SEO/SEM

If I had a dime for every dealer who demanded to be at “the top” of Google… trouble is, most of them don’t know where the top actually is. Or, they know where the top is and (as usual) prefer to invest money for instant ROI rather than invest time and effort for long-term ROI. In both of these cases, the dealer inevitably lands on spot #2: the top of paid search.

But folks, that ain’t the top.

If you’re a dealer asking questions about getting to the top of Google, then you already have some understanding of the power and value of search engine presence. But what you haven’t realized - or refuse to realize - is that “paid search” (PPC) marketing is not the magic bullet of search engine marketing. While PPC is highly cost-effective and can be tracked and analyzed to no end, it’s still just rented ad space. If you don’t pay for your ad to be there tomorrow, some other competitor will take your place… just like print ads.

Organic SEO on the other hand, builds upon itself. These are the results that “naturally” list out along the left side of the page; the sites which Google has deemed relevant to what users are searching for. The closer your site gets to the top of that area, the more clicks you receive, the more Google values your site, and the higher your site will go. It’s the snowball effect, and there’s really nothing like it in any other area of automotive advertising. Build a high-quality site and maintain it frequently, and you could be on top of the natural listings within a few months. That’s the discipline to keep in mind: the top of Google is in the organic/natural listings, not the paid listings.

The #1 result in the organic listings (Spot#1) gets about 40% of the click share on Google and other search engines. The #1 paid result doesn’t even come close (maybe 20% of the click share on a good day when listed above the organic side (Spot #3), and more like 10% at the top of the sponsored side (Spot #4)), and often you get better results as the #2 organic listing (Spot #2) than you would as the #1 paid listing. That means the majority of people are going to look past your PPC advertising efforts to find the page that Google has declared the most relevant page on the queried topic. That’s because users know PPC marketing listings are ads, and to a degree, they’ve trained themselves to avoid looking at such listings. It’s also because the organic results deliver more information in their results, so the user has a better idea of what they’re clicking on.

Now there are still a ton of people who mistakenly or purposefully click on paid listings, and I’m not suggesting you give it up. It is, after all, the second best marketing expense in this industry right now. But it’s still an expense, and that’s why it’s in the same boat as newspaper, direct mail, radio and TV advertising: when you stop paying, you stop getting leads. If you’re on a tirade about being #1 in Google, your first step is to realize that it’s not going to happen overnight, and that PPC marketing is not what gets you to #1. Your second step is to find a website developer who rocks at SEO and can build you a killer site… unfortunately, that means looking outside the offerings within this industry.

Dealers still don’t get SEO.

Some of them know they don’t get it. Some of them are totally unaware. And some of them believe they do get it, bragging about their PPC campaigns (p.s., that’s not SEO at all) and jumbles of keywords stuffed into the bottom of their websites. But none of those groups truly understands what SEO will mean to this industry in the future.

As usual, it stems from the fact that dealers don’t know a lick of marketing, paired with their affinity for solutions that band-aid a problem this month rather than solve it two years down the road. They’ll follow whatever flavor of the month brings in the most business. But search engine presence is on the brink of becoming that flavor of the month for the next decade, and dealers will soon find, to their dismay, that throwing a pile of money at Google won’t improve your standing in the search engine results one bit… that’s when you’ll have to memorize another three-letter acronym: S.O.L..

PPC campaigns are only a quick fix to the long-term issue of your store’s prominence in search engines. These paid listings cost money every time you utilize them, and the more people want in, the more it’s going to cost you to stay in the spotlight… it’s really no different from any other advertising concept, except that for now, it’s cheaper than most. The point is, you’re not building your site’s presence at all with these campaigns - you’re just renting ad space.

SEO is a totally different concept: the organic, or “left side” of the search engines, if you will, is what a search engine is all about in the first place. Those listings are there because they’ve been built up over years of popularity with consumers, and here’s where it gets serious: the longer they stay there, the more popular they get, and the harder it becomes to oust them from that spot. Remember that this area of the listings is free, and getting to the top is hypothetically free as well, except that most site owners don’t have a clue how to achieve the goal. That includes most website vendors, who think a hacked up garbage site design can be a great search engine performer as long as you plug in a bunch of keywords.

Ok, so where am I going with this? I’m telling you that the big markets are getting into crunch time for SEO, and the rest will soon follow. Once that time has passed, there will be listings that your store will simply not have a presence in, and that means you will lose significant business opportunities. If you want to change the situation at that point, it will cost you exhorbitant amounts of time and money.

Want to see into the crystal ball? Okay, we can do that. I can’t go back in time to show you what Google’s results used to look like before dealers started battling for presence, but it’s like I always say: if you can’t go back in time, do the next best thing and go to Kansas.

Here’s the Google SERP for the phrase “new jersey lexus dealer”, which returned about 2 million results. Of the 21 search results on this page, 14 are specific Lexus dealers. Note that I’ve added the “golden triangle” effect so you can see just how little real estate is available to compete in.

You think you can just waltz into that battlefield? Getting to the top of those paid listings will cost you a fortune, and the organic side is jam-packed with dealers keyword-stuffing their way to huge traffic numbers. Now we’re not at the apocalypse yet… as I said, most of these dealer sites are trash, and if you spent enough time/money/effort, you could get near the top of this listing. Eventually, however, the hill will be too steep to climb, and you’ll be wondering why these dealers are outselling you.

Now let’s see what search engine life was like five years ago in New Jersey… in other words, what it’s like now in Kansas. This is the SERP for “Kansas Lexus Dealer”, which returned about 10% of the volume that our New Jersey search returned.

Now I don’t mean to offend Kansas (though I’m sure I did, and I’m fine with that), as there probably isn’t much in the way of Lexus dealers out there. But the point is that there are only 3 dealer listings here (only 2 of consequence, both of which are for the same dealership) for a query that covers an entire state/region of consumers. In this position, you still have the luxury of waking up one day and saying, “hmm… I think I should go ahead and get into that whole SEO thing”. You can dominate this listing relatively easily - for now.

But please heed this warning: that Kansas listing will look like the New Jersey listing in the next year or two, and the New Jersey listing in that timeframe will have become a fight to the death for real estate. Do not continue to rely on PPC campaigns if you haven’t solidified your presence in the organic side… it’s a first-come-first-served buffet, and there are absolutely no guarantees of second helpings.