Getting as many “QUALITY” links to your site is crucial. What I mean by quality is that the site linking to yours needs to have a high page ranking in Google and other search engines and receive a descent amount of monthly visitors. If you have 1,000 websites linking to yours, but they all are low ranking sites with virtually no visitors each month, then these links are not going to help as much as 2 or 3 websites with high page ranking and high traffic counts.

2. Get your site listed in other directories like YELP.COM the Yellow Pages sites, Yahoo directory and any other type of popular directory you can find. Links in your Facebook page, LinkedIn Page and other social media sites are great also.

3. Maximize Forums - if you are a member of any type of on-line forum, then always try and squeeze in your domain name on your posts and make sure its in your signature as well (while following forum rules of course). Forums get a lot of traffic and having your business link in various posts can really help your ranking.

4. Misc Other Links – You can follow the steps above in #1 but go after other national sites that may have a directory or links page. My suggestion is to go after industry sites that are in some way related to yours. For instance, if your sell a certain brand of product, then see if they have a “Shop Finder” feature on their site and get listed in it. You can also span out into similar industries like motorsports site, aftermarket parts sites, racing sites and basically anything somewhat related to motorosports and automotive.

Well, now you do! Yes, major search engines like to see that your site is in some way being updated on a consistent basis and not just sitting their collecting dust so to speak. This does not need to be a major overhaul of your site each time you do it though. It can simply be changing or adding a few lines of text on various pages of your site on a regular basis.

There is not magic formula on how often you should do this and how much you should change. I recommend that you make changes at least twice a month though and at least change a paragraph on at least two pages of your site.  The home page is good place to modify text since you know Google will visit that first.

AUTOMATE IT!
We realize that shop owners do not really have a lot of time to keep updating their sites and frankly, might not have any type of updates that need to be done. So, one of the services we highly recommend is the use of Automated systems that run on your site and consistently change that content each month. One such service that we highly recommend, and offer to our clients is the use of AutonetTV Video Blogs. These blogs run directly inside your website and are updated by the team over at AutoNet TV. These blogs are a DUAL purpose feature….

1. The content is updated usually once every week. This means that Google and other search engines think your making constant updates on your site to keep it fresh, when the truth is, your not doing anything! Also, the blog content is packed with keywords specifically for your shop which is superb for helping rank your site and keeping it ranked.

2. The use of these video blogs is excellent for your shop in that they promote “preventative maintenance” services. Once your customers view these video blogs, they will see the importance of regular vehicle maintenance. Such videos like “Why to change your cabin air filter” can help bring in previous and new customers to your shop.

In short, the Autonet TV video service is outstanding and in my opinion, a must have feature for your site. There is a small monthly service fee to have these ,but it is not why I am recommending this service. The service fee is only $19.99 a month but the advantages are huge! They save you time, help your site, and help promote more business.  Contact us today to find out more and to get your site set up with them.
See A Live Site Using This Service By Clicking Here:

This brings up a good point though… if your site needs a public site map for its users, then maybe the website navigation system needs an overhaul! In my opinion, you should always have an easy to navigate website with all your links to your pages contained withing one central navigation system (your menu section). Now, some will argue that you can help your site rank if you have a pubic site map and I will agree in part. But, in order for it to be effective, the link names should contain keywords your trying to rank for which is commonly called “Anchor Text”.  If you set up a list of links to your pages and names your links something like “Home”, “About Us”, “Our Services” and so on, then a public site map is not going to do much good. However, if you used keywords in the page name links like “Our Auto Repair Services”, “Contact Our Auto Repair Shop” and “Welcome To Our Auto Repair Shop”, then you are helping out your site but utilizing keywords in the links.

