The SERM Experiment

Is the Dick Hannah Honda Strategy Viable?

2009-10-24T11:03:00.001-07:00

There is a lot of cool aid being put out there in the auto industry as it relates to search engine reputation management. One of the biggest cool aid concoctions to come around in a long time is those presented by Dick Hannah Honda. Search engine reputation management for car dealers is very important no doubt, how ever the method being presented by automotive vendors leave much room for improvement.

The use of dealer rating sites is probably the least effective ways for dealers to insure their reputation. While dealers need to make sure they are represented properly in these venues, they need to take the necessary steps to remove them from page one and two of the search engine results pages.

This can be accomplished with dealer microsites, a car dealer blog and other supporting assets that do not push advertising that detracts from the dealers message. If you are going to participate in dealer review site make sure you take the right steps to engage in the conversation when things like this are posted about your dealership.

Others have written about the Dick Hannah Honda case study, while they may not hold the exact same view as us we are in the same book. Here is the link to the original Dick Hannah Honda Case Study.

Technorati Tags: dick hannah honda, search engine reputtion manangement,

Other Forms of Reputation Management

2009-10-19T21:25:00.001-07:00

Dealers that sell used cars have always had a bad rap and the Internet makes it easy for others to try to bring negative information to light. The good thing is if dealers will work to help get inventory listing sites that they control to seo for their name then they can use those as additional entries in the search engines to help protect their brand.

Another issue dealers may experience is when the dealership is in their name. We are helping a marketing company push up profiles for Terry Lee Honda located near a Cincinnati Ford dealer we work with, because they have been negatively impacted by a ripoffreport. However this dealer should be looking to creating professional profiles in many locations to help negate this. We have recommended it to them lets see if they act on it.

Individuals need to make sure that they take the full opportunity to do this to protect their personal reputations regardless of ther professional aspirations.

Technorati Tags: serm, search engine reputation management

What happens with others try to damage your name?

2009-08-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Recently I have come under attack by some others that have tried to cause me ridicule by creating sites to damage me. I think it is funny as long as they get the facts right. The only problem is when my customers find this content and question me on it. It makes for some awkward situations.

I was explaining a to a good friend of mine, Andy Warner - Internet Sales Manager @ a Cincinnati Ford Dealer, what comes around goes around. I have a real good idea who did this and their reputation is that of washed automotive consultant and they are the ones showing off their handiwork.

The good think for me is I really don't care what others think about me...

A free entry in Google for your Name

2009-04-25T05:45:00.001-07:00

Google has lunched the ability to have your personal profile fall in the search engine results pages for your name. Currently I am seeing the profile listing falling in at position 10 for name searches. I am not so sure this is if this is Google's way of competing with other profile style sites but I see ways for businesses to use this as a promotion method as well.

While I have not taken the time to optimize my personal profile you can see mine - Paul Rushing - Google Profile

Technorati Tags: paul rushing, google, profile

Rebuilding and Adding too..

2009-03-30T15:38:00.001-07:00

My personal blog Who is Paul Rushing and gone ignored long enough so I have done a complete redesign. It was something I was actually dreading but the searches for my name are rising so I need to make sure what others find about me is accurate and up to date.

I have been spending a lot of time on client work which is good and keeps me pretty busy. Some of this work is giving them a level of search engine reputation management that they are not aware of. Like this property for a Cincinnati Ford dealer which is also ranking for their competition names like Colerain Ford and Castrucci Ford.

Someone who has buried all negative information in the search engines around his name, Brian Pasch, has inspired me to have some affiliate properties built around New Jersey Infiniti Dealers and NJ Used Infiniti.

I now also have my work cut out for me for a Cincinnati Chevy dealer which will really be a fun project. Automotive SEO is all fun and it will be great to watch these properties mature.

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, search engine reputation management, online automotive marketing

Owning Your Name and Beyond

2009-02-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

I am working on a project for a Cincinnati Ford Dealer that will own the serps for their name and and their primary keywords. This has been a fun project to work on unfortunately has caused to ignore my own search engine domination project. With the recent updates to the google page rank recently I have noticed that almost all of my personal properties have lost page rank.

