What are SEOs?

SEO is an acronym for "Search Engine Optimisation" or "Search Engine Optimiser". SEOs are a way to drive more online traffic to your website, therefore optimizing your website. 

SEOs provide useful services for website owners, including:

*  The ability to review your site content or structure

*  Management of online business development campaign

*  Keyword research

*  Expertise in specific markets and geographical areas

Meta tags are codes that are inserted into your web page headers and provide information to search engines. Meta tags provide information such as:

*  Who created the page?

*  How often it is updated?

*  What the page is about?

*  Which keywords represent the page's content.

You can make a meta tag for the Title, Description and Keywords that Google will pick up when people search the Internet. It is a bit like the way you use keywords in your Trade Me Motors listings for Internet browsers (such as Google) to pick up in search results. Meta tags are a great way to control to some degree how your website is being picked up by Search Engines. 

 

Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords. So what is a keyword, exactly? It is like keywords that you would put in, E. g. a Trade me listing, to draw traffic and browsers to that listing. i.e: "Leather seats", "sale", "used", "manual", "AA accredited", "alarm", "CD player" etc.  A keyword can simply be any word on a webpage. For example, If you page is a list of benefits of buying from your dealership, you need to think to yourself, “what 10 or 15 words or phrases is this page MOST about?” Just because your page mentions trade-ins in the text doesn’t mean that the page is about trade-ins. If you want to attract buyers by promoting the fact that you offer warranties, create a page about warranties.

If you have a website hosted by AutoBase and your website is configured with the SEO you can manipulate the Title and Meta Tags as required on a per page basis. Contact us HERE to find out more. 
We'll leave the last word to the 'SEO Rapper':

For more information, check out this article from Google here.

The Humble Vehicle View

What information is readily available to me now that can improve my sales?

Selling on the internet involves no chicken or egg; it has a clear starting point and a defining end point. There is great focus placed on lead tracking, targeted conversion rates and total sales and most of us carry these figures in our heads and our business performance depends on them. The first metric in the internet sales process that is often overlooked is the vehicle view count; it is such a simple measure which requires little interpretation. Once a listing is placed on the internet it shows the immediate acceptance and position of that vehicle within the market.

At AutoBase we have the privilege of seeing a huge amount of data to identify trends and changes in the online behaviour. One clear fact is that the internet is no different to most things in life and it conforms to the 80/20 rule, more effort is easily rewarded which brings me back to the humble vehicle view. Unlike a billboard or 30 second TV,C this little count provides instant gratification. We provide this information to our customers, either in an easy to read table, ready-made graph, or for the more advanced, a complete Excel spreadsheet to allow data importing or manipulation. 

A daily review of this data takes much of the mystery out of selling within market places like Trade Me Motors. Based on one month’s historical data you can quickly and easily gain the following information:

1. Total vehicle views for the month

2. Most popular vehicles

3. Least popular vehicles

4. Impact of pricing adjustments per vehicle

5. Reaction to a change in photos or vehicle description details

6. Duration a vehicle has been listed on Trade Me Motors

7. Trending of views per day

8. Trending of views per week

Having all this information readily at hand is only one part of a powerful puzzle. Mixing this information with what you already know about your customers and their buying history, takes the black magic out of the web. Rather than being in the 80% that hit and hope, optimising a few key elements of online strategy in reaction to what the market is reflecting back has to be a winner. This has always been one key area where I am surprised we get asked very few questions about. My view of the web is that it is a turkey shoot if you get it right.

One thing that can be overlooked or forgotten and that can be picked up by understanding vehicle view performance is where the customers are going after viewing the listing. There are many services now that let you enhance the listing by allowing the prospect to click away to view more information. We offer this service for our customers and thought should be taken on the final destination of these links as depending on where these links lead, it could be a point of weakness. Full advantage needs to be taken of the opportunity to move them away from a highly competitive environment like Trade Me into your more controlled sales process. If your listings are getting lots of views but your lead rate is low, check any links that you are displaying to ensure that they are adding true value back to the viewer. You would be surprised at the number of links that are either broken (as the web address has changed over time), or lead to very nondescript web pages with no focus. These links generally open a new browser window for the prospect which acts as a barrier for them returning to the classified web site. Getting this all working correctly is key.

A vehicle listed today should have its online performance reviewed tomorrow. This is easy for me to say as I sit at my desk looking out at a dark winter’s day, however the beauty of monitoring vehicle views is that it takes so little time and allows you to catch things early. A newly listed, well-priced, highly desirable vehicle should be generating proportionately more views than your older stock. If not, it needs to be quickly reviewed as it may have incorrect pricing, poor quality or no images, missing comments etc. You do not want to miss that golden period of a latest listing. Equally, any older listing should be addressed where the views have dropped; is it time to update the photos, freshen up the comments and review the pricing? If you are using Trade Me Motors, remember to leverage the model variant field for promotions. 

