To Joe...
What do you disagree with? I gave information do dealers on how to run a PPC campaign. I gave testimony that Micro Sites do work. I responded to a few comments asking for feedback from a dealer, I believe I even gave you props for reaching out to other areas of your dealership, and I responded to Ralph's claim of owning the design of OUR micro sites as his own. Ralph merely asked us to design those sites while at Courtesy Chevrolet. He is now at a competitor ADP or BZResults and using our designs to sell micro sites. Would you want a competitor to copy your exact web site and use it to compete against you? They are exact. I'm sure you wouldn't.

To Alex...
Did you read Ralph Paglia's posts? He riddles his comment with URL's claiming he designed them and NO ONE says a thing. Not even you had a comment for Ralph. I merely responded to his claim of owning those example sites. He never paid us for those, Courtesy Chevrolet did. He never came up with the design layout, we did. Ralph merely asked us to design and build a site and we did.

I know this forum is not for link posting, but when someone directly takes code, copies it and even copyrights it as their own (BZResults/Ralph Paglia), they should be outed. Dealers I have spoken with that know about this situation even question what he did. I don't think anyone can agree with what Ralph is doing.

David

You may not agree with him Joe, but he sure does know how to stick an advertisement into a comment on Dealer Refresh. That's the best under-the-radar solicitation I've seen yet! Nicely done David - it is so good, I think we should leave it up.

I'm not saying I agree with anything you're saying, I'm simply stating that was one hell of a job of sliding an ad message in. Now you get to reap the SEO benefits, so please send some appreciation back to Dealer Refresh.

woa... remind me to not hire Mr Jackson to execute any idea that I have (or would like to share). Talk about hubris! Yuk!

Joe

It is always interesting to see how one subject can have so many different opinions on what works and why to do them. Bottom line is they work. All you have to ask yourself is, is it worth me to do them?

I'm glad to see that Micro Sites have caught on so well and that the future is still so hot. Most dealers are finally seeing the huge benefits to using them. When we started designing & building Micro Sites for Courtesy Chevrolet with Ralph Paglia 2.5 years ago, we saw an immediate success rate with leads. Since then their Micro Sites, 26 in all, have generated over 14,000 leads, all at NO COST PER LEAD.

We designed many different types of Micro Sites for Courtesy. We designed the 2008 Chevy Malibu, 2008 Chevy Camaro (I know it's not an 08 but more on this later), we designed a Phx Finance site, special financing sites like bankruptcy, Ok Credit, Price Quote, Bad Credit, Good Credit, Got Gas, Free GM Oil Change, other specific model sites and even generic non branded Chevy sites. We have a Red Carpet and Red Tag Event Micro Site. Oh, and there is even a Chevy Pride site.

Most of these Micro Sites had PPC campaigns driving traffic to them. BTW, if you are going to advertise a specific message on GOOGLE via PPC, then you better deliver a page that supports your ad. If you are going to build a landing page or micro site, they both better deliver the message and what you promised the customer when they clicked on your link. Don't just throw up an ad that says 2008 Chevy Malibu, $200 discount when you click, and all they get is your main dealership homepage. I'll assume you all know the difference between a landing page and a micro site.

So back to the 2008 Chevy Camaro. I know this is not the year it will be released, but my theory is why change something that is already working so well. If you GOOGLE 2008 Chevy Camaro, the micro site will be the #1 position, beating out Chevrolet. This week alone, the site has received 41 leads. Hard to change something that still works so well. This site has generated over 11,000 leads on its own. There has been no PPC driving traffic to the site, it is all organic ranking.

Dealers should branch out and develop eye pleasing organic ranking micro sites to gain widespread exposure. 1 Dealership web site may be enough, or it may not be. Third party vendors provide leads but at what cost per lead? And you all know your not the only dealer to get that lead. Micro Sites are in-house leads and only yours.

One hot topic for customers right now is the gas prices and hybrid vehicles. Check out this page and see for yourself the number of Daily Hybrid Searches going on. This was an email campaign we sent out, so please excuse the marketing messages.


To Wayne...
You asked, if a Micro Site can provide good ROI, then do it. What is your idea of good ROI? 1 lead can pay for the cost of a Micro Site, so is that good? Is there a higher number? 10, 100? What does a dealer consider good ROI? Are you relying on Organic Ranking, or will you combine PPC? Do different dealers have diferent ideas on a good ROI? This would help me understand your expectations of a Micro Site.

To Tim...
Some dealers purchase their competitors name and redirect traffic, while I don't think this is a good idea, buying URL's for areas you are targeting is. The more specific you can be the better. I like the examples you gave.

To Joe...
Great idea. And it works. Phoenix Chevy did a Tucson Micro Site and Tucson is about a 3 hour drive. They received about 25 leads from the Micro Site.