My blog about Traffic Arbitrage the page rank has disappeared from 4 to ZERO.
My blog Paul Rushing on Wordpress dropped from a PR 3 to a ZERO.
My blog about Automotive SEO is just holding it's own and hovering around a PR 2.
I have not updated Who is Paul Rushing in almost two months.

I need to add marketing materials to my Cragislist for Car Dealers site.

One thing I am doing is priortizing efforts. Clients, Marketing, Partnerships and Networking in that order.

Technorati Tags: craigslist for car dealers, priortizing, wordpress

Helping Car Dealer Own Their Relevent Terms

2008-12-29T22:00:00.001-08:00

Right now I am working on a dealer micro site platform that will allow dealer to be a total control dominator in their local search markets. The forst example of such a site is one I made for a Cincinnati Ford Dealer and the other one is to generate leads for the Ford Escape Hybrid. I also have one going for New Jersey bad credit car loan but it is not really specifically for car dealers as much as it is to drive finance leads.

These will allow car dealers to not rely on poor automotive websites while at the same time driving more traffic to the dealership via the search engines. In addition to providing them with huge levels of serach engine reputation management.

I just hope it takes off like I hope it will..

Technorati Tags: dealer microsite, dealer micro site, automotive digital marketing

What are local businesses to do?

2008-12-06T11:55:00.001-08:00

Aggressive webmasters can take traffic away from local business names quite easily and push surfers to third parties versus their direct query. It is a great way for an aggressive webmaster to make some extra cash, but it may cost the business money over the long haul.

Some things that businesses need to do to make sure that they do not lose a lot of local web traffic:

Make sure you search engine directory listings have corect relevent keywords listed in them.
Own the first page of the SERPS for their name.
Own multiple extensions of their business name and have those indexed.

I will cover how to do each of this things in future post. As a test of generating local search traffic I have set up a site to push offers to people looking for Tulsa Special Financing and Brunswick Car Dealers. I will also report back on traffic stats and income levels generated from these sites.

Why worry about your online rep?

2008-11-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have not updated this blog in quite sometime. Basically it is because my personal search engine reputation is golden. So now I will just be commenting on things I find around the new. My flagship blog that deals with Internet sales gets a lot of traffic where I blogged about my interactions with Keith Latman's company iMagicLab.

While his products may be right on and provide great value to it's users his online reputation has to be costing him business. About once a week I am personally asked of my opinion of their product. I have to inform people that I do not know about the product because I have never used it, while at the same time point out that the company seems to have problems with their leadership.

See my interaction with them was mild. I just wanted to get a set up fee waived and was willing to give them advertising for it. I was treated like a piss ant by Keith Latman and his sales rep. I blogged about it, I did not know much more than that about him or his company. They were not going to be included in my tool box ever, nor would I recommend them to others. However the comments that have been made to that post would show why others would have caution about ever engaging iMagLab for anything.

I only know what has been published about Keith Latman's past business dealings. I have no idea if he is a changed man since then. I do know he has started trying to protect his personal search engine reputation, to bad he did not understand when he was charged with fraud the best way to not have to worry about your reputation if you behave reputably.

keith latman, imagic lab, imagiclab

Content Stalkers - Love em or hate they exist..

2008-09-17T12:33:00.001-07:00

Part of my job I get a lot of exposure to the automotive industry. Not a bad thing since I am trying to carve out a niche in that space. One thing I did not realize is that I also have some unsavory fans in the Automotive Digital Marketing Space. Mainly because I don't mind calling a spade a spade.

One thing that I have been working on a little at a time is converting some landing pages I built over from personal branding pieces to affiliate marketing properties. The thing is they rank really well for some of my former employers keywords. One of them that got emailed around the world over the last couple of days is one I converted that gets traffic for the search term Carl Gregory Hyundai.

A few people who have an obvious disdain for me, for whatever reason, made it their point to drive a bunch of traffic to these lens and send emails "telling on" me. For starters I appreciate the traffic. Secondly, they are continually damaging their reputation with people who have more revered ties to the car business, even though they claim to be in the reputation management (< a link to me not them) business.

All is fair in love and war. If they really want a battle with me they will lose. If they keep trying to cause me problems with my income sources I will take every step necessary to protect myself and completely obliterate their online marketing properties with competing properties. I really don't want to take the time to do that but will if push comes to shove.

