Thinking About Changing Website Providers, Advice? Thoughts? - DealerELITE.net2024-03-29T06:14:07Zhttps://www.dealerelite.net/forum/topics/thinking-about-changing-website-providers-advice-thoughts?commentId=5283893%3AComment%3A350975&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI've recently changed our web…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-11:5283893:Comment:3531222013-02-11T13:12:20.410ZDavidhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/David470
<p>I've recently changed our website <a href="http://www.landlautomotive.co.uk" target="_blank">www.landlautomotive.co.uk</a> and have encountered the same issues. </p>
<p>Website change over in Feb 2012, March 2012 traffic was -100% of previous month, however now january 2013 was 300% increase over Jan 2012. </p>
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<p>SEO:</p>
<ul>
<li>The H1 can be perceived as a page title, ideally you want to ensure that the keywords you want to rank for are prominent in this…</li>
</ul>
<p>I've recently changed our website <a href="http://www.landlautomotive.co.uk" target="_blank">www.landlautomotive.co.uk</a> and have encountered the same issues. </p>
<p>Website change over in Feb 2012, March 2012 traffic was -100% of previous month, however now january 2013 was 300% increase over Jan 2012. </p>
<p></p>
<p>SEO:</p>
<ul>
<li>The H1 can be perceived as a page title, ideally you want to ensure that the keywords you want to rank for are prominent in this space. </li>
<li>localized landing pages are great and if these no longer exist then ensure the service provider has established 301 redirects from these pages to newly created relevant pages. </li>
<li>Content is king, use copywriters such as <a href="http://www.writeraccess.com" target="_blank">www.writeraccess.com</a> to request uniquely written SEO rich content, ensuring you request the required keyword (one which you want to rank for) is peppered into the content. Also ensure semantic variations are used throughout. </li>
</ul>
<p>If you'd like any more advice then please ask. </p>
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<p></p> It's great coming across this…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-02:5283893:Comment:3518792013-02-02T14:35:25.023ZChris K Lesliehttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/chriskleslie
<p>It's great coming across this topic here as it has been a matter of contention of mine since I took over digital for our auto group. One of the things that I am putting in place and am working on with our web provider (cobalt) is this SEO silo template for each site.<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqmJdcX502tEdEVhNWlEOXU3WE5UUFVIMDgxZkRYcVE&usp=sharing" target="_blank">I've included a google drive link here</a> : it is slow going but it ensures that everyone is on…</p>
<p>It's great coming across this topic here as it has been a matter of contention of mine since I took over digital for our auto group. One of the things that I am putting in place and am working on with our web provider (cobalt) is this SEO silo template for each site.<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqmJdcX502tEdEVhNWlEOXU3WE5UUFVIMDgxZkRYcVE&usp=sharing" target="_blank">I've included a google drive link here</a> : it is slow going but it ensures that everyone is on the same page and if you are ever to change providers or seo guys. The new ones will know exactly where to pic up. </p>
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<p>Another amazing tool I use for SEO is <a href="http://www.seorch.eu/" target="_blank">http://www.seorch.eu/</a></p>
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<p>Hope this helps I know its been helping me turn my sites around. </p> Jackie,
Let me assure you th…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-31:5283893:Comment:3512392013-01-31T16:40:58.648ZChris Burnshttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/ChrisBurns
<p>Jackie,</p>
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<p>Let me assure you that the length of time someone has been an SEO is NOT an indicator of how well they perform SEO on sites in such a competitive market in 2013. I hate to keep bashing your SEO guy, but as the technology leader of a firm that prides themselves on SEO work, I would personally hold myself accountable in your situation. </p>
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<p>I have been in this exact same situation with a dealer group that is on the dealer.com platform recently. Let me tell you…</p>
<p>Jackie,</p>
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<p>Let me assure you that the length of time someone has been an SEO is NOT an indicator of how well they perform SEO on sites in such a competitive market in 2013. I hate to keep bashing your SEO guy, but as the technology leader of a firm that prides themselves on SEO work, I would personally hold myself accountable in your situation. </p>
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<p>I have been in this exact same situation with a dealer group that is on the dealer.com platform recently. Let me tell you how this went...</p>
