|
1.) Sites Created Entirely Out Of Flash
As any SEO can tell you, or nearly any web designer with the slightest information concerning the behavior of search engine spiders, coming up with a web site entirely in flash is a recipe for disaster. As search engines become more refined, the game of search engine optimization has become additional complex....indeed, the process of changing into a highly ranked site has become quite a complicated task. However at the foremost basic level, sites designed in flash are basically invisible to search engines. A large element of determining the relevancy of a website by an enquiry engine spider lies in the spiderability (ability of the spider to crawl) of high quality, keyword rich content. In the automotive business, there are literally thousands of keywords that may be designed into a website to dramatically increase traffic. In west palm beach alone, the location of a second user car dealership I am currently in the method of optimizing for, there are literally hundreds of car related keywords that will be used to pull new traffic. This suggests that any new content that may be designed into the location, any content that contains keywords that customers could be looking out for, is content which will and ought to be seen by the search engines. It's content that should build it onto the web. If this content is presented in flash, however, it will never be indexed, and can thus offer fully no worth to ranking goals of the site. The underside line is:
2.) Duplicate Content
For those sites not engineered entirely in flash, a fair additional ominous drawback is usually lurking. Duplicate content is abhorred by search engines. As several could understand, a great deal of keyword made spam sites are generated dynamically through scripts that scrape the internet for content that's probably to be sought for by the overall public. With a strategy designed to form revenue through volume, huge spam networks have been created (thousands of websites have been generated) by scraping or stealing content from legitimate websites. As a result, search engines approach duplicate content through a process referred to as canonicalization. What this suggests is the the search engines take a look at sites containing duplicate content and create a judgment concerning which website best represents the content contained on all of the sites. Whichever website is chosen as the foremost relevant for the content it contains then becomes the only site that is given any weight by the search engines and every one other sites are completely devalued...or de-listed. To illustrate how extensive this downside is, visit any dealer.com site. Then examine any non-flash content, opt for a text string (perhaps a bit of text from the about 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. Of course, almost every page created by dealer.com that's within the slightest bit search engine friendly (that means it had been at the terribly least not designed in flash), is keyword content that belongs to many pages already on the net. The underside line is:
Many Dealer Websites do great harm to themselves by having their solely spiderable content be content that exists in duplicate on the pages of dozens, tons, or maybe thousands of similar sites.
Any website containing non-original content will terribly likely be heavily penalized in the SERPS (search engine result pages), or can be de-listed altogether.
3.)Hidden Sitemaps and Links
One in every of the first ways in which to garauntee that a site will be fully indexed (all pages can be crawled and included in the SERPS) is to incorporate a sitemap on index pages or main pages that are positive to be crawled. A sitemap is actually an inventory of links to any or all of the pages on the positioning, organized in an organized fashion. The inclusion of sitemaps is seen by several seo's as essential, and could be a step several dealer website have taken in the proper direction regarding planning sites that have a chance to rank well. What they are doing wrong in this regard is 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 on top of any web site content when properly positioned, and is desirably for many designers wishing to make a seamless and immersive flash expertise for his or her visitors. This has largely been the goal of the many dealer designers like BZ results. Whereas typically fantastically designed, the templates founded by such firms are often designed in such a way that links, sitemaps, and typically keyword made text is hidden from human eyes in an attempt to lure search engine spiders into indexing deeper pages. This sort of style trick might are a work around resolution in the past, however it has become a serious no-no within the SEO world. A basic guideline is that search engine spiders have a nice aversion to any tries at trickery. This implies that if you've got hidden content on your web site, whether or not it's links to alternative 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 regarding something alternative than is being showed to that site's visitors. As you'll imagine, in the eyes of a pursuit engine, this makes such a website irrelevant to all search terms. The bottom line is:
4.)Significant Reliance on Meta Tags
In the first days of the net, much less refined techniques were needed to deliver very prime quality search results to users. As the web became a place where revenue was thought of by many to be directly connected to traffic volume, sites hungry for profit began to use the system in place to deliver a lot of and more traffic. In the past, search engines used what are known as meta tags to see what a web site was regarding, and therefore what sorts of searches it ought to be shown for. Meta tags are primarily tags written in the pinnacle of HTML documents that contain a listing of keywords relevant to the site (as determined by the webmaster), and a description of the site. This data was once the primary technique for determining relevancy within the SERPS. Due to misuse, however, the use of meta tags has become nearly obsolete. Sadly, several dealer websites haven't kept up with the days, and still depend on meta tags as one of the only ways that they inform search engines of their content. This is sometimes done with a terribly massive list of words in the "keyword" metatag. This type of optimization can be seen by examining the supply code of any dealer.com, bz results, reynolds & reynolds, or cobalt site. What's even additional disturbing is that the keywords in these meta tags are usually the most general and therefore some of the foremost competitive keywords within the industry. As a poignant example, my current shopper's recent web site didn't contain the words "west palm beach" or "used cars" in its keyword list. These keywords were the most necessary keywords for driving traffic to the present site. Instead, dealer.com chose to incorporate in its keywords an inventory of each automobile manufacturer in the world....although my consumer rarely sells a range of these brands. Additionally, for the local keywords that were included, there have been major spelling errors that in this case held absolutely no value for my client.