To Ralph...
I like how you have listed these sites as YOUR Micro Site examples. I urge all dealers to take 5 minutes and look at how EXACT these "examples" are to the sites my company designed and built for Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix. While I respect Ralph in his achievements, and his self promotion, Ralph does not own any right to the following "examples". Ralph was involved, but only in asking Fresh Start to build a micro site based on a topic for Courtesy Chevrolet who DID pay for them.

"Paglia Example" www.Chevy-Malibu.com - Fresh Start Site www.2008ChevyMalibu.com
Please note the built by at the bottom of the pages.

"Paglia Example" www.tahoe-Chevy.com - Fresh Start Site www.2007Tahoe.com
Please note the built by at the bottom of the pages.

"Paglia Example" www.ChevyPriceQuote.com - Fresh Start Site www.chevypricequotes.com
Please note the built by at the bottom of the pages.

"Paglia Example" www.ChevyGas.com - Fresh Start Site www.yougotgas.com
Please note the built by at the bottom of the pages.

While imitation is the best form of flattery, I think this goes beyond that and is called, stealing code, using someone else’s design to get ahead, and Copyright infringement seeing how we post Copyright notices on all Micro Sites.

To all the dealers thinking about Micro Sites. Just Google "dealer micro sites", or "Micro Sites" and you'll see what all the buzz is about on Micro Sites. We’ll be the first organic listing. Oh and yes, this is even considered a Micro Site.

David Jackson
President/CEO
Fresh Start Studio, LLC.
www.FreshMicroSites.com

Chip I have some price comparison sites... targeting competitors name and niche... works out nicely...

First GM needs to build a 30MPG car, then they can worry about buying the URL! jk. I'd buy www.over75mpg.com, setup a forum and let people talk about how they've modified their hybrids to achieve this goal, and have it all sponsored by "Dealer X".

--

Long tail SEO traffic, while potentially noisy, is extremely important for small, new, websites (micro sites). It's the only type of SE traffic you can go after in the beginning, unless you're lucky enough to have an authority site pointing to you. Plus the more narrow that query is, the better chance of getting some one in-market.

Additionally, SEO success breeds SEO success, so one day you're ranking well for "Used 2007 BMW 535xi, Boston, MA" and the next quarter you're now ranking for "2008 BMW 535xi, Boston, MA" and then in another quarter you're ranking for "BMW 535xi, Boston, MA" and then "BMW, Boston, MA" until you reach something like "Massachusetts BMW Dealers" and you've gone from a very long tail search, to "stealing" traffic away from your competitors in droves. The important thing is to have a clear-cut plan of what your ultimate goal is and prepare your campaign around it. Ideally you want to be ranking for specific vehicles, regardless of the manufacture year, that you can keep building on year after year.

--

While I can use only the tools provided to me, I suspect that search engine traffic for region, specific cars pales in comparison to region, specific dealer queries. By now, I think most shoppers are going straight to autotrader, cars, ebay, craigslist... when they know what car they want and they'll have used non-region specific queries to figure out what that car is. And no micro site is going to be able to compete with the results for "2008 Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Ford Explorer...". So, I think long tail is very important for the success of a micro site.

Is anyone doing conquest micro sites? Building micro sites to rank high for your competitor's name?

Chip-

Entertaining Offers:

www.Over30mpg.com
(GM should own this URL)
I bought the URL the day oil broke over $40 a bbl. The current site is just a simple template and has no real value. The value lies in the URL itself.

Send contact info to joepistell-at-gmail.com, or to Jeff K here at DR, he'll get it to me.

thnx,
joe

Alex,
I have plans, big plans, but, nothing as ambitious as yours!

Plus, I'd like our readers to consider their market size.
If you're within a one hour drive of a very large maket (or in one),
excellent ROI from SEO is far more easy to obtain. SEO construction costs (and level of difficulty) are the same in Philly or in Peoria.

Joe

Thanks for the props on the new site Joe! Can't wait to see yours, but I'm hoping you don't one-up me

Not discounting if long tail works... it WORKS... but is it worth putting up a micro site just for that, in my opinion it is not, when you can spend that money on your primary site or a blog by autoconversion.com.

Joe -

The Long Tail can in fact be your friend - wondering though if you are relying soley on log files as a measure of your keyword success?

My philosophy has always been to go after the "heavy terms" and get to the 1st page for those terms...go where the people are.

Eventually the long tail can be identified from the site analytics; obviously each store needs to leverage what works for the type of market, customer, dealer type, etc...

Eventually it all comes down to making sure the choices made at the store level are as cost-effective as possible while helping deliver more units.

Doesn't matter If its long tail, targeted 6 word phrases for a micro-site, or broad based 2-3 word phrases for the main site - as long as it works for your store, then work it hard.

I am done trying to wake up people about the value of long tail.

If you want real proof, take a good look at the behemoth content monster that our comrade Alex has put together. Here is a man that has seen the back end of his old site and has "doubled down" on his success and attacked the long tail even harder.

personally, I know Long Tail works because I've studied it from the bottom up (like Alex). I've studied our sites LOG FILES, listened to 100's and hundreds of hours of recorded calls coming from our assorted web properties (via CallBright.com). I've trailed shoppers all the way to a post sale surveys and post sale reviews with sales reps.