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<p>We needed to add about 60 pages of content and optimize all the existing page meta tags and some content on existing pages. I was provided access to Dealer.com's platform and found that I did NOT have the ability to modify meta tags. I called the Dealer.com rep on behalf of the dealer. They said that we coudl not be provided access to the meta tags and I had to send them any changes that needed to be made. </p>
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<p>Do you think that stopped us? NO</p>
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<p>I proceeded to have my team fill out excel spreadsheets for every single page of each dealer site within the group, including the group site. The excel docs were massive as we included the existing meta tags and the new ones we wanted to use for title, descriptions, and keywords. </p>
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<p>You would think a company like Dealer.com would do what they said right? WRONG.</p>
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<p>Once they saw how much work was involved in really optimizing their websites they hit us back up and said guess what, you have access to the meta tags and you can do them yourself!</p>
<p>So my team went ahead and did it ourselves!</p>
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<p>It is up to the SEO company to make sure these things get done. If they absolutely can't be done then a recommendation has to be made that we can't be held accountable for optimizing a site we can't fully optimize as an SEO firm. Your SEO guy needs to make it happen. Dealer.com can be difficult to deal with, I would much rather sell the entire group our own websites, but they were locked into a contract and couldn't change right now. </p>
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<p>In your situation you CAN change. But before making a change like that I would suggest you change your SEO firm as it will be much easier and I can assure you that you can fix all of your issues with Dealer.com if you have a good SEO firm at your side. </p>
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<p>The 500 errors should also be addressed with Dealer.com as a start to see what they think. If they are hosting the site they may be able to help with fixing those errors.</p>
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<p></p> Thanks for your reply Chris!…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3509922013-01-30T20:13:40.444ZJackie Cahillhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/JackieCahill
<p>Thanks for your reply Chris! Our SEO provider is an independent consultant. We have been using him for a little over a year and when he first started we saw some great results. He has said a lot of the things he would change dealer.com does not give him access to. I really feel confident he is not trying to pull a fast one on us. He has even said at this point he is not sure what more he can do for us if we stay with dealer.com, and if that means we have to part ways with him he…</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply Chris! Our SEO provider is an independent consultant. We have been using him for a little over a year and when he first started we saw some great results. He has said a lot of the things he would change dealer.com does not give him access to. I really feel confident he is not trying to pull a fast one on us. He has even said at this point he is not sure what more he can do for us if we stay with dealer.com, and if that means we have to part ways with him he understands and he wants us to make the best decision for our company. That in mind, I did have him jump on to a call with VinSolutions and he was impressed with their product and his accessibility. </p>
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<p>I just worry even if our current SEO provider has our best interests in mind, are his practices outdated? He has been doing SEO for over 10 years and works for a lot of other huge names, his company even does SEO for the NBA.</p>
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<p>I know that changing site providers is a big transition and risk. Based on everyone's responses here I am wondering, is it time to change site providers or SEO providers? I am having a hard time determining the right answer here.... </p>
<p> </p> If you are comfortable that y…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3510932013-01-30T19:26:12.794ZCars - Jim Cantohttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/carsjimcanto
<p>If you are comfortable that your SEO company truly has your best interest at heart and they are not the type of provider who merely highlights the best data so they can get paid, then I would include them in a review of VinSolutions CMS. After all, they will be collaborating with you on every page for best SEO results. They can tell you whether they have the access they need to perform at peak level.</p>
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<p>Though I do not have any direct experience with VinSolutions' CMS, if you…</p>
<p>If you are comfortable that your SEO company truly has your best interest at heart and they are not the type of provider who merely highlights the best data so they can get paid, then I would include them in a review of VinSolutions CMS. After all, they will be collaborating with you on every page for best SEO results. They can tell you whether they have the access they need to perform at peak level.</p>
