Sarah Buckner

By: Sarah Buckner – Bayshore Solutions Account Manager

Bayshore Solutions attended the 14^th Digital Dealer Conference in Orlando where leaders in the automotive industry shared their insights on how to be a successful, profitable auto dealership in the digital age. Below are seven current facts that auto dealers – and most businesses who market to consumers can learn from to help improve their online web presence, and ultimately increase sales.

1. 84% of consumers are shopping online. This means your web presence is crucial! If you don’t already have a website where consumers can easily learn about the dealership, see specials and search inventory, then you are missing out! Use your website to provide consumers all the information they could need as they start researching their new car purchase, like new models features, leasing versus buying, financing options, etc.




2. In 2007, shoppers visited an average of 6 dealerships before purchasing a car, in 2012, the average was only 1.6 dealerships. Instead of physically going from dealership to dealership at the start of the car buying process, consumers are now comparing dealerships online. This is even more evidence that you need a good web presence and how important it is to make an excellent first impression using your website as a digital showroom.




3. The 2 highest consumer trust factor ratings are reviews from people they know, and consumer reviews posted on 3^rd party review websites. Even nicely-designed, well-branded dealership websites ranked lower in consumer trust than 3^rd party review sites. It’s important to encourage your customers to leave reviews on these sites.




4. Only 2-3% of consumers are ready to buy any given product, at any given time. But don’t ignore the other 97% – they are your potential customers! When consumers are just browsing your site and not ready to purchase, this is your opportunity to show the dealership value proposition and to gain trust with the consumer so that when they are ready to buy, they will come back to your dealership.




5. Only 20% of consumers buy the first vehicle they research. Consumers may start their research with a brand or model in mind, but only 20% of people actually end up purchasing the vehicle they initially started researching. A good online strategy includes reaching those consumers who aren’t even looking for your brand. Including content on your website comparing different models is a great way to show consumers why they might want to consider the brand you offer versus the competition. 




6. 84.5% of all online users are watching video, 30% of shoppers were prompted to start shopping after seeing a video ad, & 61% visited a dealership after watching an ad. Adding a video strategy to your online marketing strategy is a great way to get ahead of the competition right now. Add a variety of video content throughout the site to show off new models, virtual showroom tours, interviews with staff, customer testimonials, etc. Always be sure you include a strong call to action in the videos giving the consumer a way to contact the dealership.




7. Only 2-3% of visitors will fill out a form on your website and that number is decreasing. The average dealership website form conversion rate is only 2-3%, meaning you are missing 97-98% of the visitors to your website if you’re not tracking anything but site forms. In order to accurately measure your online marketing efforts, you must track everything! Track visits to your most important pages, phone calls, chat, new followers on social media, video views, inventory searches, etc. Not everyone wants to give you all of their information out of the gate, so provide many different ways for your potential customers to contact you – and be sure to track it!



Bayshore Solutions has worked with many different car dealerships across the country to develop successful websites and implement comprehensive digital marketing strategies to help our auto dealer customers increase their sales. Contact us to learn how Bayshore Solutions can help grow your business.

 
Sarah Buckner is an Account Manager at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.

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Lucy Esteves

By: Lucy Esteves – Bayshore Solutions Senior Project Manager

As a parent of toddlers, I understand the great lengths of due diligence and evaluation that are applied to selecting who I entrust the care, health, safety and competitive readiness (for functioning in society) of my most precious “assets” – my children.  As a Senior Project Manager at Bayshore Solutions I see a clear correlation to why businesses should approach the “care and development” of their crucial marketing and communications asset – their website – with the same rigor.

While there are numerous ways to stay cost-effective when building a business website, the phrase “You get what you pay for” is generally true. Choosing a dedicated web company with proven results, exceptional references and a team to count on is imperative.

I have worked on many “rescue and rehabilitation” web projects where companies are trying to recover from significant setbacks and losses stemming from choosing the wrong web partner and entrusting their brand’s online presence to smooth-talking, economical, yet ultimately incapable caretakers.  I have also worked with businesses who understand the importance of choosing the right partner, and who put me through my due diligence paces.  I’m pleased to report that together we have built numerous highly functional, articulate, socialized and ready-for-the-world (of business competition and high performance) websites.

