1.) Sites Created Entirely Out Of Flash As any SEO can tell you, or nearly any web designer with the slightest data concerning the behavior of search engine spiders, planning a site entirely in flash is a recipe for disaster. As search engines become additional sophisticated, the game of search engine optimization has become a lot of complex....indeed, the process of changing into a highly ranked web site has become quite a advanced task. But at the most basic level, sites designed in flash are basically invisible to search engines. A giant part of determining the relevancy of a website by a hunt engine spider lies in the spiderability (ability of the spider to crawl) of high quality, keyword wealthy content. Within the car business, there are literally thousands of keywords that may be engineered into a web site to dramatically increase traffic. In west palm beach alone, the situation of a used automotive dealership I'm currently in the method of optimizing for, there are literally hundreds of automobile related keywords that can be used to tug new traffic. This implies that any new content that may be designed into the positioning, any content that contains keywords that customers might be looking out for, is content which will and should be seen by the search engines. It is content that should make it onto the web. If this content is presented in flash, but, it can never be indexed, and will therefore give fully no price to ranking goals of the site. The underside line is: 2.) Duplicate Content For those sites not engineered entirely in flash, an even additional ominous drawback is usually lurking. Duplicate content is abhorred by search engines. As many could grasp, a great deal of keyword made spam sites are generated dynamically through scripts that scrape the net for content that's probably to be probe for by the final public. With a technique designed to create revenue through volume, huge spam networks are created (thousands of web sites are generated) by scraping or stealing content from legitimate websites. Consequently, search engines approach duplicate content through a process known as canonicalization. What this means is the the search engines observe sites containing duplicate content and make a judgment regarding which website best represents the content contained on all of the sites. Whichever web site is chosen as the foremost relevant for the content it contains then becomes the only website that is given any weight by the search engines and every one alternative sites are fully devalued...or de-listed. To illustrate how intensive this drawback is, visit any dealer.com site. Then examine any non-flash content, select a text string (maybe a piece of text from the regarding us section), and enter that text into dealership websites google or yahoo with quotes around it. The results are astounding. Google has crawled literally thousands of pages created by dealer.com that contain the precise same content. In fact, almost each page created by dealer.com that is within the slightest bit search engine friendly (which means it had been at the very least not engineered in flash), is keyword content that belongs to hundreds of pages already on the net. The underside line is: Several Dealer Websites do nice harm to themselves by having their solely spiderable content be content that exists in duplicate on the pages of dozens, lots, or even thousands of comparable sites. Any web site containing non-original content can very possible be heavily penalized in the SERPS (search engine result pages), or will be de-listed altogether. 3.)Hidden Sitemaps and Links One in all the first ways that to garauntee that a website will be fully indexed (all pages will be crawled and included in the SERPS) is to incorporate a sitemap on index pages or main pages that are certain to be crawled. A sitemap is basically a listing of links to any or all of the pages on the site, organized in an organized fashion. The inclusion of sitemaps is seen by many seo's as essential, and could be a step several dealer website have taken in the correct direction regarding planning sites that have a chance to rank well. What they are doing wrong in this regard is that the inclusion of sitemaps whose links are either a.) Hidden Behind Flash Movies or b.) Hidden using CSS. Hiding text behind a flash movie is fairly straightforward considering Flash typically floats higher than any site content when properly positioned, and is desirably for many designers wishing to form a seamless and immersive flash expertise for their visitors. This has largely been the goal of the many dealer designers like BZ results. While typically fantastically designed, the templates set up by such corporations are typically designed in such a approach that links, sitemaps, and typically keyword made text is hidden from human eyes in an try to lure search engine spiders into indexing deeper pages. This kind of style trick may are a piece around resolution in the past, but it has become a serious no-no in the SEO world. A basic rule is that search engine spiders have a nice aversion to any attempts at trickery. This means that if you've got hidden content on your website, whether it's links to other pages or simply text, you'll be penalized within the SERPS, or de-listed. Search engines see hidden content as an try to trick search engines into