Recently, many of the top industry blogs have had posts and articles about "long-tail" searches and larger, general searches. In areas such as affiliate marketing and retail sales, long tail is the best way to go.

In the automotive industry, long tail searches are not yet where it is at.

The concept of the long tail is a strong one. It is designed to attract people who are looking for specific items in specific places to meet specific needs. Affiliate marketing is one that truly begs for the long tail, as advertising money through AdWords and other methods must be maximized. If you have a page that offers discount cruises in Alaska, you would want to focus your dollars on "Cheap Alaskan Cruises" or "book an Alaskan Cruise online" instead of "Alaskan Cruises". Even though fewer people search for the first two, they are more likely to be in a purchasing mode rather than a research mode. In affiliate marketing, you need buyers, not browsers.

The automotive industry is exactly the opposite. People who search for "Used Toyota Camry in Woburn MA" are probably more likely to buy than someone looking for "Toyota Woburn", but there are so many more people typing in the latter when looking for a used Camry. The trends still point to people searching for the dealers rather than the specific cars. In some cases, it's 1,000 to 1 more.

Others will say that Longview Texas Honda Accords is a stronger search than Longview Texas Honda. Even with the shorter tail search, it still cannot beat placing in the more general search results. Conversion, again, will be lower by percentage, but not even close by actual clicks.

Don't be fooled. If you are considering Automotive SEO firms or auto dealer websites companies, be sure to check how they do in the general searches. Anyone can take a picture of a banana, throw it on a website, and get it on the front page of Google searches for the long tail searches because very few are going after those keywords.

According to Overture, 28 people searched for Used Toyota Camry in Minneapolis. In contrast, over 32,000 people searched for Toyota Minneapolis. Which is better, getting 10% of 28 searches or 0.1% of 32,000 searches? To save the math, it's the difference between 3 leads and 32 leads.

Resources:
Search Engine Optimization for Car Dealers
Car Dealer SEO
Automotive SEO
SEO for Auto Dealers
Car Dealer SEO Companies

There are still those in the search optimization field who do not believe the sandbox exists. There are also those who believe that newspaper advertising still works. Sadly, neither is true anymore.

The “sandbox, ” is a place where Google will often put newly created domains and websites that is like a probation period. Once in the sandbox, the website will not be listed on search engine results pages. In essence, the website will not exist on Google, which means that for all intents and purposes, the website barely exists at all.

Somehow, I’ve been blessed with never being in the sandbox. I’ve started or helped start dozens of websites, and while I can not know for sure which technique or trick has kept my websites free of sand, I have a decent idea and some pretty sound theories.

1) Build Links the Right Way – Directories, social bookmarking, articles, and press releases are the only things I use on a new site. I never trade links until my website is strong enough to trade with quality, relevant websites. The link building should be steady and even. Submitting to 500 directories the week after a website is launched is an easy ticket into the sandbox, in my opinion. Build them slowly – 30 the first week, 50 each of the next two weeks, 75-100 per week after that. For SB sites, 1 a day is great. There are literally hundreds that are search engine friendly, so get them in there slowly. Include you link in press releases and articles at a good pace, 1-4 per month.

2) Adding Content Regularly – If you have 100 pages, reveal them to Google through internal linking and sitemap additions at a steady pace. Keep track f which pages are being indexed. Avoid duplicate content at all costs. If you have a blog (or if it is a blog), make sure you are posting at least twice a week at a steady pace. No scraping, no RSS feeds for the first few weeks after first getting indexed, and no worthless, keyword stuffed content. Make it good.

3) No Spamming – If you want your site sandboxed, plug it in to blog comments and forum signatures in bulk. Digg every page. Use black hat techniques. You’ll be sandboxed in a couple of weeks. Adding your links through forum signatures is not bad, especially if it’s in a relevant forum that can bring traffic. It should still be avoided in the infancy of a website, at least until the inbound link count is large enough that the sig-links are but a tiny portion.

4) Long Tail Shield – It is my belief that Google believes websites must work their way up a hierarchy. Using anchor text, go after several (dozens, even hundreds) of long-tail keywords. Establish you website there first, then move on to the broader, more competitive ones. If you are starting an automotive classified site with dealers nationwide, the natural tendency is to go after “Used Cars” or a similar keyword. It will take years. First, go after “Used Honda in Dallas” or “Miami Preowned Accord.” Once you do well there, move on to tougher searches like “Used Cars Oklahoma City”. Graduate to “Used Car Search”. You’ll notice one day after a few months (assuming the site is properly optimized) that you pop up #78 on “Used Cars”. That is when it is time to go after the prize.

There is no hard evidence that the sandbox is completely avoidable, no matter what tactics are used. Technically, there is no hard evidence that the sandbox exists.

To me, it does exist, and these are ways to improve your chances of avoiding it.

SEO Articles

Every now and then, I read an article and think -- that needs to be on another one of my blogs. The one below is such an article. Perhaps it's because I risked a lot and went beyond the normal efforts to come up with the data necessary to post it. Maybe I'm just so pleased with the results that I wanted to share.

Either way, there it is.

It describes the differences between Google and Yahoo!, their algorithms, and the techniques that work best for each individual search engine. Any search engine optimization professional will know this information to some extent. I only wanted to take it a step further and actually run tests to make sure that what most believed is actually the way it is.

It is.

Please feel free to read the entire story at Links and Links and Content. It isn't a long read, but it should either teach or reaffirm knowledge about getting ranked well for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN

There is something that can be said about the automotive industry.

Nothing is simple.

Just about every aspect of it is shrouded in mystery of some sort, whether it is the mysterious way that dealers deal with customers, the mysterious feelings that customers have for dealers, the mystery of how and why and when the manufacturers are going to do or say whatever it is that they're going to do or say.

There's even mystery in the lead in to an article about car dealer SEO.

That pretty much sums up the confusion that many auto dealers have when it comes to search engine optimization. If you didn't quite understand the paragraph above, you're still leaps and bounds ahead of the understanding that your stereotypical car dealer general manager or dealership owner has about SEO. It isn't their fault. They sell cars. They don't read SEOChat.

Now comes the internet sales manager who still sells cars primarily but has a good understanding of how the internet works and probably at least a basic understanding of how search engine optimization works. They are charged with helping to put the dealer website together, getting traffic to the site, turning traffic into leads, and turning leads into sales.

That should make it clear why SEO for car dealers is so difficult.

No? I'll elaborate.

Because car dealers and their employees are in an industry that demands the Now to be the most important thing, it's hard for them to put their minds around a long term, nurturing concept that is required for search engine optimization in a competitive market such as automotive sales. They aren't worried about where they will place in Google next month. They want to know who is finding their website on Google today and why they aren't at the dealership currently buying a car.

Most automotive SEO firms and automotive website designers are compelled by the sheer frugality of car dealers to offer limited versions of search engine optimization campaigns. A real campaign would cost a dealer in a major metro area at least $1500 per month. The vast majority will not pay this.

There is really only car dealer SEO company who can deliver the goods for the cheap price.

So, the companies, who need sales of their own, create mini-SEO campaigns that produce limited results over an extended period of time. As the SEO product fails to meet expectations, the ISM, owner, or GM decides that SEO isn't worth the investment and scraps the project. It's a catch-22. You need to spend the money to get the results, but you need to see the results to spend the money.

For this reason, added to other factors inherent to automotive websites, car dealer SEO is probably the toughest there is.

Automotive SEO Blog