At risk of sounding like your mom, here is my best advice when selecting a company to entrust your web presence with: Do your research, interview thoroughly and go with the company that not just makes you feel most comfortable, but demonstrates a proven track record of competence. One that is an expert, has exceptional references, and a team you can count on.

Bayshore Solutions excels in all of these categories. Our case Studies and client list cover so many industries, you’d be hard pressed not to find a related example of our work.

Contact us today to take care of your website needs.

Lucy Esteves is a Senior Project Manager at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.

Gwyn Drake

By: Gwyn Drake – Bayshore Solutions Senior Account Manager

SMX Advanced provides great detail on the newest trends and tactics in search marketing presented by leaders in the industry. This year was no exception.  Bayshore Solutions attended sessions within the categories of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search, and Content, Local & Excel Tracking. Each session dug into the very-complex-nitty-gritty-details that are important to successful online marketing.

Detail oriented search marketing is certainly nothing new, and here are some of the newest developments:

SEO | SEO is built upon managing and submitting finite details on site, in code, and to search engines.  When we work to build a company’s online success we consider each of these details, the statistics, the ROI, at great length.

• Keywords: True, the industry is still complaining about “not provided” but that doesn’t mean the keyword data we do have isn’t important. In fact, it is more important than ever to really dig into the data we do have. And taking a step further, there are programmatic ways that we can pull additional keyword data for further analysis.
• Data Reporting: How are you measuring the success of your site? Is it lead generation? eCommerce sales? Step back and think about what matters most to your business then reconfigure your reporting to show the actionable data that really matters.
• Canonicals: Canonicals continue to be one of the best ways to let search engines know the importance of pages, the authors, and even the differences of language. Creating and following a canonical plan will provide the best value to your site.

Paid Search | Paid search continues to evolve. With the increased use of Product Listing Advertising (PLAs) and Enhanced Campaigns (ECs) the technical knowledge required for Paid Search follows suit.

• PLAs:  It’s easy to focus on text advertising not performing as well with the addition of PLAs. However, research shows that we aren’t losing total engagement of users with ads, we’re shifting interaction to PLAs. PLAs not only provide a more visual and detailed user experience than text advertising, when used in tandem with text advertising, companies see the best results.
• Enhanced Campaigns: As you switch over to ECs, the most granular accounts allows for the best testing, control and ultimately results. If possible, limit each Ad Group to one keyword for the most advanced testing and control.

Content & Local | Like the other key areas of search marketing, successful content and local strategy requires an intimate knowledge of the art and science of online marketing strategy.

• Your Influencers: Identifying and connecting with the top users driving traffic to your site is a delicate but important process. Identify your influencers by their forms of connecting (blog, twitter, tumblr) and connect through those mediums.  Make a soft introduction and build a sustainable relationship.  Don’t forget to use statistics to not only identify the top influencers, but also to monitor the ongoing impact.
• Blended Listings: By fully optimizing local listings based off of industry and location trends, you will provide the best opportunity of achieving top placement. Blended listing strategy requires an analysis of your company, competitors, and targeted regions across Google Maps, Google Local and AOL (yes, AOL!).    Taking the time to cross-check this research will allow you to optimize each listing for the industry and geography.

Whether you decide to tackle one of these elements, or another aspect of search marketing, take the time to read a variety of blogs and learn the best practices so your time and effort has the largest positive impact possible.

One of the many ways Bayshore Solutions stays ahead of the curve in digital marketing best practices is participating in industry education, such as SMX, multiple times each year.  Contact us to find out more about how you can put your online marketing in to expert hands to help grow your business.

 
Gwyn Drake is a Senior Account Manager at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.

Keith Neubert

By: Keith Neubert – Bayshore Solutions Vice President

As leaders in the industry, Bayshore Solutions is attending the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle, Washington. Vice President, Keith Neubert, is there on behalf of Bayshore Solutions and has shared some of the latest updates from Day 1.  He mentions there is a strong mobile theme this year.

Just announced today by Google and reinforced by Matt Cutts today: “To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

You’ll see there are two main issues they’re looking for – bad redirects and mobile errors.  If you’re redirecting traffic from a mobile device from a requested subpage to the mobile homepage, that is bad.