The underside line is:
Several Dealer Websites still see meta tags as a viable suggests that of communicating a website's content, and remain for several sites the sole method exposure.
The utilization of meta tags in SEO is, at best, a slightly useful manner of optimizing a page, if the proper keywords are chosen, and at worst, completely worthless as a tool in increasing search engine position or relevance.
5.)Poor Keyword Research/Selections/Optimization
As was mentioned in my treatment of the utilization of meta tags, the bulk of dealer websites fail to take into account the big selection of relevant keywords accessible and optimize solely for the foremost highly competitive and least targeted terms. For sites like the one being optimized for my consumer, a level on the "long tail" is the most effective dealer leads technique in gaining quality traffic. What this means in terms of keyword selection and seo is that the keywords that are of most importance are not those who get the foremost searches and are the most competitive. What this implies is that the foremost highly qualified keywords, and people possibly to usher in buying customers are those keywords that are on the long tail, bring in less searches, but are additional relevant to our consumers. This implies that choosing the key phrase "used cars in west palm beach Florida" would be a lot of additional effective in bringing customers than the term "used cars," which is arguably a terribly competitive phrase. Additionally, keyword optimization for a word like jaguar would not be nearly as effective in our treatment as, say, "jaguar s kind Florida." Several dealer websites ignore altogether the requirement to optimize both for specific key phrases, furthermore specifically targeting and tailoring keywords locally. The additional specific and tailored the keyword, the better. Though such terms can undoubtedly generate less traffic, they can be more highly targeted. With effort, a large list will be compiled and will be used to come up with traffic that is cheaper (when used in pay-per-click campaigns) and also much additional effective. The underside line is:
Many Dealer Websites are unwisely optimizing for keyword that are too competitive and not targeted (both in terms of attracting customers who are ready to shop for and in terms of attracting native clientel.)
Keywords that aren't well targeted are useless. They result in high exit rates, wasted resources and WASTED MONEY.
6.)Major Design Flaws (not anticipating the purchasers needs)
As anyone concerned within the new Web 2.0 Culture can tell you, the web is shifting. Internet users are increasingly hungry in their search for information. They're finicky and impatient and are most involved with finding the information they are looking for in a an economical manner. The days of flashing lights, rotating banners, animated gifs and marquees is much behind us, and the days of flash intros and bandwidth hungry animations looks to fading away as well. To interchange the old web is a return to simplicity, a come to what matters most on the internet; information. In some ways, several dealer web site have taken this sentiment to heart in that they need begun to include a massive wealth of knowledge concerning individual cars on their sites. In fact, this was a significant selling purpose for my client in his initial decision to outsource his web site development to at least one of the most important dealer site developers. Where Dealer websites have largely missed the boat, however, is in making sites that are very flashy and seem sensible in their attempt to attract customers, however are off the mark in anticipating what their client is truly wanting for once they visit a website. Each hit a dealer website receives is an chance for that web site to convince the client of the trustworthiness, helpfulness, and value that may be offered by that dealership. In print and tv advertising flashy advertising has worked well, however on the net their has been a significant shift. People have learned to tune out something that tries to laborious to grab their attention. Nobody clicks on those popups claiming you've got won $10,000, and peoples eyes are not drawn or stay fixed to text that scrolls. Web users, as the philosophy of Web 2.zero emphasizes, are more drawn to well organized, straightforward to perceive information. We tend to skim the pages we have a tendency to scan, switch windows quickly, and ignore content and info that's not readily at hand. I would even go as way to say that any extraneous material isn't solely unnecessary, however is an obstacle in serving to customers to find the data that they are primarily looking out for.
Additionally, several Dealers make the error of attempting to mirror their real life presence on the web, that means their website become the equivalent of the everyday ways in which dealerships have hooked customers within the past. A Dealer Website should not be large stickers and balloons in cyberspace. While a loud looking sign and gimmicks may work well to draw in drive by customers, it does not work well on the web anymore. The bottom line is:
Dealers waste their customer's time and insult their intelligence by attempting to hook them on the web the same manner you hook them on their heaps
The majority of web users are less impressed by flashy style and are additional happy when presented with the knowledge they are wanting for in an simple to understand fashion.