I am done preaching LT, my conscience is cleared and I hope you remain unconvinced.

Joe

James,

Why does Click Motive still use landing pages for their PPC? Aren't the new websites being sold as conversion tools?

Also, after 10 years in ASEV (Automotive Search Engine Visibility) I can tell you that having a phrase like the one above is an extremely low percentage of real searches.

Can you show some successful searches that would actually drive traffic to a dealer? I have current SEV reports on several of the Wyler sites.

Steve
ScreenCrafters

Joe do you have any stats to back this up... how many visitors did you really get on these key phrases... 1 or two... in a month. Given you will only convert 3%-6% of your traffic it is a long shot.

I don't think it is worth the money and effort for a micro site for such a long key phrase. When your main site can do the same thing... since you are just competing with less then 5,000 pages.

Now if your micro site ranks well for these...

Used Cars Buffalo
Used saturn buffalo

it's a different game.

Umer writes:
>>Wow micro sites for SEO/SERP... hmm that is a new one for me. Someone point out a micro site that ranks well for any good keyword on any SERP. 4 word keywords don't count.

Alex excellent post...

Wow micro sites for SEO/SERP... hmm that is a new one for me. Someone point out a micro site that ranks well for any good keyword on any SERP. 4 word keywords don't count.

If you are doing PPC sure special finance micro site makes sense... but why bother... when you can do sub domains (taken as separate sites anyhow). Keeps the brand and less chancing of dupe penalty.

I'm always for sites with personalized URL. So if you are doing a postcard get a personalized URL for each recepient but don't get a micro site to go along with it... single page... site is not really worth it.

Why pay for static micro site... host it on Google for free...

Jeff... ahaha... I am the KING of MicroMedia websites!!

Hey Joe

Thx..however, I was trying to drill down further as to where James was getting his info from...

Tone is always a difficult thing to gauge in the written word - but there was a sublte amount of dry sarcasm in my post to James.

Eric

Eric writes:
"...Gotta ask...where are you seeing that people are asking (Googling) for "2008 Chevy Tahoe Cincinnati?"..."

May I suggest:

Eric's in my back yard, Oh the pain I suffer to be a good DR citizen.
Joe

James -

I understand the concept of driving visitors to pages w/content related to their search terms.

However, using a search phrase that isn't a real word example of user behavior as a reference point to your "proven success" may be confusing to dealers who may not be familiar w/this concept.

I've heard so many dealers tell me about how unsatisfied they are with the results their vendors deliver - if automotive vendors want to earn, and retain, more business - they need to explain things in easy to understand language, show case studies and service the hell out of their customers.

If you haven't seen them, check out Ralph P's presentation decks & case studies. (It'll take you the entire month of May, but it'll be worth it)

Eric

Eric,

I was just using that term as an example, but the point was more on where you deliver someone who does search specific terms like that. By taking the comsumer to a "tahoe" specific page we are increasing the chance of converting the customer into a lead (same concept as a microsite), but at the same time giving them the freedom to browse your entire site. I wouldn't expect terms like that to give a dealer an avalanche of traffic, but I sure don't want to ignore the fact that people are typing longer search queries, and if presented with what they ask for with one click, then the odds of them converting go up dramatically. Our CTO just returned from the Goolge Auto Exec conference, and Google now says that the average search term is 4 words. So things are trending towards people typing exactly what they want.

A great non auto example is:

Google - spiderman dvd

The first organic link is Amazon. Do you go to the homepage or directly to the dvd?

James Kovacs
ClickMotive
www.clickmotive.com

Eric,

I was just using that term as an example, but the point was more on where you deliver someone who does search specific terms like that. By taking the comsumer to a "tahoe" specific page we are increasing the chance of converting the customer into a lead (same concept as a microsite), but at the same time giving them the freedom to browse your entire site. I wouldn't expect terms like that to give a dealer an avalanche of traffic, but I sure don't want to ignore the fact that people are typing longer search queries, and if presented with what they ask for with one click, then the odds of them converting go up dramatically. Our CTO just returned from the Goolge Auto Exec conference, and Google now says that the average search term is 4 words. So things are trending towards people typing exactly what they want.

A great non auto example is:

Google - spiderman dvd

The first organic link is Amazon. Do you go to the homepage or directly to the dvd?

Great thread but I'm wondering if I should be selling micro sites instead of cars.

James -

You say ..."By delivering the consumer directly to the page they asked for..."

Gotta ask...where are you seeing that people are asking (Googling) for "2008 Chevy Tahoe Cincinnati?"

Mouse to House Delivery.

Good one Alex!

Thnx,
Joe

This will have an impact on Micro Sites as well as Flash Sites. It is expected we will see more of these types of "Quality Control" solutions added in the future in an atttempt to clean and streamline the web.

"Landing page load time will soon be incorporated into Quality Score"

As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.

To learn more about the upcoming change, please see this article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew