I’ve been reading a lot lately about all the awesome software and tools available to help car dealers automate their link building activity to generate more traffic to their websites. (Dealers often forward me “pitches” they receive. I see several of these each month).
“They” say technology has made it possible for a small dealer in rural Saskatchewan to create an online presence that looks much like a big city dealer in Calgary or Edmonton.
Some experts claim automation has taken all the grunt work out of online automotive marketing. For those dealers who know how to do this, (or have hired a company to do it for them), the increase in visits to their sites can be impressive. (Visits from whom? Visits from where?)
The only problem with using machines to build links other machines follow is that machines don’t buy cars. People do.
It’s a waste of time and money to build spammy links from spammy websites. It won’t sell one car.
The giant brains at Google are getting very good at separating “engineered links” from the real ones. They are continually taking down “link farms” and “blogging networks” created solely for the purpose of providing backlinks.
I don’t think many business owners, (including car dealers), realize how damaging it can be to hire the wrong SEO firm. (One that builds what Google refers to as “unnatural links”).
Even huge companies have made this mistake. Last year one was caught “cheating”. The New York Times did an in depth investigation into the matter. They published an article that gives readers an inside look into the world of Black Hat SEO and how a multi billion dollar company, JC Penny, used it to game the system. You can read the full story titled “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search” on the NYT website. (It’s a great article. Reading it may give you a better understanding of how SEO works).
By the way, Car dealers who’ve been creating their own content have nothing to worry about when Google makes changes to their algorithms to weed out the spammers.
OK. So for those dealers who no longer want to buy links from Automotive SEO firms to move up the page on search results, what’s the alternative? What should they be doing?
There are no shortcuts. The only way to be seen as an authoritative site in your city is to be an authority in your city. If you sell Ford F150’s in Winnipeg and want to rank higher on the search engine results than the other Ford dealers, create content about your product and the people in your city who buy it.
Start a blog.
Upload videos to YouTube.
Engage your prospects socially.
You see other dealers doing this, don’t you?
Those who started creating content a couple years ago have a huge advantage today.
It’s not too late for you to start.
We help dealers transition from link builders to content creators and publishers.
Even huge companies have made this mistake. Last year one was caught “cheating”. The New York Times did an in depth investigation into the matter.
I love your blog.
I have written a song called Robots don’tbuy cars on youtube.
Check it out and letme know if you enjoyed the song.
If you can help me to increase the number ofpeople that listen to this I would be thank
ful
Robots don’t buy cars you tube copyright 1983 daniel ahlert