Is the Dick Hannah Honda Strategy Viable?

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

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

Dealing with negatives?

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

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.

Use Your Real Name - Day 6

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...

Developing a logical plan of attack Day Five

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

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

Taking Inventory and Evaulating Resources - Day One

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.