If you've participated in automotive internet marketing for long enough, you've very likely heard the concept that "content is King." It was in play back in the days when I started researching search engine optimization all those years ago and it never really stopped. There was a dirty little secret that few of us in the SEO community ever mentioned, but it's been…

The excitement has been building for a little while now and we're finally here. 2013 was awesome for many of us on all three sides of the ball - dealers, vendors, and OEMs - and 2014 is trending towards being even better for many. On the other hand, the dangers popping up in many marketing disciplines are also casting some doubts on the future of a good chunk of the…

To paraphrase the immortal movie icon, Ferris Bueller, "The Internet moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

That seems to be the case with many digital marketing practices, particularly in the realm of advertising versus marketing. Oddly enough, it wasn't too long ago that I was preaching the reverse;…

Online reputation has been a hot topic for a couple of years now. As solutions continue to emerge and the business of reputation management as a service expands, there's a dangerous trend that should be addressed.

Reputation management isn't about sending an email. It's not about filtering results by checking their sentiment first before directing them to the…

The biggest news of automotive M&A came at the end of the year as Dealertrack has agreed to acquire Dealer.com. Following their…

As I've said on many occasions, there are only a handful of social media websites that you need to focus on at your dealership. Despite claims that you need to be on dozens of them, the real ones that are making an impact today and in the near future are Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest with Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr, and LinkedIn sitting comfortably in…

I was going through the profiles of some businesses that I follow on social media when I noticed something that was highly discouraging. Some had statements on their Twitter pages that read something to the effect of “a retweet does not mean we endorse it.” On Facebook, there were disclaimers added to the about section that read “liked, commented on, or shared content does…

I’m not a big fan of redundancy, especially on social media. Under normal circumstances, if you have good plugins and widgets properly placed on your blog, there’s no reason to have others. If you want to annoy me with a blog post, put an inline plugin, a floating plugin, and another one at the bottom. Oh, and throw in a “Share It” widget just in case three ways to…

Finding the right channel partners is essential when starting a new business that relies on relationships. That's why it gives me great pleasure to announce the first Dealer Authority partnership with a long-standing and respected company, Internet Marketing and Consulting Services (…

What? WHAT!?!? There have to be required fields on contact forms, right? There have been required fields on contact forms for two decades. Nothing could have changed so quickly that they have become unnecessary, right?

Actually, they're no longer necessary. In fact, they're a hindrance. Here's why:

People aren't stupid

Seriously,…

The next age of advertising is right around the corner. With Google's announcement of +Post ads, we…

There was a cry that was heard amongst many in the search engine optimization world on April 24th, 2012, as if thousands of SEOs suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. It was the day that Google Penguin broke link-building...

...or at least that's…

The merging of search, social, and content marketing into a single digital marketing strategy has been happening for years. Intuitively, many of us have been guided by this fact to create the type of strategies that bring the disciplines together appropriately. As the evolution of the three reach a tipping point that is breaking down a good chunk of the practices of…