There is no shortage of opinions in our industry. Depending on who you ask, they will likely have a very passionate opinion about the three major types of mobile website strategies: responsive, adaptive, and mobile-only. If you ask a website provider, they’ll tell you that the option they have currently available is the best option whether they have numbers to back…

DealerOn Presented with Best Website Design Award

DealerOn Inc. is the recipient of the Best Auto Dealer Website Design award as a part of Dealer Marketing Magazine’s Technology Leadership Awards. These awards will be presented during the 2013 National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention & Expo in Orlando, Florida.…

Earlier this year, Nielsen, xAd, and Telmetrics conducted a survey on the “mobile path to purchase” in three industries: restaurants, travel, and automotive.  The latest part of the study released pertains to the automotive category.

One of the most important things found in this study, in my opinion, is that…

The 13th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition is fast approaching - just 3weeks left!

Not only is DealerOn a Title Sponsor, we will also have a booth (#1211), and many of us will be speaking as well!  Going to be a busy, busy few days for the DealerOn…

I've written a lot about the importance of having a mobile friendly auto dealership website given the increase in smart phone usage, but when your dealership sends emails, are you also taking mobile into consideration?

A recent study by Knotice, an on-demand marketing software and agency, shows that 36% of emails were opened on a mobile device (tablet &…

It seems as though Google continues to be more transparent than in the past, which is great for webmasters. At the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco last week, I had the chance to take part in a Q&A with the famous Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team.  One of the attendees asked Matt about the Penguin update and what it meant going forward.  I’m paraphrasing Matt here, but he said that webmasters should expect Penguin updates to continue and to be "jarring" for a…

So you've created your dealership's Google+ Brand Page in preparation for the move from Google Places to Google Plus Local...but now what?  Here are some tips for optimizing your dealership's Google+ page:

Keep SEO in Mind: When putting information into the "About Us" tab, use relevant keywords. Also use these terms when adding content to your page to help search engines (especially Google) understand what your page is about.  Use "Recommended Links" to send…

It's not often that Google announces when they are going to make changes to their algorithm in advance, but they did just that on Tuesday.

The latest update under the Panda name went into effect Tuesday night, Panda 3.9.  Panda was originally released in February 2011 as a way to remove low-quality content from Google's search results.

Google…

Google announced a few months ago that they were going to start penalizing websites that were deemed to be over-optimized for SEO as an attempt to "level the playing field".  While many auto dealer websites shouldn't have an issue with this (your site provider should not only be up to date on Google's latest algorithm changes, but make sure your site is performing as well as possible), here are some things to avoid so you don’t…

Many of the dealers I talk to are extremely concerned about the conversion rate of their dealership website, and rightfully so.  Converting website traffic into leads should be a priority of everyone involved with your site, from your vendor to your Internet Manager to your GM.  One way to affect your conversion rate is by optimizing the contact forms you use to collect leads.…

It's official!  Google has finally announced guidelines and recommendations on how to build mobile websites that work best for users and Google.

Google recommends building your mobile site with a responsive design approach.  This means that your mobile site uses the same URL as your main site, and serves the same HTML, but uses CSS to change how the page is…

If you're doing the SEO for your own auto dealer website, it can be difficult to know where to focus your energy first. Here are the pages you should start optimizing first to get the most bang for your SEO efforts:

Main Navigation Pages: Your home page and those that have direct navigation from your home page (mainly your inventory) should be optimized since they are the ones potential customers are most likely to find. …

Does your car dealership sell have more than one location?  If so, big news from Google Places.  In the past, it was difficult and cumbersome to create and manage more than one Places account.  To help their users, Google Places has created a new Bulk Listing Management Tool.

This new tool allows your dealership to edit one or more listing, search your listings (filtering by specific info or by listing with errors), and upload new listings from a data file or…

Your dealership customers aren't just using their mobile devices to find your car dealer website, they are also using them to read the emails you send.  A recent report from the marketing agency Knotice found that more than 27 percent of emails were opened on a mobile device during the second half of 2011.  This is a 36 percent gain from the end of 2010.

 …

Google recently released an eBook (or playbook, as they call it): "The Mobile Playbook: The Busy Executive's Guide to Winning with Mobile".  For any dealership interested in mobile websites, mobile paid search, and how to expand your brand with mobile technology, this guide is extremely concise and helpful, answering the "5 crucial mobile questions that every business executive should be asking today".

Their playbook is…

I recently found a great article that discusses very specific things businesses should be doing to help their Google Places Listing improve its ranking.  Bizible, a start-up that makes local marketing software for businesses, conducted a pretty scientific attempt to determine how best to improve the rank of your Google Places Listing.…

I'm so excited to be a sponsor and a part of an upcoming Digital Dealer Webinar. DealerOn co-founder, Amir Amirrezvani, will be presenting with Jason Ezell from Dataium on Website Conversion Rate Optimization best practices used by dealerships like Ideal Nissan (the 2012 Digital Dealer Website Excellence Overall Award Winner and DealerOn customer).

A typical dealer implementing the full spectrum of these best practices, if they are not already using them, can expect to more…

A recent study by Marin, "State of Mobile Search Advertising in the US", shows that the percent of paid-search clicks from mobile devices is growing faster than expected, and if the trend continues, is expected to account for 25% of all paid-search clicks by Google by the end of the year.  This includes not only mobile phones but also tablet computers.

 …

Ali and Amir were so proud to accept our award for Overall Winner of the Spring 2012 Digital Dealer Website Excellence Awards for the Ideal Nissan website, presented by Jason Ezell!

Find Out…

While not every dealership is actively involved with social media, it's a form of connecting with potential customers that doesn't seem to be going away.  If your dealership is participating in social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc), try to avoid making these common mistakes.

Replacing Your Dealership Website with Social Media Profiles: Maintain both for optimal results.  When you put your energy and assets into another platform (Facebook, Twitter, etc),…