. In other cases, your hosting solution may not allow you to implement 301 redirects at all and your hands are tied.

Internet Sales Managers who decide to  go the route of the rel canonical, are advised to tred carefully and test the strategy with a few pages before going sitewide. If you have the choice and the resources to work through a more effective solution, perhaps you should go that route instead. In the end the more original content you dealership site owns the better for its long term automotive seo strategy.

Permalink

The Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) welcomes Capital Ford Lincoln in Regina to their family of growing automotive dealerships. The Regina, SK used car dealership has contracted the network to handle their online advertising initiatives which will include executing Automotive SEO strategies and enhancing their Social Media activities by adding their live used car inventory via Facebook

The AAN assists local Regina car dealers advertise their new and used cars on the Internet and connect with ready to buy consumers in the greater Regina, Saskatchewan area. The Network gives member dealers a national, regional, and local footprint on the search engines so they appear on top of the search results for the vehicles they sell.

The Automotive Advertising Network promotes member dealers inventory nationally through websites like CarDealerSale.com in addition to hundreds of regional and local websites that are strategically positioned on top of the search engines for the most popular national, regional and local search phrases.

Visit Captial Ford Lincoln, the top Regina used car dealer, for your next purchase.

Permalink

Automotive SEO Study by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com

The Automotive SEO Study is co-sponsored by PCG Digital Marketing and DrivingSales.com . The study will be documented and presented at the 2011 NADA Convention. Study members will be trained and coached how to use content publishing, link building, social media and automotive websites to improve their Google Page One results for popular consumer search phrases.

Dealers who participate in the study will have an significant advantage over their local competitors because they will not have the mentoring, tools and strategy offered to study members.

The study will run from September 1, 2010 - January 1, 2011. In those four months, members in the study will document their work and record data on a number of SEO factors which will include link counts, Google ranking for specific keywords, traffic, leads, and Google Page One Management.

Registration ends on August 30, 2010. There is no cost to participate however members should budget approximately $100 for domain purchases, blog hosting and/or fees paid to third party marketing sites, directories and related sites as needed. Members in the study will be required to dedicate 3-4 hours a week to complete the tasks required to deliver measurable results for their dealership.

Dealers interested in participating should register online at www.automotiveseostudy.com.

Permalink

The AAN utilizes the power of local and regional search optimized automotive web sites, managed by PCG Digital Marketing, which can advertise your car inventory to drive clicks to car detail pages.

Participating dealers are using the AAN to generate more leads and sales for a lot less money and they can measure everything they spend. The Automotive Advertising Network places your cars for sale in front of consumers on the most popular search engines, for national, regional and local search phrases.

Member's cars are listed without competitors ads, distracting Adsense advertising and clutter.

In addition to the network of websites in the AAN, the CarPort App™ also allows you to add your inventory to existing blogs and social media web sites that you own. Drop your inventory on a new Facebook Fan Page tab, Social media communities like NING or popular blog platforms like Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Vox, Squidoo and HubPages.

The combination of CarPort App™ and CarDealerSale.com gives car dealers unlimited publishing opportunities on web sites that they own and control. Participation in the Automotive Advertising Network also gives car dealers advertising visibility on hundreds of web sites managed by PCG in major markets across the USA.

For additional information on the Automotive Advertising Network, contact Elvis Arias by calling 732-982-4848

Permalink