Articles

Trying to understand SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can be tricky, and frankly, a little intimidating as well. 

There is an incredible amount of misinformation that floats around from self-proclaimed experts that serves to confuse even the most tech-savvy folks, leaving the average dealer principal to sometimes view SEO in the same light as black magic.

Can SEO be complicated? Short answer, yes – but don’t make it harder than it has to be. 

We just came back from the Atlanta Digital Marketing Summit, where our leadership team was able to hear and see the latest “bleeding edge” digital marketing strategies available (or soon to be available). Part of what was discussed was what is important for SEO success nowadays. 

It used to be that in order to have a successful SEO program, you had to have a presence on every site and directory listing known to man. If it was a directory site – boom, you had to be on it. 

Those days are now over. With Google’s algorithm updates, they have really cracked down on what they call “thin sites.” These are sites that exist but provide very little value to searchers either in content, information, or both. There are millions of obscure little sites that tout themselves as directory listing sites but no one really visits them, and if they do they find nothing really there.

Google understands this. Really well.

Google wants to provide the best search results possible, because by doing so they insure that searchers keep using them to find answers. This means that weak sites are finding themselves being weeded out. This has been happening for several years now, and the bar for quality is getting higher and higher. 

The important thing to understand is that Google cares most about your presence on what they call tier one and tier two type sites. If you have a consistent uniform presence across those sites, you are typically in very good shape SEO-wise in this industry.

So what are tier one and two sites? Well, tier one sites are big search type sites – think Google, Yahoo, Bing. Having consistent name, address, and phone info across those three sites goes a long way to getting seen on Google. Tier two sites are sites like YP.com, Yelp!, and automotive navigation listings. When you combine uniform tier one and two presence you can be assured that you have a very solid shot at showing up pretty high organically.

From there, trying to show up on every other smaller site yields very diminished returns (if any) for the effort involved. Some SEO providers will give you a laundry list of small sites that they can assure you you will be visible on and it looks really good to see so many icons for sites. 

Unfortunately, often many of those sites bring no value to you as a motorcycle dealer. For example, if I’m looking for a motorcycle dealership, I don’t give two squats whether you show up on urbanspoon.com. So what? That tells me nothing. 

And if I’m looking for someplace that has great pasta, your dealership is just about the last place I’d go. Correction: THE last place I’d go. I’ve seen some of your break room refrigerators.

All kidding aside, it’s only important that you show up on sites that it makes sense for you to. Google, Yahoo, Bing, YELP!, automotive navigation databases, etc. Google understands this, and their algorithm is weighted accordingly. The tier one and two sites carry a lot of weight with Google, and the little thin sites are showing up less and less every day.

If you don’t believe it, take a look at the sites that some of these SEO/rep management companies say they’ll make you show up on, then do a search for your dealership. You’ll see that most of those sites don’t even show up in the search results. That’s what zero value looks like.

The short story is this: you don’t have to be everywhere to be successful. Search has changed. You only have to appear where it makes sense and where searchers would logically expect to see your business. A motorcycle dealership on urbanspoon.com isn’t a fit.

Nowadays, SEO is much less black magic and a lot more common sense – don’t let anyone fool you.

Talk Soon,

Brad