Why the mobile emphasis?  This comes as a result of the increasing mobile use (tablet + smartphone).  Here are some quick points taken from a variety of sessions and speakers today:

• Search is the #1 smartphone browser activity 56% of activity in 2013 – 53% increase year over year
• We have 1 year and 7 months before more searches come from mobile than desktop.  By 2014, mobile internet use should approach 20% and mobile search 33%, 1/3 of search will be mobile
• 66% of users find mobile sites through a search engine but if they don’t like what they find… 79% of mobile searchers say they’re likely to go back to search and look elsewhere –  they’re 5 times more likely to abandon the task altogether
• Mobiles + Tablets = 24% of online shopping on black Friday in 2012 (vs. 6% two years ago)
• In 4^th quarter there were 52.5 M tablets sold, of which 23 M were iPads
• 207.7 M smart phones sold in 4^th quarter
• 2.5+ hours – the average a consumer spends on tablets and smartphones in a day
• 88% of marketers say that mobile SEO is going to be more important in 2013
• Only 30% of marketers will actually do mobile SEO in 2013
• 48% of the fortune 50 do NOT have a mobile site

Specifically from Matt Cutts:

• Smartphones – is happening much faster than anyone expected.
• If you have all links redirect to mobile homepage – that is bad
• If the Googlebot for mobile has issues getting to the site or does and the into infinite loop – this is bad
• Google may start looking at mobile site speed, just like regular website and this may start affecting rankings
• This is the first broader mobile update that affects rankings (the one announced above)
• Ideally you mobile enable the whole site, having just the HP is better than nothing
• Don’t panic but put thought into mobile

I know what you’re thinking, just do responsive design – and actually there are lots of folks here saying that the mdot (m.site.com) approach or dynamic serving approach are the better approaches because they allow marketers to take ‘intent’ into account.  An easy example they shared was the search term ‘bank’ – when performed on desktop the intent is more often things like general information, finance rates, services, versus that same search on mobile, the user’s intent is things like location, atms, etc.  With a responsive website you cannot address these different intentions, and risk serving the wrong content for the intent.  Further, Google knows the devices searching and they are tailoring those search results based on the device and assumed intent.  An easy way to see this in action is via the suggestive search feature results, the differences between mobile and desktop.  A quote today was: “Mobile SEO ends when responsive web design begins.”

However, the general consensus is that Google prefers responsive IF your users do.  Publishers are an easy example – Mashable – users search and consume content much the same way as they would on the desktop version, so responsive makes sense for them, but definitely not everyone.

 
Keith Neubert is a Vice President at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.

Ian Dyer

By: Ian Dyer – Bayshore Solutions’ Vice President

Bayshore Solutions Management team recently engaged in the opportunity, alongside Tampa Bay YPO, to gain insights from renowned business consultant Keith McFarland. The discussion was based on a summarization of the highlights contained within his book The Breakthrough Company – How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinariness Performers. The discussion was engaging and enlightening while offering recommended formulas for success.

My top-five key takeaways from the conversation include:

1. Leadership’s Focus – Should focus on breaking routines. Companies learn with their ‘foreheads’ – they bump into stuff, they don’t like it, and quickly make changes. This is normal.

2. Strategy consists of three phases – Starts with a collection of “ideas” on how to win where this insight becomes a decision point, and actions are taken! Listen to your markets, competitors and customers – what is good for business today may not be for tomorrow.

3. Corporate Character not Culture – There is no such thing as a corporate culture; there is only how we treat each other. You can’t fake character!

4. People – It is not about hiring the right people, it’s about making the people right. Spend more time coaching than recruiting. Celebrate productive failure.

5. Communicate the Strategy – A strategy that everyone understands, believes in, and knows their part. The link between strategy and team performance is real. This is the essence of team building!

It was a brilliant discussion and hard for me to boil it down to merely a top-five. The list is not intended to be the stepped-approach for each and every Breakthrough Company. Yet in analysis of over 7,000 of America’s fastest growing private and public companies, these traits were seen among each one.  These companies were not only those able to achieve Breakthrough success but also sustain and thrive!

Ian Dyer is a Vice President at Bayshore Solutions—a Tampa Web Design, Web Development, and Internet Marketing Company.