 Excerpt from an example of an AutoBase Monthly Vehicle Views Report.

For more information on this feature, please email us here.

Remember that the web with its saved searches and watch lists, turns all prospective customers into train spotters and you cannot fool them! You have to be transparent with your customers and prospects. With older listings it is best to openly state that the vehicle must go and that the price has been adjusted to reflect this. By being openly on the front foot it helps cut down on those last minute and unwanted price negotiations. If online customers are turned away by your actions they will never tell you.

In summary it all does start with the number of eyes on listings and this information is easy to obtain. Tracking and monitoring this activity is relatively low stress and the gains made around optimising an online sales approach will lead to increased activity in your lead pipeline. Nothing internet-based needs to be hard.

AutoBase Enhanced Daily Vehicle Views Graph. 
For more information on this feature, email us here.

Article by David Boshier, AutoBase General Manager 

How is your Digital Footprint?

With around 2,000 automotive dealers in New Zealand, standing out in the crowd is key - the more ‘arrows’ pointing to your brand and your stock, the better. Auto marketers and dealers are increasingly realising the value of getting their stock and brand online and are utilising several ways to increase their online presence - their ‘digital footprint’.

Online Advertising

The sheer amount of information available on vehicles that can be found online, coupled with the speed and ease of searching for them has made online advertising hugely popular with Kiwi dealers and consumers. People are buying out of town and turning to the internet more and more when buying vehicles. 80% of people now use the internet and 88% of them are on broadband, making it fast and easy for people to search through multiple vehicle listings from home, or work¹. Because of this online advertising has rapidly become the foundation to automotive dealers’ marketing plans. New Zealand’s online advertising spend for 2009 was $213 Million - a 10% growth since 2008². With a huge range of search criteria for vehicles and fast page download times, Trade Me Motors now attracts in excess of 2million UBs (Unique Browsers) a month³ with almost 900 dealers and >35,000 dealer stock listings running as classifieds (>50,000 listings overall), giving Kiwi dealers’ listings massive online exposure. 

All AutoBase customers get their listings displayed on both Trade Me Motors and www.autobase.co.nz at one monthly rate. So to maximize your online presence in line with your budget and resources, put your stock where the most people are looking. It makes sense to choose a provider who gets the most traffic – Trade Me runs auctions and classifieds and they put a great deal of money and effort into optimizing their search results in Google, so you don’t have to! We suggest following this plan. Put 60% of your marketing spend into online classifieds, 30% into promoting those listings so they stand out, and 10% managing leads and your staff to make sure those leads are being followed up.

Company Websites 
Many NZ dealers are getting their own websites, which makes it easy for viewers to find stock, contact details and information on specials or warranties at the click of a button, as well as giving their brand more online exposure. But having a great website is pointless if no one visits it or it’s confusing to navigate. The more arrows you have pointing to your website, the better – put your URL (website address) on business cards, signage and all marketing collateral. There are many people who dabble in ‘website design’, but design and ease of usability are key, so ensure that you trust your web design to a professional that understands your industry.  Web design solutions specifically for dealers must include a database that displays your stock, and is easily managed and updated from your VMS or web browser. 

 

AutoBase designs websites for automotive dealers. If you have a well-designed and professional website, it will pay for itself in no time. Your website needs to reach as many people as possible - it is open for business 24 hours, giving your customers what they want. Many people build websites these days – but not all of them are user-friendly, well made or professional looking. There is nothing worse than going to a website and spending ages trying to find what you want. Most viewers spend less than 10 seconds looking, and if they can’t find want they want they will click off to another website.  AutoBase websites are easy to navigate and all your information is found simply and fast.  AutoBase only build automotive websites that are professional, functional websites for the automotive industry at highly competitive, transparent  rates. We also display and power your stock, at no extra charge. Our designer works with you to make sure we give you what you want – a professional, high-quality, user-friendly website. We can also add video if you like. To  find out more please email us here.

Quantifiable reporting

The beauty of these online marketing tools is that you can capture usable information. Facebook and Twitter now have applications enabling businesses to track and obtain quantifiable reports. Applications can identify user locations and habits such as:

·         Who is walking through your doors?

·         How often are they visiting your premises?

·         How many people are visiting your website?

·         How many people have viewed your individual stock listings?

·         What Tweet posts are the most popular?

Some classified websites also have a large variety of reporting available, including reports on how many people have viewed each stock item, what stock items get the most views and how many enquiries you receive. Yes, websites such as Facebook and Twitter are free, but it’s implicit that you have a well thought out, targeted marketing plan with relevant and correct information going out onto the internet. Consult with your Marketing Manager or an online marketing adviser for guidance and strategy. Make the most of all of your online options and the wide variety of tracking and reporting available to you. Harness and manage the power of the internet by getting your arrows on target, and you will reap the benefits.

How to measure your classified website's performance

You will have seen plenty of in industry articles and literature from others (including us!) that make reference to UBs – Unique Browsers and PIs – Page Impressions. So what are these statistics and what do they mean to dealers?

Online traffic is fairly tricky to measure, so the industry standard has become Unique Browsers, or UBs. There are products can track and monitor activity for most of the automotive online classified websites in NZ. This enables us to see where the most people are looking and to easily compare and contrast their performance across a range of different metrics. Some of the metrics that we monitor are Unique Browsers, Page Impressions, and Unique Browser Frequency. Here’s the low-down.

What is a UB?
A UB is a unique internet browser – in layman’s terms, a browser application is the software you use to browse the internet. Browsing can occur from your laptop, work PC, home PC, iPhone etc. Because some people browse the internet from different computers – e.g. work computer, home computer and an iPhone - one person can be counted multiple times – the example of work, home and iPhone would count as 3 UBs. However, if a family of 4 are all using the same computer at home – this is counted as one Unique Browser. By the same token, someone passing around their iPhone at work for people to use the internet on it is counted as one Unique Browser, no matter how many people are using the device. So for the most part, the numbers even out to give a fairly good idea of how many individuals are looking at a website.

So if someone has two computers or a computer and an iPhone where they are looking at the same website – are they counted twice?
Yes. This would account for two unique browsers as the person is using a different browser to access the web, twice. We can also monitor Unique Browser Frequency – how many times is a browser going to the same website – which essentially measures the loyalty to that website.

What is a PI?
PI stands for Page Impression. This measures the number of (fully downloaded) web pages viewed for a selected period.

Why monitor UBs and PIs?
UBs are “the best measure of coverage and reach on the web, and the standard for comparing one site against another.” Jimmy McGee, Trade Me Motors.
PIs are a good measure of engagement on a website. The more Page Impressions - the more that website is being viewed. The longer a viewer stays on your website, the better. Obviously, you have to be careful not to mix the two up when comparing the popularity of sites.

Other than UBs, what other statistics should I be taking note of?
You can also measure a browser’s average session duration, average page duration and total time on site. As well as PIs, a website’s average session duration, average page duration and total time on site are other good ways to measure how ‘sticky’ that website is – are people spending a lot of time on it? UB frequency measures the number of times a UB returns to a certain site, during a given time period. This is a key metric which can measure loyalty to a certain website. “Time on site, total page impressions (PIs) and the average number of visits provide a good read on customer engagement.” Jimmy McGee

How can this information help me sell more cars - why are UBs relevant to me as a car dealer?

Information such as UBs enables dealers to see which websites are more likely to attract a higher audience – measuring the loyalty of that audience. You can also see which websites offer a higher level of engagement, such as websites which have people viewing their site for longer periods of time and are looking at a lot of pages – PIs – which could be your listings.

“The more UBs, the greater the reach. The web also allows us to track ‘depth of use’ through time on site or page impression per session” Jimmy McGee, Trade Me Motor.

Can I find out which areas in NZ our listings viewers are from, or what age they are?
Demographic information can also be measured. This includes information such as region in NZ where the person lives, household income, gender, age, occupation and also information about their online research, purchase and their social media behavior – are they on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Why is all of this relevant to me as a dealer?
Unique Browsers is the standard for comparing one site against another. UBs give you the best idea of how much traffic a website is attracting. Online advertising in New Zealand overtook $250m last year, so as someone in that pool, you would want to know which websites put their listings in front of the most potential buyers in order to get the most bang for your buck. Why waste time uploading, managing, reviewing and checking listings that are either not going to be seen by the largest audience possible, or where that same audience is duplicated?

The good news is, UBs are going up across the board – more people are searching online classifieds. Trade Me Motor’s UBs have gone up by approximately 200,000 in the past 12 months. This is due to more access - more people on computers using broadband and more devices like smartphones and iPads were sold in NZ. More access = more people looking = more sales.

If you would like more information on statistics for classified websites, or want to look into measuring online traffic to your own company website, please do not hesitate to contact us HERE.