7.) Very little to no use of analytics
For any web marketer, the use of analytics (measures of web site usage) is important in making highly effective sites that give the simplest come on investment. Within the past, analytics programs were beyond the scope of tiny businesses or beyond the flexibility of bound providers to offer their clients. Nowadays, but, highly sophisticated analytics programs can be obtained at little to no value, and several dealer website developers offer restricted or maybe additional in depth analytics as a value added service. For those suppliers who do provide prime quality analytics, kudos, except for many out there (like dealer.com)....analytics that are useful in making changes to the site that will truly increase traffic, productivity or ROI are severely lacking. There's additional to site statistics than merely range of clicks. Analysis of page views, exit points, conversion ratios, and much more is important to tweaking a site therefore that the foremost leads will be generated. Wanting at a true life example of this lack of analytics comes from my experience with my current consumer and their use web analytics. When my very own analysis of their web site and the implementation of google analytics (which far surpassed their previous measures), we were ready to determine that their landing page was losing virtually half of all new visitors. This was astounding, not solely as a result of it meant that they were losing half of all of their traffic when the primary page load, however additionally with the conclusion that traffic could be greatly increased simply by redirecting to the most inventory page. (which is smart considering our model of the new internet shopper, who is a lot of curious about information than something else.) The bottom line is:
Dealers are losing giant parts of customers to design mistakes that can't be tracked due to poor analytics. Furthermore, Dealers do no typically have the ability to configure their websites to the degree necessary to help their website improve.
Web site design is not a one step process....it requires a degree of testing in addition to trial and error.
8.) Illegal redirections
Illegal redirections are the backbone of the spam industry (if it will be referred to as that). Their use through javascript, meta refresh, and many subtle methods of cloaking (exchanging one website for another behind the scenes) is an art that has been perfected....and the search engines are perfecting new strategies of detecting this sneaky redirects. Currently, it can be argued that redirection and cloaking has its edges, and it does. For instance, one may use javascript to detect browser versions and then redirect to the page most simply viewed by the detected browser. Or maybe a redirect might be put in place in order to try to to testing on totally different ads or lead generation techniques. If you have a look at many dealer websites, you can see this kind of redirection taking place. Of course, you will generally see the script run quickly before the page loads....being confronted with a "determining properties" title page before you're delivered to the most site. This tactic is extremely illegal in the SEO world, the globe of google, and may be a recipe for disaster if utilized on your website. It's virtually unfathomable that this type of redirection continues to be going on, particularly with the common knowledge that such tricks are a positive fire method to be de-listed completely.
Another problem plaguing dealer websites could be a lack of proper redirection on sites that carry additional than one domain name or exist with multiple sub domains. As was mentioned earlier, duplicate content hurts the listing of your website. The manner search engines see it, duplicate content exists if two domain names purpose to the identical site. Therefore, if a website like my clients: usedcarwestpalmbeach.net points to the identical IP address as his other domain: autoadviceoffl.com, google will see duplicate content as a result of it sees both domains as seperate entities. This is also true in terms of the employment of subdomains...especially the WWW. For several dealers, their site can be accessed at dealersite.com] or dealersite.com. Google treats these as different entities, and more typically then not, punishes each versions of the site for duplicate content. This wants to be fastened with a properly configured 301 redirect, which may be a permanent redirect.
9.) Backlinks
For Google, one of the most vital measures of a web site's relevance is the amount of links pointing to that site. This is often true for the opposite search engines similarly, and appears to increasingly be a main measure in the ranking of websites within the SERPS. Quality backlinks from sites that the search engines deem "authorities" are the foremost valuable links that can be obtained. Additionally, backlinks should have anchor text (the text that's hyperlinked) that are relevant to the keywords on the site. Google's infamous Page Rank, is predicated upon this model of backlinking, and thence has facilitated the increase of google because the internets most used search engine. Backlinks are arguably the foremost vital facet of SEO. Building backlinks is also arguably the MOST IGNORED seo tactic by nearly all of the main players in dealer 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 little question focused their efforts on backlink building. This can be a real downside within the industry. Dealers are meting out thousands of greenbacks a month to websites that are paying for traffic they may be getting for free....with proper backlinking and minimal optimization techniques. The bottom line is;
Dealers are losing customers by not doing proper backlinking, therefore setting apart one of the foremost vital strategies for increasing ranking within the organic SERPS.
Backlinking is not an automatic process, however needs a arrange of actions and follow through.
10.) Poorly Formed URLs
Creating URL's that can be simply spidered is simple if a few key rules are followed. Initial and foremost, URLs should be properly formed and should clearly link to their correct destination. Whether in a very flash movie or as a easy hyperlink, I am often stunned to see how usually broken links exist. (these serve only to require removed from the credibility of the dealership and causes users to leave your site). A lot of importantly for SEO purposes, though, is the use of URLS that are created dynamically....that means they appear one thing like /vehicle_model?id=12324213. This URL isn't search engine friendly as a result of search engines don't typically properly crawl dynamically generated URL's, and if you are lucky enough to have a dynamic URL indexed, more usually then not, the dynamic content is stop, leaving you with one thing like: /vehicle_model. This URL will not cause the intended page, and will end in duplicate content being indexed if such links are crawled at all. Any server running apache with mod rewrite access can fix this simply, and should fix it. Properly shaped URLS that are additional optimized to contain keywords can go a long means in helping the ranking of a site, and as we have a tendency to have discussed, getting a lot of pages indexed properly means additional content and more hits. The underside line is;
There is no excuse for broken links, malformed and seo unfriendly URLS
Rewriting URLS therefore they are search engine friendly is not essentially a tough process and is one which will greatly improve the ranking a relevance of a 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
|
|
SIGN
UP FOR FREE
