Another article had some interesting insight in the evolution on SEO strategy. The article below goes into much more detail, but the gist of it is that having a site that functions well for the end user will get an SEO boost over a site that focuses so…
Author: Yago Paramo
CraigsList Changes
I wanted to gather a few thoughts about the 1st week in Craig’s List for the dealers. This is a near-perfect ad: 2010 Acura MDX 1) Up to 24 photos per vehicle. 2) No HTML (so no links, color text, etc) 3) Formatted text is available (lists, bold, larger font, etc) What would make this ad perfect (which we are working on as we speak): Adding the state disclaimer (DOC fee, etc). Adding a URL (can’t hotlink, so I have doubts about the value of this) Inventory view: http://bellingham.craigslist.org/search/ctd?userid=10808959 Notice that in the inventory view Craig’s List now identifies your dealer with an unique ID, in this case 10808959 Be careful having 2 companies or even an employee postings ads if you already have the entire inventory posted. Several dealers have called stating that their ads got put on hold for having the same VIN posted several times. The accounts (you as a dealer since they have your tax ID number) will be on hold for one year (this is the time that they have always used in the past … Continue reading →
Sorry Edmunds & Yahoo Autos: Google Added Cars To Knowledge Graph
Google announced yesterday on Google+ that they have added car/automobile results to the knowledge graph. So now when you search for [2013 ferrari ff] (hint, who is your favorite search blogger, would make for a nice holiday gift) you will get the knowledge graph at the top right of the page: Google doesn’t say where the data comes from but there are plenty of free data sources out there for Google to use. As you can see, it shows name of the car, type of car, image of the car, the make, price, miles per gallon, engine sizes, other models, other configurations with a link to other searches related to it. When you click on the other cars under this one, it brings up the carousel effect, which looks like this: The sad part is that it will take away search traffic from Edmunds, Yahoo Autos and other car sites. Here is the mobile result, as you can see, you need to scroll to get to the search results: On Google Glass it is even harder to get to any … Continue reading →
Google’s Knowledge Graph Update
Yesterday’s update to Google’s knowledge graph (The knowledge graph shows up on the right of search results and typically shows relevant information to the search such as a map for a location) makes it so when you search for a specific model, information about the car and its configurations and prices. It appears that the information is pulled from either an internal database or from the manufacturer’s site. There are free data sources that it could be pulling from as well. The images in the knowledge graph also seem like they come from the manufacturer’s site. Prices shown are the MSRP. The important thing to take away from the update, in terms of strategy, is to make sure we target exact match keywords on individual models and year. Since google’s interface for this feature takes up valuable screen space it becomes very important to be in the first position in both paid search and organic search for specific models. If you do a more broad search for the make, or use an older year, this new feature is not activated. … Continue reading →
CraigsList Changing Postings
The change is finally here, today is the first day of CraigsList charging for postings in the automotive by dealer section. You have several choices for posting; Post one car at a time; build the template, add the car, pay the $5. For this you don’t need one of the new accounts with Craigslist, you can post with the old accounts. The only change is that at the end of the process you need to pay the $5 fee. PGI Auto offers a tool that will automate the ad creation and data pushing making the manual process as easy as possible. Our tool is $200/month and you can post as many cars as you want (still have to pay CL the $5 per car). Your second option is to have a posting account with CraigsList. For this you will need to set up a credit card with them, add your tax ID number, address, etc and buy a bulk group of ads (lets say 100 ads for $500). With this type of account we can semi-automate the process so for … Continue reading →
Is Craigslist’s charge change positive or negative?
For how we understand the world a “charge” a tax or any new form of payment can’t be hardly justified as positive but I think we need to look at where is CraigsList today and what could possibly happen once the change is implemented. The fact that CraigsList didn’t charge for postings made the flow of cars into their system a race for volume of postings. The dealers willing to invest the most time and or money seemed to have an advantage over the rest as their vehicles will show on the first 100 ads or they will take over a search. That race brought two problems; first it forced the rest of the dealers to either leave or also escalate their posting efforts. Dealers had to post more to remain relevant. But the resulting and second problem brought by this was that searches became less relevant and frustrating to consumers as a search for an “Audi A6″ will bring the same car from the sale dealer 45 times. Escalation of postings created a problem for customers-poor search results, a … Continue reading →