thinking a page is about one thing other than is being showed to that site's visitors. As you'll be able to imagine, within the eyes of a research engine, this makes such a website irrelevant to all search terms. The underside line is: 4.)Significant Reliance on Meta Tags In the first days of the net, much less sophisticated techniques were required to deliver terribly top quality search results to users. As the net became a place where revenue was considered by several to be directly connected to traffic volume, sites hungry for profit began to use the system in place to deliver additional and additional traffic. Within the past, search engines used what are referred to as meta tags to work out what a site was regarding, and thus what sorts of searches it ought to be shown for. Meta tags are primarily tags written in the top of HTML documents that contain a listing of keywords relevant to the site (as determined by the webmaster), as well as a description of the site. This data was once the primary methodology for determining relevancy in the SERPS. Thanks to misuse, however, the utilization of meta tags has become nearly obsolete. Sadly, several dealer websites have not kept up with the times, and still depend upon meta tags in concert of the only ways they inform search engines of their content. This is often usually done with a very large list of words within the "keyword" metatag. This type of optimization can be seen by examining the source code of any dealer.com, bz results, reynolds & reynolds, or cobalt site. What's even more disturbing is that the keywords in these meta tags are typically the foremost general and so a number of the most competitive keywords in the industry. As a poignant example, my current client's old website didn't contain the words "west palm beach" or "used cars" in its keyword list. These keywords were the foremost important keywords for driving traffic to this site. Instead, dealer.com selected to include in its keywords a listing of each car manufacturer within the world....even though my consumer rarely sells a variety of these brands. Additionally, for the local keywords that were included, there were major spelling errors that during this case held absolutely no price for my client. The underside line is: Several Dealer Websites still see meta tags as a viable means that of communicating a site's content, and stay for many sites the only technique exposure. The utilization of meta tags in SEO is, at best, a rather helpful way of optimizing a page, if the proper keywords have been chosen, and at worst, completely worthless as a tool in increasing search engine position or relevance. 5.)Poor Keyword Research/Choices/Optimization As was mentioned in my treatment of the employment of meta tags, the bulk of dealer websites fail to require into account the large selection of relevant keywords on the market and optimize solely for the foremost highly competitive and least targeted terms. For sites like the one being optimized for my consumer, a degree on the "long tail" is the foremost effective dealer leads method in gaining quality traffic. What this implies in terms of keyword alternative and seo is that the keywords which are of most importance aren't those that get the most searches and are the most competitive. What this implies is that the foremost highly qualified keywords, and people most likely to usher in shopping for customers are those keywords that are on the long tail, bring in less searches, but are a lot of relevant to our consumers. This suggests that selecting the key phrase "used cars in west palm beach Florida" would be abundant a lot of effective in bringing customers than the term "used cars," which is arguably a very competitive phrase. Additionally, keyword optimization for a word like jaguar wouldn't be nearly as effective in our treatment as, say, "jaguar s kind Florida." Many dealer websites ignore altogether the requirement to optimize both for specific key phrases, and specifically targeting and tailoring keywords locally. The a lot of specific and tailored the keyword, the better. Although such terms will undoubtedly generate less traffic, they will be more highly targeted. With effort, a massive list will be compiled and can be used to generate traffic that's cheaper (when utilized in pay-per-click campaigns) and additionally much more effective. The underside line is: Several Dealer Websites are unwisely optimizing for keyword that are too competitive and not targeted (each in terms of attracting customers who are ready to shop for and in terms of attracting native clientel.) Keywords that are not well targeted are useless. They end in high exit rates, wasted resources and WASTED MONEY. 