The main focus of this post though is about search engine site maps. These are non viewable files that get submitted to search engines like Google and Yahoo which tell them what the pages are on your site and which ones to index for ranking. These types of site maps are created typically in a file format called XML. Most commonly, your search engine site map would be called something like “sitemap.xml” and resides in the root directory of your website. Then, you simply log into your Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engine account and specify the link path to your site map which would look something like http://www.myautorepairshop.com/sitemap.xml

These site maps are constructed in basically the same way as the public site map mentioned above except you do not need to use anchor text. You simply generate a list of pages of your site, and the links to those pages. There are some other advanced features of this type of site map as well that we will not go in depth on in this post because honestly, it would probably bore you to death.

I need to mention that with our CMS website package, we are soon launching our AUTOMATED SITE MAP generator program which will automatically create a site map according to the pages you have on your site. This is incredibly valuable in that you do not have to manually manage your site map each time you make a change in your site structure. More information on this will be posted on our website in the coming weeks.

In summary, site maps can really help your site rank by giving search engines a complete guide (map) to all the pages on your site which basically tells them which pages to rank and how to index them.

So how do you do it? The following will give you pointers on how to get in this coveted place and how to help remain there.

1. Create A Google Account!
One of the first things you should do as a website owner is create an account for your business in Google. Its fast and free. Once you have an account, you can use a wide range of tools to help market your business & website.

2. Claim Your Listing
Once you have an account, you can login and click on the link in the upper right for “Account Settings”. From here you will see a link in the middle of the page called “Google Places”…click on it. From here, click the link that says “List Your Business” over on the right of the page.  Simply follow the instructions in the steps that follow. You may already see your business listed, in which case you just need to edit the details. NOTE: FILL OUT EVERYTHING that you can in their form because it will help in rankings! This includes adding as many photos as you’re allowed and adding as many relevant categories as possible (up to 5).

3. Utilize  Local KEYWORDS:
Be sure to read the previous post we listed on KEYWORDS and use the techniques to insert your city and state in various spots of your pages. You do not need to go crazy with this, but one important point is to have your exact address listed on your website which must be the same as what you entered into Google Places. HELPFUL TIP: Be sure to squeeze in other surrounding city names in your pages. You could simply put in your page something like “We proudly serve city1, city2, city3…. ”

4. Get Reviews, Get Reviews, Get Reviews!!!
All business listings on Google Maps feature a link to leave a review. Your job is to get as many of these as you can from customers. You can start by asking friends and family to jump in and leave some positive reviews for you. This is not the time to ask your Joking Cousin to help out. Negative Reviews can not be removed in most cases. Usually people will be more then happy to leave a positive review if you did a good job on their auto repairs and they also will be more willing to hand out an email address! If you can email them a reminder as well as a link to the review page, this will really help! You should also mention other popular review sites like MerchantCircle, Bing, InsiderPages and even online Yellow Pages.

The Only Time You WANT a Citation!
What is a Citation? Think of it as a type of “Recommendation” from another website. When Google sees more people ‘talking’ about your business, the more trust they give your business, resulting in higher ranking. Kind of a simplified explanation, but you get the idea. How do I get Citations? The first thing to do is start with the FREE ones that you can obtain yourself including:

• Yahoo
• Yellowpages.com
• 411.com
• infospace
• anywho and more.

It’s rumored that these major sites also carry more importance when it comes to Google page rankings so get started on these first! The ultimate goal here is to consistently have more then your competition so this should be an on-going task for you each month. Note that Citations are not the ultimate factor in determining rank in the 7 box, but they sure do help!!!! Here are some other Citation Sources You Can Use:

• Yelp
• City Search
• Bing Local
• BOTW Local
• Brownbook.net
• infoUSA
• Superpages
• Insider Pages
• Hot Frog
• Local.com
• iBegin

Summary: Don’t be overly concerned with Citations and Reviews and think you need to get as many as you can as quick as you can. You will get burned out. You should simply make some time each month to go after more reviews and citations. My suggestion would be to hire a high school kid part time to do this type of work for you… someone that has a lot of internet experience but is not going to cost you an arm and a leg.

