Moving from Typead to Wordpress

We just recently worked with an Omaha Nebraska Chevy dealer and moved their typepad blog to wordpress.  The move was easy but we made one mistake.   We changed the url structure and it created some confusion in the search engines eyes.  We should of left the url structure the same.

This is a learning curve that we did not figure we would have to go through as most car dealers do not even have a blog to start with.  The move was easy  I am just not sure why there was confusion like there was.  It was not something that should of happened.

I really feel like we should of paid more attention.

Taking Inventory of Assets

While we have moved away from traffic arbitrage as a income source and more towards that of a SEO empire there comes a point when you have to take inventory of your assets.  We maintain several sites for clients and out own use very rarely do we take the time to properly identify everything that we have in stock so to speak.

Today I was taking inventory of our assets and found some real gems that have been ignored.  One of them is a blog about Digital Dealer Marketing set up on blogger, like this one.  It was set up to prove a point and to blog experiences from the digital dealer conference, but my desire to maintain industry relations curbed that urge.

We have several hundred websites in our portfolio and now is the time to put everything to good use.  As I move away from hands own product delivery to more of a marketing and managing position in my business it will be great to watch these assets receive full value.

Technorati Tags: digital dealer, assets, propeties

Chasing the tail with blogs

Long tail seo is one of the easiest ways to drive traffic to a website.  By creating well written content you will pick up an enormous amount of traffic on search terms that you did not know even existed.  When working with our dealer clients we use a network of blogs to help us identify golden opportunities for clients pick up additional traffic from the search engines.

Using this strategy we were able to determine some trending searches for our automotive seo clients.  You can do this yourself by creating a high quality blog and publishing articles relevant to your market area and news about your business.  A good example of this is what a NC Chevy dealer we work with bought a Ford dealership in Tarboro, NC this will allow them another entry in the search engines for Chevrolet and Ford terms tied to their market area.

The key is to be consistent in publishing your articles and watch your analytics so you can identify your trends in search and capitalize on that traffic that your competition is missing.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, dealership blogs

Forcasting Traffic Trends - 2011 Ford Ranger

One of the good things about running an automotive blog network is that we can use that data to predict future demand and look for ways to help our automotive seo clients get a leg up on the competition.  A good example of this is the amount of traffic that we are getting on the 2011 Ford Ranger has been phenomenal. 

The stats show that we need to work to be well optimized for that term when the time is right for our customers.  It would not do a Cincinnati Ford dealer much good to receive inbound inquiries for this model yet.  Just as it would not do much good for a NC Chevy dealer to be ranked for the 2010 Chevy Silverado when they still have many 2009's in inventory.

You can use this long tail data to help build up high converting landing pages for affiliate offers and to market your business.  You just need to make sure your data is from a reliable source and you don't wait to long to capitalize on it.

Buy Low Sell High - CPC Revenue

The basic premise of traffic arbitrage is to buy traffic and resell it for more than it cost you.  Sounds pretty simple.  For most just starting out in affiliate marketing setting up a PPC campaign can be a daunting task.  My company does automotive seo for car dealers and now we are in full force creating assets to buy traffic to.  This does two things for us.  It allows us to drive traffic to their properties like we do for a Ford dealer in Cincinnati, we create an asset using their inventory that would otherwise go to an Ohio auto auction.

We buy this traffic by using our time to optimize the sites in the search engines.  Time has a monetary value so in essence we are trading time to generate traffic.  Just like we are doing on the Texas direct auto auctions.  Once the listings are indexed then the site gets a life of its own and creates immediate attention from the search engines and draws in a continuous stream of traffic.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, auto auctions, ford dealers

Selling Services Using SEO

My firm is an automotive seo provider. We pretty much have moved completely away from affiliate marketing. Now our properties are driving plenty of leads from out optimization and networking efforts. I just published a post about "Dynamic SEO" that will probably cause me some flack.

The thing is the auto industry is so competitive and it usually means the vendor with the biggest marketing budget usually wins. Through our organic growth and providing stellar service to our clients it looks like our business will be able to survive any future economic downturns. Our business was built in one of the weirdest times to be involved in the auto industry and many would of told us we were crazy for entering that vertical.

I will be converting the content more away from traffic arbitrage to more on how to build a services business using the web as your only marketing tool.  Stay tuned.Technorati Tags: dynamic seo, auto industry

Stacking Content for Traffic

With the changes that are happening in search it is going to take a ton of content that can pass link equity to money sites to stay competitive.  From monitoring traffic stats we can see that long tail traffic is converting better every day.  The question lies on how to build up link equity to help take advantage of these long tail searches.

A project that we are working on will allow us to push links with great content, to other great content to money sites.  A good example of one of the sites in development now is The Automotive Nexus, where we will push traffic to affiliate offers and back to clients money site while insuring that the visitor receives value for their click.  Meaning they can find their answer when they get there.

This is part of a large automotive seo project that will be able to deliver link equity on demand, a very task oriented undertaking.  It requires more work than many are willing to under take.  Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comment form belowTechnorati Tags: automotive seo, automotive marketing, link equity