They are big boys that should realize that when you play with fire you are going to get burnt and that I can pwn them and their online properties in a search engine war. They are good at back room tricks, I am completely transparent. I know what wins at the end of the day. My biggest advantage is they don't. They are still stuck back in the middle part of last century grasping on to those ideas and back room power plays. That is back firing at an accelerating rate!!

search engine reputation management, automotive industry, Paul Rushing, affiliate marketing

Sharing the Knowledge

2008-09-14T00:21:00.001-07:00

Right now I am working on a project at Squidoo.com that will allow me to share some of what I learn in setting up this process and to help others realize the importance of managing their search engine reputation. I will be creating multiple lenses on the topic and breaking it down between business and personal.

The entry lens once I have enough of them built will be a into to Managing Your Search Engine Reputation. Then it will break out into other points. The first one I have built in this collage is around Personal Search Engine Reputation Management. It has more to do with acceptable behavior in online settings and showing others what can show up for their name when others "Google" it.

The cool thing about doing this with Squidoo it will rank well eventually in the SERP for the terms and will probably get a lot of traffic from them. Right now I am working on creating a powerhouse squidoo profile with tons of content. Most of it will be around helping conumers save money on cars, online automotive marketing and search engine reputation management.

I still have a lot to learn on the last topic but in the process of building these lenses it and the research it requires I will pick up a lot of valuable information.

squidoo, serm, online reputation case study

How Much is Enough?

2008-09-13T09:42:00.001-07:00

Getting control of my name in the search engines is becoming a daunting task. There are two other people named Paul Rushing that have a little more fame than I do. One of them is a doctor and the other is a football player. I have gotten the football player off of page one, the doctor may be a little harder to move.

One thing that amazes me though is my Linkedin Profile is not showing up on the first page. Linkedin is a trusted site and the search engines should really index it high. You can see my linked in profile. Just click on Paul Rushing to see my resume and work history.

paul rushing, linkedin, serm

Dealing with negatives?

2008-09-02T08:26:00.001-07:00

I love it when people disagree with my opinion. I love it even more their opinion is obfuscated by the exact point I was trying to make. In an online discussion with the ISM at Jim Glover Chevrolet he was using his knowledge of dealer micro sites as a lunching pad to try to destroy my opinion of using social networking to help build a brand and drive traffic to websites.

What his interest in doing so is beyond me. He has plenty of other things to worry about. His personal search engine reputation is horrible. His companies search engine reputation is horrible. His demeanor in online interactions is horrible.

I was going to show him how to get free pay per click advertising for his dealership and personal name on content he would control but why should I help an idiot? I probably wont!!

The good thing is the SERPS for my name is locked down tight for the time being. I am working on an email series now to help others do the same thing for themselves.

Stay connected book market this site for the announcement...

jim glover chevrolet, jim glover chevy, social networking,

Adding More Layers - Livejournal and Vox

2008-08-23T07:28:00.001-07:00

Just stumbled upon something while setting up my profile at Vox.com. They allow you to cross post to Livejournal. What this means to you is that if you make a new post at Vox.com you can automatically send an excerpt to LJ.

I have not tested it out you, but I will add some screen shots here in the near future as I test out this feature. For now though you can take a look at my profile on JL (Paul Rushing on livejournal.com) and at Vox (Paul Rushing at Vox)

Also I set up a network on Ning.com as part of setting up my profile at Vox. Not real sure how I am going to use that but you can take a look at it at Paul Rushing on Ning.

Setting up another blog, again...

2008-08-22T03:28:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you just can't do enough to get as many layers of content out there as possible. I have heard a lot of good things about Vox so I set up a blog there as well. I really do not know how I am going to be able to keep all of this stuff updated but it will be fun to try. See another one of my levels of separation visit Paul Rushing on Vox.com

Using other tools to Manage your Online Reputation

2008-08-21T03:34:00.001-07:00

I have created an online business card for people to use as a layer of online reputation management. You can see an example at Paul Rushing's Online Business Card. Granted this particular one is not perfect. I need to get some professional photos done.