6.)Major Design Flaws (not anticipating the customers desires) As anyone involved in the new Web 2.zero Culture can tell you, the web is shifting. Internet users are increasingly hungry in their rummage around for information. They're finicky and impatient and are most involved with finding the data they are trying for in a very an efficient manner. The days of flashing lights, rotating banners, animated gifs and marquees is far behind us, and the times of flash intros and bandwidth hungry animations looks to fading away as well. To replace the old web may be a come to simplicity, a return to what matters most on the net; information. In some ways in which, several dealer web site have taken this sentiment to heart in that they have begun to include a large wealth of data about individual cars on their sites. Of course, this was a significant selling point for my client in his initial decision to outsource his website development to one of the major dealer website developers. Where Dealer websites have largely missed the boat, however, is in creating sites that are terribly flashy and seem sensible in their attempt to draw in customers, but are off the mark in anticipating what their client is truly wanting for after they visit a website. Every hit a dealer website receives is an chance for that site to convince the client of the trustworthiness, helpfulness, and value which will be offered by that dealership. In print and tv advertising flashy advertising has worked well, however on the web their has been a significant shift. People have learned to tune out anything that tries to exhausting to grab their attention. Nobody clicks on those popups claiming you have won $10,000, and peoples eyes are not drawn or stay mounted to text that scrolls. Web users, as the philosophy of Web 2.zero emphasizes, are additional drawn to well organized, simple to perceive information. We have a tendency to skim the pages we have a tendency to browse, switch windows quickly, and ignore content and information that's not readily at hand. I might even go as far to say that any extraneous material isn't only unnecessary, but is an obstacle in helping customers to find the knowledge that they're basically searching for. Additionally, several Dealers build the mistake of trying to mirror their real life presence on the internet, meaning their website become the equivalent of the everyday ways in which dealerships have hooked customers within the past. A Dealer Website should not be giant stickers and balloons in cyberspace. Whereas a loud wanting sign and gimmicks might work well to draw in drive by customers, it doesn't work well on the internet anymore. The bottom line is: Dealers waste their client's time and insult their intelligence by attempting to hook them on the web the same way you hook them on their tons The bulk of web users are less impressed by flashy design and are a lot of glad when presented with the data they're wanting for in an simple to perceive fashion. 7.) Very little to no use of analytics For any web marketer, the use of analytics (measures of website usage) is essential in creating highly effective sites that give the best return on investment. In the past, analytics programs were beyond the scope of little businesses or beyond the ability of certain suppliers to offer their clients. Today, but, highly refined analytics programs will be obtained at very little to no cost, and several dealer web site developers offer limited or perhaps a lot of intensive analytics as a value added service. For those providers who do offer top quality analytics, kudos, except for many out there (like dealer.com)....analytics that are helpful in creating changes to the location that can truly increase traffic, productivity or ROI are severely lacking. There is additional to web site statistics than simply variety of clicks. Analysis of page views, exit points, conversion ratios, and abundant additional is crucial to tweaking a web site so that the most leads will be generated. Looking at a real life example of this lack of analytics comes from my expertise with my current shopper and their use web analytics. When my very own analysis of their website and therefore the implementation of google analytics (that so much surpassed their previous measures), we were in a position to see that their landing page was losing almost [*fr1] of all new visitors. This was astounding, not solely as a result of it meant that they were losing 0.5 of all of their traffic after the first page load, however also with the belief that traffic may be greatly increased merely by redirecting to the most inventory page. (that is sensible considering our model of the new internet client, who is additional curious about data than anything else.) The underside line is: Dealers are losing large portions of shoppers to design mistakes that can't be tracked due to poor analytics. Furthermore, Dealers do no sometimes have the ability to configure their websites to the degree necessary to assist their website improve. Web site design is not a one step process....it needs a degree of testing furthermore trial and error. 8.) Illegal redirections Illegal redirections are the backbone of the spam business (if it can be called that). Their use through javascript, meta refresh, and several sophisticated ways of cloaking (exchanging one website for another behind the scenes) is an art that has been perfected....and the search engines are perfecting new ways of detecting this sneaky redirects. Now, it will be argued that redirection and cloaking has its advantages, and it does. As an example, one might use javascript to detect browser versions and then redirect to the page most simply viewed by the detected browser. Or perhaps a redirect might be place in place so as to try and do testing on different ads or lead generation techniques. If you examine many dealer websites, you can see this type of redirection taking place. In fact, you will typically see the script run quickly before