The?SEMA Show is the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world. At this year?s annual event, I was asked to join other industry leaders as a presenter, discussing topics related to automotive marketing. In case you couldn?t make this year?s SEMA Show, I?m doing a two-part series to recap my digital marketing presentations as they relate to the automotive industry. The first of the two, titled ?Driving Business with Search Engines,? can be downloaded by clicking the link.
Through this presentation, I outlined 20 steps automotive marketing professionals could take back to their companies to make an immediate impact on business success. To give you an idea of how the Internet, and more specifically search engines, has changed over the last decade, consider this: through 2003, only 5 exabytes of data had been created on the web. Today, 5 exabytes of data are created every 48 hours. To take the point a step further, only 50 pages existed on the web in 1993. Today, 354,000,000 pages are being indexed on Google alone for the term ?auto parts.? So what steps can you take within your automotive marketing strategy to keep up in the competitive world of search engine marketing?
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) TIPS
1. Start with the Right Content
To achieve any kind of search engine marketing success, you have to start with quality content. It should be fresh and engaging. Search engines know when your content gets stale, and as that continues to happen, your pages continue to sink in the rankings.
2. Call Things What They Are
What language is your audience using to describe your products and services? To see if you?re using the right keywords that are relevant to your customers, take a look at Google Insights for Search. That will help you look beyond corporate jargon and identify words actually being used by people looking for your products.
3. Build for Search Engines
For most companies, search engines are the biggest drivers of traffic to their websites. Most first-time visitors (85%) come from search engines. Oftentimes, however, marketers tend to build websites for CMOs or CFOs based on what they like rather than what works best for search engines. A website that might be shiny and pretty on the outside may appear like junk to a search engine. To avoid that, steer clear of gateway pages, Flash content, slow site load times, missing title tags and missing HTML text.
4. Use Keywords in Title Tags
Each page of your website should have keyword-rich title tags. Title tags are what show up as the heading for your website within search results. These title tags should be unique for each page, should be concise and clearly explain page content, and should be no more than 66 characters.
5. Use Keyword-Rich Meta Descriptions
Meta data is what shows up below your title tags in search results and gives a quick summary of what the page is about. Similar to the previous step, your meta descriptions should also be keyword-rich, using keywords and phrases your audience is likely using to search for your products and services. You have 160 characters or less, so include as many keywords as possible in the allotted space.
Steps #4 and #5 are where your marketing message is first seen by someone searching for your products or services. This is where win/lose is decided ? you either interest them enough to click on your website within the search results or you don?t.
6. Use Keyword-Rich URLs
A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to look at a URL and easily identify what that page is about. If you can?t, chances are a search engine can?t either.
7. Use Alt Image Attributes and Name Images
Give unique names to the images on your website. It?s another element on the page that allows search engines to determine what the content on your page is about. In addition, people are doing more image searches every day. By getting more of your images indexed, you?re more likely to show up in search results for those keywords.
8. Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text
Anchor text refers to hyperlinks within your site that lead to other pages within your site. Be sure to hyperlink actual keyword-rich text for effectiveness.
9. Arrange Content for Scanning
Most of us do not read a webpage like we do a book: nearly 80% of users only scan a webpage rather than reading complete copy.
PAID SEARCH TIPS
10. Build an Organized Foundation
You want to build your campaign in a way so it?s scalable. So begin by organizing your Campaigns within your Account, looking at factors such as how to allocate your budgets, how to break out terms, etc. In addition, use only five or fewer unique keywords in each Ad Group. For each Ad Group, you should test a minimum of three to five text ads, each with a minimum of three to five calls-to-action.
11. Build Negatives
After establishing your keyword list and text ads, you should build out your negatives. By including negatives, you ensure your ads don?t appear for irrelevant keywords. A good way to start is by searching for your brand name and seeing what irrelevant search results come up. You can then use keywords from those irrelevant search results to develop your list of negatives.
12. Check Different Locations
The results you get when searching in Las Vegas are different than those you?ll see when searching from New York. That?s why it?s important to look at search results from various locations rather than just your own location.
13. ?Broad? Match is for Head Terms
Marketers should constantly be working to build out the longtail of search. We use broad match to flesh out the phrase and exact keywords we want to buy. When you use broad, you should constantly add more elements to make broad trigger less and less.
14. Use Search Query Reports
Use this to find what raw queries people are using to find your website. Those with high bounce rates or low KPIs could be a good negative to add to your campaign. This can also be a good source of keywords you should be using in your campaigns.
15. Use Google Insights for Search
This is a great way to find what areas of the country have a greater demand for your product or service. You can also see what searches are rising in popularity, determine seasonality and much more.
16. Focus on Off-Page SEO
You need to get quality inbound links to your site. Are you using share features on the content you put out there? Do the socially respected share your content?
17. Test, Fail Quickly, Syndicate
One of the benefits of digital over traditional channels is the ability to test things and learn from them on the fly. Things that are working online should be syndicated to what you?re doing offline.
18. Create Real Accountability
Digital allows marketers to provide real accountability for the spend they?re investing.
19. Benchmark
Benchmark your baseline measurements before your search engine marketing campaign begins. Benchmark your sources: what portions are coming from organic vs. paid, how is that changing over time, how is it changing for specific KPIs, how is it changing in sales?
20. Bottom Line Metrics Trump All
A ?good? measure is of KPIs, including initial optimizations. A ?better? measure is of Return On Ad Spend (ROAD), layering in sales data. But the ?best? measure is of Return On Investment (ROI), including sales data with profit margin data and profitability/best customers.
Jeff Adelson-Yan is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Levelwing, a digital advertising agency that provides data-driven marketing solutions. In 2002, Adelson-Yan co-founded Levelwing with Steve Parker, Jr., growing the agency out of a 450 square foot New York apartment into a multi-office agency serving global? View?full?profile
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