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.

Driving Traffic on Competitive Terms

I have been real busy and have not had time to really update this blog much lately.  I have been working on some things that will help drive SEO traffic.  This has already proven very successful for a Cincinnati Ford Dealer and now we are working with a Greenville Chevy dealer and a Rocky Mount Chevy Dealer to do the same thing.

The things we are doing to help facilitate this are creating very content rich landing pages that push traffic back to the dealers main website.  This is the next level of Automotive SEO that will provide immense value to our clients. 

Its to bad that many vendors in the automobile industry really do not have a clue on how to drive traffic or SEO.  Right now I am working on a white paper that will deal with Dealer.com's Social Media Fail an on how it could negatively affect all of their clients.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, dealer.com social media, traffic arbitrage

Automotive Lead Arbitrage

As many of my readers know I do work in the Automotive Industry helping dealers in their online marketing efforts.  One of my new projects helping an Ohio Ford Dealer set up lead gen sites is actually been very rewarding in the sense it has inspired me to get back in the lead arbitrage game.

We made them a site to help them generate inquiries from people looking for a Ford F-150 in Cincinnati.  We used wordpress to create the site, but I see many more applications for this type of layout to generate automotive leads and sell them on lead exchanges.

Automotive SEO is fairly weak so it will be easy to to have site similar to the one above to capture local market traffic using search engine traffic  Fight now I have one site that is ranking nationally for the 2009 Shelby Mustang and is generating a lead a day.  This does not sound like much but consider this:

30 leads per month x $12.00 = $360 per month on a page I created over 3 months ago.  Now to just extrapolate that into thousands of pages.  :P

Chasing Highly Competitive Keywords

I am working on using wordpress as a microsite platform for car dealers in addition to creating landing pages as an internal blog pages.  Here are two examples:

• 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid Microsite
• 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid Cincinnati Landing Page

They both have the same goal to drive leads to a Ford dealer in Ohio.  While it could be possible to create these same type of pages internally on a car dealers website but the truth is most automotive website platforms suck and do not allow the flexibility that can be accomplished using wordpress or any CMS for that matter.

The real question would be in how fast we can get these pages to index and stick and start generating leads.  Right now I am working on setting up an offering that will allow dealers to take advantage of dealer micro sites and craigslist for car dealers.

dealer micro sites, 2009 ford escape hybrid, craigslist

How Much Traffic Will We See?

I am working on using wordpress to built landing pages inside of a blog architecture.  The first one that I did that  like focuses on the 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid.  This will be a tough keyword to win but not impossible.  This will provide way more benefit than at single two or three page dealer micro sites.

Dealers have been feed enough automotive marketing bs by the big and small vendors in the niche through alleged education.  Dealer micro sites do offer the ability to offer a an online branding platform for car dealers if they chose the right platform.  But they can do the same thing with a single one or two page lander on sites like squidoo and get way more benefit for less money.

Hopefulle we will not need to use dealer search engine marketing to promote this page and it will just gracefully rise in the serps.

automotive marketing, dealer search engine marketing, 2009 ford escape hybrid

From Affiliate Marketing to Direct Lead Generation

Search engine marketing for affiliate marketing is almost dead since google mad the changes to their rules a while back to no longer allow affiliate links in pay per click advertising. Now they are even making it harder by not allowing landing pages with affiliate links built in. The way they used to.

One way I am overcoming this is by creating properties with lead forms on the landing page and ping posting leads in that fashion. Not only does this bypass and comply with googles rules it also allows your properties to become a search engine marketing total control dominator using both pay per click and search engine optimization.

Direct lead sales are actually more profitable than referral traffic to affiliate landing pages and adsense clicks. It only makes sense to do it this way rather than affiliate programs. That does not mean I do not have other properties that still do not use the traditional old method of referral traffic. One of my best convertiong pages is actually on squidoo and goes after buy here pay here car lot searchers.

Building up a game plan

Being in the trenches at an automotive social network I am able to follow trends in the industry.  It also shows markets that are prime for the picking with affiliate programs.  There are a few niches that are really under served as far as competition.  For example ebay motors.  You can use the ebay affiliate program to build some neat properties.  Right now my protege is starting to attack the automotive auction market.

We are going to start by going after markets that have closed dealer auctions and create landing pages that will encourage click throughs for individuals looking for public auctions in those markets.  To start with we are concentrating on markets we know well such as Savannah auto auctions.  They have three dealer only auctions but individuals are constantly trying to figure out how to get in them.

So we will be presenting them with local ebay car auctions as an alternative.  This allows us to profit on the traffic in several ways.  Ebay affiliate commissions. auto loan lead programs, amazon and the money squidoo pays for traffic.  One page mutliole streams of income. 

dealer auctions, automotive auctions, savannah auto auctions

Getting Your Game On - DrivingSales online

DrivingSales to your offline business may be tough to do online unless you develop a disciplined approach in capturing and following up with leads. Lately I have been working with a new company called DrivingSales that does exactly that help those in the car business to build their business.

We discuss many different aspects of the automobile business and Internet marketing is one of the biggest discussions. We are a valuable resource for those that are looking to expand in the automotive industry. Make sure you check us out..

drivingsales