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<p>Though I do not have any direct experience with VinSolutions' CMS, if you have chosen them for your CRM, it makes very good business sense to use their CMS. If their templates allow you to customize as needed so you can build what you want, and your SEO team says they can access everything they need, having the CRM directly integrated with your website is a major perk. <strong>One less leaky seam...one less vendor to manage.</strong></p> Chris has provided you with s…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3510892013-01-30T19:15:57.146ZCars - Jim Cantohttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/carsjimcanto
<p>Chris has provided you with solid advice here. I would only like to suggest that, before holding you SEO company accountable (to the degree recommended by Chris).. you first make certain that Dealer.com provides access to the areas in question. From my personal experience.. they do not. However, with some "encouragement" they will grant access to the page-level meta data. Chris is correct in so much as you should hold your SEO provider accountable to the degree he has suggested. However,…</p>
<p>Chris has provided you with solid advice here. I would only like to suggest that, before holding you SEO company accountable (to the degree recommended by Chris).. you first make certain that Dealer.com provides access to the areas in question. From my personal experience.. they do not. However, with some "encouragement" they will grant access to the page-level meta data. Chris is correct in so much as you should hold your SEO provider accountable to the degree he has suggested. However, they can not be accountable for that which they have no access to alter.</p> What can I tell you. We moved…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3510782013-01-30T17:17:04.379ZMauro Andreshttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/MauroAndres
<p><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">What can I tell you. We moved to VinSolutions and it has been a Blessing, from Website, inventory, CRM everything we do is with vinsolutions and our web presence skyrocket. If you do a search on google like this "site:cbsqualitycars.com" you see 115000 results when it used to be only 700 with our previous provider. Leads are pouring. Plus the Customer service it's awesome. Donna Stearns and Chase Abbot truly know…</span></p>
<p><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">What can I tell you. We moved to VinSolutions and it has been a Blessing, from Website, inventory, CRM everything we do is with vinsolutions and our web presence skyrocket. If you do a search on google like this "site:cbsqualitycars.com" you see 115000 results when it used to be only 700 with our previous provider. Leads are pouring. Plus the Customer service it's awesome. Donna Stearns and Chase Abbot truly know what customer service it's all about, even after hours. We recommend Vinsolutios all the time 100% customer satisfaction.</span> Call them at 1-800-980-7488.</p> Chris you have restored some…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3509802013-01-30T17:08:55.134ZCaryn Hefferrenhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/CarynHefferren
<p>Chris you have restored some of my faith in SEO agencies! Good stuff. :)</p>
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<p>Jackie the 500/503's are something I would discuss with dealer.com. Confirm your DNS is configured correctly and redirects are correct. Perhaps a call to your domain provider (Godaddy/Network Solutions) is warranted as well but those are probably a webserver configuration issue. If they occurred right after switching I wouldn't worry about them. If they are recent, look into them.</p>
<p>Chris you have restored some of my faith in SEO agencies! Good stuff. :)</p>
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<p>Jackie the 500/503's are something I would discuss with dealer.com. Confirm your DNS is configured correctly and redirects are correct. Perhaps a call to your domain provider (Godaddy/Network Solutions) is warranted as well but those are probably a webserver configuration issue. If they occurred right after switching I wouldn't worry about them. If they are recent, look into them.</p> Hey Jackie, look at the 500 a…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3512012013-01-30T16:52:01.495ZJoey Abnahttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/JoeyAbna
<p>Hey Jackie, look at the 500 and 503's to determine if they are old page urls or new urls on V9. Also, are we talking a few or a few hundred errors. When you click on the URL of the errors you get an option for "Linked From" if those pages are linking from another site see if you can have the link changed on the other site to the current appropriate page on your new site.</p>
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<p>Your sitemaps should be structured like yoururl.com/sitemap.xml and I see you have the video product from…</p>
<p>Hey Jackie, look at the 500 and 503's to determine if they are old page urls or new urls on V9. Also, are we talking a few or a few hundred errors. When you click on the URL of the errors you get an option for "Linked From" if those pages are linking from another site see if you can have the link changed on the other site to the current appropriate page on your new site.</p>