Sometimes in my quest to get as much out there about me as fast as possible I overlook some of the smaller things, like the photos. Eventually I will have the perfect online portfolio and control the entire front few pages in the search results for my name.

It is a lot of work no doubt and I am competing with some other very established Paul Rushing properties that are not related to me. Oh well the quest continues.

Getting Back on Track - Again!!

2008-08-09T17:02:00.001-07:00

Well as I have stated before it is really time to get back on track on this blog on how to personally manage your search engine reputation. What is cool is through a recent turn of events I have picked up a position as blog manager and SEO for www.drivingsales.com and now fell getting this information out thre can really help the industry as a whole.

A good friend of mine shared a very compelling story about how Search Engine Reputation Management helps sell cars. It was a true testament of how managing a solid online reputation can benefit financially.

One thing I have noticed in the automotive industry is that there has been a big push for dealers to solicit customer reviews. There are several sites geared to this now. There is one that I have not cut much slack mainly because their name is horrible. An angry consumer could really have fun if they were upset with a dealership and they happen to have active profiles there. This one is probably a pass based on the name alone.

Now the dealers are going to be able to rate automotive vendors in an online setting. No more of the hushed back room stuff. Now the vendors are going to have to become accountable. While I do believe many vendors really do try to look after their clients sometime they may not really be paying attention to what they are telling them.

The automotive industry is fraught with difficulties at all levels right now and if vendors will use this as a tool to help them improve their products, services and business models it is a huge win for both dealers and providers.

This one will be fun to watch as time goes on.

My goal for the next few days is to maximize my profiles and contacts at Plaxo they have really come a long way since they started and I really need to get in there and get it set up properly.

- Paul Rushing's Plaxo Profile

I encourage you to get in there and sign up if you have not. Make sure you connect with me. Just mention SERM experiment if I do not know you personally.

This has been ignored long enough!!

2008-08-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

I have really been busy with career changes and this project had been put on hold. A recent article I did about how someone chose to advertise a program called "Masters of eMarketing" and the activities of others have caused me to revisit this experiment.

There are people inside the car industry trying protect him by denigrating my message that his marketing activities were not the best way to market his product, he even agreed with me on this point. The person who the original blog post discussed and I have reached a gentleman's agreement on allowing the issue to die down and to speak again in two weeks is probably not involved in these efforts. If he really is a gentleman, time will tell that.

I have disavowed loose ties to people in the automotive industry because of their actions and now must concentrate on my search engine reputation being locked down to its fullest in the event that the agreement I thought I had with JZ is just lip service. I surely hope it is not.

I will be back to posting here daily on my activities as in concerns locking down my Search Engine Reputation and hopefully giving you some helpful tips along the way.

Boy I have Fell Behind Here - Day ??

2008-05-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

I am still working on building many layers of content to protect my own name it just has taken a back seat to online marketing. Right now the SERPS are fairly tight for my name, Paul Rushing so I have been concentrating on building dealer micro sites using squidoo.com.

One of the nice things about building these single page landers is that they can be used to market your business or used to push affiliate products. Here are some good examples -

Golden Isles Nissan - Used to merchandise my used Nissan Inventory
Las Vegas Hyundai - Used to push an automotive lead affiliate program
Special Financing Tulsa - Used to push an automotive loan lead affiliate program

All of these pages are built using squidoo.com and if you are an Auto Dealer wanting someone to help you build these types of pages to target competitive keywords just visit this other page I built at squidoo to see some more examples. Automotive Micro Sites

Blog Commenting to Build Credibility in Your Niche - Day Seven

2008-04-27T17:15:00.002-07:00

I participate quite regularly in an Automotive Online Marketing Blog quite regularly and always get amazed at how brash people become when they do not agree with you. While I do not have problems with people not agreeing with my opinion as opinions are very subjective. But sometimes enough is enough.

I made a comment to another poster that the fact that the search term "Special Finance Tulsa" was not a very competitive search term and got pounced on by another reader at that blog. He felt that using Google's Webmaster Tools was not submitting a site to Google it just helped him measure it's status.