the page loads....being confronted with a "determining properties" title page before you are delivered to the main site. This tactic is very illegal in the SEO world, the globe of google, and is a recipe for disaster if used on your website. It's almost unfathomable that this kind of redirection continues to be happening, especially with the common information that such tricks are a positive fireplace approach to be de-listed completely. Another problem plaguing dealer websites is a lack of proper redirection on sites that carry more than one domain name or exist with multiple sub domains. As was mentioned earlier, duplicate content hurts the listing of your website. The means search engines see it, duplicate content exists if two domain names purpose to the identical site. So, if a web site like my shoppers: usedcarwestpalmbeach.net points to the same IP address as his different domain: autoadviceoffl.com, google can see duplicate content because it sees each domains as seperate entities. This is often also true in terms of the use of subdomains...especially the WWW. For several dealers, their website will be accessed at dealersite.com] or dealersite.com. Google treats these as completely different entities, and more typically then not, punishes each versions of the site for duplicate content. This needs to be fixed with a properly configured 301 redirect, which could be a permanent redirect. 9.) Backlinks For Google, one among the most necessary measures of a website's relevance is the amount of links pointing to that site. This can be true for the opposite search engines similarly, and appears to increasingly be a main measure within the ranking of websites in the SERPS. Quality backlinks from sites that the search engines deem "authorities" are the most valuable links that may be obtained. Additionally, backlinks should have anchor text (the text that is hyperlinked) that are relevant to the keywords on the site. Google's infamous Page Rank, is based upon this model of backlinking, and consequently has facilitated the rise of google because the internets most used search engine. Backlinks are arguably the most vital side of SEO. Building backlinks is also arguably the MOST IGNORED seo tactic by nearly all of the most important players in dealer web site game. Searches for cars in most major cities reveal results targeted to dealership sites only within the pay-per-click side. Dealer sites nearly never show up in the organic side, and those that do have no doubt targeted their efforts on backlink building. This is a real problem within the industry. Dealers are dishing out thousands of bucks a month to websites that are paying for traffic they could be obtaining for free....with correct backlinking and minimal optimization techniques. The bottom line is; Dealers are losing customers by not doing proper backlinking, thus pruning one of the foremost vital strategies for increasing ranking in the organic SERPS. Backlinking isn't an automated process, however needs a set up of actions and follow through. 10.) Poorly Shaped URLs Creating URL's which will be easily spidered is simple if some key rules are followed. First and foremost, URLs should be properly shaped and should clearly link to their correct destination. Whether or not in an exceedingly flash movie or as a straightforward hyperlink, I am typically stunned to determine how typically broken links exist. (these serve solely to require away from the credibility of the dealership and causes users to go away your web site). More importantly for SEO purposes, though, is the employment of URLS that are created dynamically....that means they look something like /vehicle_model?id=12324213. This URL is not search engine friendly as a result of search engines do not typically properly crawl dynamically generated URL's, and if you're lucky enough to have a dynamic URL indexed, additional typically then not, the dynamic content is bring to a halt, leaving you with one thing like: /vehicle_model. This URL will not lead to the supposed page, and can end in duplicate content being indexed if such links are crawled at all. Any server running apache with mod rewrite access will fix this simply, and should fix it. Properly shaped URLS that are any optimized to contain keywords can go a protracted method in helping the ranking of a website, and as we have mentioned, obtaining more pages indexed properly means that more content and additional hits. The underside line is; There's no excuse for broken links, malformed and seo unfriendly URLS Rewriting URLS therefore they are search engine friendly isn't necessarily a tough process and is one that may greatly improve the ranking a relevance of a site.
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Sites Created Entirely Out Of Flash As any SEO will tell you, or nearly any web designer with the slightest information regarding the behavior of search engine spiders, planning a web site entirely in flash is a recipe for disaster. As search engines become a lot of subtle, the game of search engine optimization has become a lot of complex....indeed, the method of becoming a highly ranked web site
Is your dealership spending thousands of dollars per month on 3rd party lead providers? Are you slashing your front end gross profit for your lead prospects
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