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<p>Your sitemaps should be structured like yoururl.com/sitemap.xml and I see you have the video product from Dealer.com on your site. Your video sitemap should be something like yoururl.com/videositemap.xml the problem with the video sitemap is that they have the sitemap coded wrong. I have been complaining about this issue to Dealer.com since July. When you submit your sitemaps in WMT just enter the part after the slash in the url.</p>
<p>How did your search queries report look especially the Impressions since the change over?</p> Jackie,
Sorry to hear about…tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-01-30:5283893:Comment:3510752013-01-30T16:45:15.030ZChris Burnshttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/ChrisBurns
<p>Jackie,</p>
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<p>Sorry to hear about your situation. </p>
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<p>As the CIO of a full service digital marketing agency, I have some insights but mainly questions that I would love to get the details on in order to be able to further advise you intelligently. </p>
<p><br></br>I clicked on your profile link to find your dealer site and here is what I can tell you right off the bat...</p>
<p>1. your SEO problems go deaper than H1 tags. I only clicked through a couple of pages but I could…</p>
<p>Jackie,</p>
<p></p>
<p>Sorry to hear about your situation. </p>
<p></p>
<p>As the CIO of a full service digital marketing agency, I have some insights but mainly questions that I would love to get the details on in order to be able to further advise you intelligently. </p>
<p><br/>I clicked on your profile link to find your dealer site and here is what I can tell you right off the bat...</p>
<p>1. your SEO problems go deaper than H1 tags. I only clicked through a couple of pages but I could immediately tell that you are not fully utilizing the most important meta tag elements of your pages. You have keywords repeated multiple time in the title tag which is a horrible use of such valuable SEO real estate. Many of the meta title tag elements are VERY similar or identical with only minor changes on pages within your site. </p>
<p>You don't have static model pages for your vehicles. The vehicle details pages are great, but inventory comes and goes. You really need to have static model pages for each model you have. You need to load those pages up with relevant content and links to your inventory for all the trims and so forth for each model. The model page should also showcase the specials (both mfg and any you have at your dealership) for the particular model as well.</p>
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<p>2. Landing pages CAN hurt you. </p>
<p>Google did some major updates last year that could be making your landing pages look like boiler plate spam sites, a clear indicator of an attempt to game their system. The links pointing to your site could be toxic at this point. I would like to find out exactly how duplicated the content is on those landing pages. I would also like to find out how "light" they are on content. If it's lighton content and highly dupilcate, there is a VERY high chance that you need to do some customization to each of those landing pages in order to make them valuable again. And if you can't or don't want to make those kinds of change you may need to nix them completely in order to save your main site. </p>
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<p>3. Do real link building</p>
<p>Landing pages and link schemes are old. Google knows about them and is actively penalizing you for them now. You need to be guest blogging on real live active automotive blogs with individual, relevant, and exclusive content deep linking to your site. We have content writers and access to portals where our content is picked up by automotive blog publisher for single use guest blogging to accomplish this.</p>
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<p>4. It's not the provider, it's the SEO company.</p>
<p>As a full service digital marketing agency I can tell you that I LOVE our websites. They are built for SEO, speed, and conversion. The problem is that dealers get locked into contracts and vendors give away website for free, or whatever the situation may be. We wind up having to work with optimizing Cobalt, Naked Lime, Vin Solutions, Dealer.com, and just about every other provider out there. Soemtimes it's difficult, but I can assure you that a good SEO team will be able to optimize and rank just about anyone's website given enough access by the provider. In your case it sounds like you do have a problem with a highly templated web platform, however your SEO team is not stepping up to the plate and fixing things for you. They should be doing everything they can and working around the things they can't change, however I can tell you with absolute certainty that they are NOT doing everythign the could to help you rank your site organically. </p>
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<p>Also PPC, social media, and your reputation online all also play factors in the amount of trust customers have to convert as a goal on your site. I would love to take a deeper look at each of those factors and see if they may be impacting you at all. </p>
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<p>I hope this helps!</p>