If he did not agree with that that is ok by me because I know better, but then he proceeded to take potshots trying to talk down to me. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with my methods of SEO at all. Hey was just trying to protect his position on using dealer micro sites were beneficial for SEO for bullshit search terms. He was proud that his credit application was ranked number on for the search term "Special Finance Tulsa"

I am sure he is trying to attack my credibility for what ever reason, I think mainly because he is proud of ranking well for those search terms and I discounted them as meaningless keywords to rank for.

You can see all of the comments at:

http://www.dealerrefresh.com/my_weblog/2008/04/to-micro-site-o.html#comments

One day people will learn to not try to intimidate me in online debates and resort to name calling. Ask Larry Host.

2008-04-27T17:15:00.001-07:00

Use Your Real Name - Day 6

2008-04-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

I run a blog about being an Internet Sales Manager and receive many interactions from various Automotive Vendors. Some very positive and some of them are not. Especially when I blog about how screwed up the auto business in its current online marketing initiatives.

I did a post about Dealer Micro Sites not long ago and got a very caustic comment laden with 15 links for this vendor to try to show off his product. Of course I did not approve the post. For starters this individual was trying to pitch his product on my blog, gave a caustic remark and DID NOT USE HIS REAL NAME.

I could of gotten past the first two issues if he had used his name and could of turned into a real positive discussion. Instead he killed the conversation before it got started and was never given the chance to persuade me into looking at his perspective.

The moral of the story is - If you are going to take a stance do it in the open and let your actions be identified with you...

Getting the Media Down - Day Five 1/2

2008-04-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

While trying to get everything organized it had become apparent it is best to use some established platforms to create a work flow.

My Daily Goals now are:

One Squidoo Lens - Automotive Targeted
One Squidoo Lens - Niche Targeted
One HubPage Hub - Solid Evergreen Content On Passionate Topics
10 Diggs - With corresponding blog post
One Automotive Targeted Blog Post on Blogs I control
Encourage Feedback from Automotive Customers

Developing a logical plan of attack Day Five

2008-04-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

With the overwhelming amount of various platforms to work with a plan of attack is needed. It is not going to be helpful to just create a bunch of profiles in different places and not have a regular schedule in place to keep them active and updated.

During the process of developing this work flow I will also be able to determine which ones have the most value and eliminate ones that do not provide much value.

Regularly updated content is going to be mandatory and it will be impossible to maintain more than 15 profiles pushing links to sites that you want people to see first. Also there is not much advantage in providing content to websites without some benefit to you and your message.

Search Engine Reputation Management should also incorporate you personal marketing if you are taking the time to build up a search engine reputation. While at the same time not taking away so much time as to negatively effect other aspects of your goals.

Still Taking Inventory - Priortizing - Day 3

2008-04-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

Not every site or platform is completely search engine friendly. Based on the volume of profiles that I have out there I really need to get things listed in order of importance. But you can see a page I did about Search Engine Reputation Management which will probably be a launching pad of sorts once I get everything placed i a logical organized fashion.

Until Later Out

So Much To Do - Day Two

2008-04-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

After taking inventory of all of the different social networking profiles I have I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I did not realize how much I really have going on if I am going to use all of these sites to build up a strong Search Engine Presence.

This is really going to be a lot of work but I am sure it will translate into a locked down search engine presence. I will eventually have a designated work flow so it will be easily managed and be simple enough that a "monkey could do it".

One of the features of many of these sites is that they will allow you to import your list of contacts from webmail accounts like Gmail and Yahoo and I have just sent out 850 invites for people to follow me on Twitter. I did not realize that this was going to happen. It is all good though.

It will probably take a few days just to get the organization of every site that I am going to use in this process....

Taking Inventory and Evaulating Resources - Day One

2008-04-19T12:32:00.001-07:00

Today I will be taking inventory of all of my personal profiles that can found in the Search Engines and adding tags to them on the side bar here. I also purchased two domains to add to the fold of personal sites used to help build a strong search engine presence.

My first goal is to own the entire front page of Google for the search term "Paul Rushing" with a combination of my personal properties and other online profiles. Right now I have the top spot with my personal blog Who Is Paul Rushing where I talk about life in general and whatever comes to mind.

As I complete this Diary I will try to explain the Whys as well as the Hows of why I do what I am doing. But for now I am just taking inventory and everything will be listed in the Side Bar here.