Google just made a big change in how they will track organic visits to your website.  If a consumer is logged into their Google Account and does a search in Google, and clicks on your link, you WILL NOT be told which keyword they used.

This has a major impact in keyword optimization and web content strategies. Google will still show referral website traffic but not the keywords used in search to arrive at your site.

Here is the official announcement from…

Google continues to amaze me with a tsunami of changes to search and new products this summer.  The team at Google is not taking any vacation time this year.



Google announced today Google Related, a free toolbar that is available for Google Chrome and…

Scott Brinker, a columnist at SearchEngineLand.com recently posted an article that caught my attention.  

Many industry experts have talked about the importance of conversion but Scott's article took it a step further and introduced a new acronym to me: ZMOT

You should…

Google seems to be everywhere lately, especially with their introduction of +1 and Google Plus.  Many people have so many different aspects of their life integrated into the search engine (email, social network, search engine, calendar, document management, etc) that sometimes it is hard to remember how we ever got along without it.

Most estimates put…

One of the SEO sites that I frequently read (www.searchengineland.com) has a VERY interesting post by a  reader, LebSEO Design's Wissam Dandan.  He has found examples of Google Adwords ads appearing at the bottom of the page for some searches.

No one on our search team at…

It is almost hard to comprehend how fast mobile Internet usage is growing.  According to Google, more smartphones were sold last year than PCs.  It's predicted that 50% of Americans will have a smartphone by the end of the year and that there will be 10 billion mobile Internet devices in 2012, up from the 2 billion that are activated today.  A child is more likely to own a cell phone than a book!

How is that going to impact the car buying experience and your online strategy? …

As I reported yesterday, Google has stopped including 3rd Party Review counts into their yellow stars.  There was some disagreement if this change was permanent, and today we see that it is.

The product manager for Google Local had this to say in an article posted on…

Change once again is rocking the automotive digital marketing world as Google today drops the third party review counts from its yellow stars. ONLY reviews directly posted on Google Places are showing. This screen shot of BMW of Scherville showed all the DealerRater reviews last week in their star counts but not today.

This is what their Google Places account…

Do you have a blog on Google Blogger platform, also known as Blogspot? Are you using Google Picasa to store photos? Well, say goodbye to those products.

Panic sets in....wait.....wait....wait....

Now rest easy because these popular product by Google will be renamed in the coming months to Google Blogs and…

I popped open my DealerKnows email this morning and saw that Google Analytics sent out a Benchmark Newsletter.  (See below).  If you recall, when signing up for your Google Analytics account, you were offered to "opt-in" to anonymous data-sharing with Google.  Well they've consolidated the data and are making some modifications to their standard benchmarking report.  The information is revealing, but how does the…

The +1 button which has been added to organic search results is now coming to your Adwords campaign. I love how Google continues to "socialize" SERP pages and it also changes the game in regards to being on Google Page One.

18 months ago being on Page One was the goal of most Automotive SEO strategists. Today, you need to make sure your online reviews, social media "likes", and now "+1's" also show…

Ideally, an auto dealership should be running a pay-per-click campaign through Google AdWords, but what if you just don't have the staff or the time to manage an AdWords campaign? Google now offers a simplified option called Google Boost through Google Places in which you can basically "set it and forget it." Unfortunately, this platform is only available in certain markets but…

What exactly is ‘ROI Marketing’? Simply put, ‘ROI Marketing’ means measurable results for the dollars spent to promote a product, brand, or individual. In today’s ‘New Age’ of the Automotive Retail industry every penny, every second, and every customer count more than ever. The ability to laser-pinpoint the target market, speak to it, and measure the results are critical to the success of your dealership.

The old saying "50% of my advertising is…

Not too long ago, Google rolled…

Since Google has integrated Google Places into organic search it is clear that there is no greater search marketing priority for car dealers than to start an Internet Reputation Management (IRM) process. That IRM program cannot focus on one review site but must focus on multiple review websites.

I take the position that a local dealer needs to have at least 100 positive reviews and in more competitive markets, TWICE the number of…