• KEYWORDS
• GOGGLE’S 7 BOX (local search)
• SITE MAPS
• SITE UP-KEEP
• LINKING
• SOCIAL MEDIA
• DOMAIN NAMES
• OTHER MISC. TACTICS

NOTE: This may all seem a bit overwhelming and look like a lot of info to wade through, but please note that the actual work involved is pretty easy and quick to do. My goal is to try and make this series short and to the point, but without missing some crucial things you need to keep in mind when doing your SEO’ing. You’ll find its pretty fun and rewarding!

This post is going to be concerned with KEYWORDS, so buckle up and lets get started…..

1. Know what KEYWORDS people are typing to find your type of business. When people are doing a search for local businesses, they will usually include the city and state (abbreviation usually) like Chicago IL.  A typical search for auto repair service might look like “Auto Repair Chicago IL”or “Transmission Rebuilders Detroit MI” or “Car Repair Shops Atlanta GA”.  You can use Google’s free KEYWORD checker tool to see how many times certain keywords or keyword phrases are typed in each month. Through our research, we find that the words “Auto Repair” and “Car Repair” are very common.

My recommendation is to start making a list of vital keywords you want to market your website with. My keyword suggestions for automotive repair shops would be: (auto, automotive, car, repair, service, engine, tires, oil, transmission and towing). Your list should be around 15-20 words which you will use to focus your SEO marketing efforts towards.

2. Keyword Usage – You take your list of keywords and use them throughout the pages of your site. Web pages contain different sections where you can enter keywords such as “PAGE TITLE” “META TAGS”, “IMAGE ALT TAGS” and “LINK TITLE TAGS”. Then of course the main content (text) for the page. I will cover what each of these things are in more detail below.

2a) PAGE CONTENT – For the actual text in your page, the rule of thumb is to only use a keyword or keyword phrase every 70-100 words. If you jam your page full of keywords over and over again, it can be considered “SPAM” which can result in getting your site banned! It also helps to bold your keywords as search engines see these as important words!

2b) META TAGS – Each page of your site has what are called “Meta Tags” (our Turnkey Auto Shop CMS Software includes these sections for each page). These are sections of a page that are not seen on the page, but are areas of text that search engines look at. The three main meta tags are “Title”, “Description” and “Keywords”.

The PAGE TITLE should contain keywords. A lot of weight is placed on this for major search engines! You DO NOT want this to be too long though! Keep is short and sweet (about 5-7 words max). When creating a page title you will want to include keywords, so instead of naming your page “Services”, you should name it something like “Auto Repair Services” and you can even use the city and state name at the end to help out more. Use a different title for each page.

the DESCRIPTION area is the text that shows up on the bottom of a search listing which describes the website. This is another crucial area to use keywords but do not use the same keyword more then 3 times in this area. Make sure each page has its own unique Description. In other words, do not simply copy and paste the same text for the description on each page.

The KEYWORDS section is not that important any more but it’s still a good idea to populate it with all your keywords separated by commas. Do not use the same keyword more then 5 times in this area.
(Our CMS program allows you to edit  each of these meta tag sections for each page of your site!).

2c) ALT TAGS – Your images and links can have keywords! Images have what is called an “ALT TAG” where you can jam in a few keywords, and links offer what is called a “TITLE” where you can use keywords. Do not use keywords more then 3 times in these sections. The sections are not visible to site viewers.

In Summary:
Its crucial to use the right keywords so know what your potential clients are typing in. Obviously they are not going to know your shop’s name so do not focus on using it too much as a keyword. Do not spam your pages or meta tag sections with the same keywords typed in over and over again.  Page Title and Description areas are very important.

…….. Stay Tuned for Part 2 – GOGGLE’S 7 BOX

I am still amazed at the amount of auto repair shops that only do Yellow Page advertising in today’s age of web savvy consumers but I do realize the fear of, and lack of time to dive into web marketing. It can be extremely overwhelming especially if you are not familiar with all the propeller head lingo (nerd words).

But here is something to consider… If you had the secret solution to bring in better customers and more of them, would you do it….honestly? Surprisingly, a lot of people don’t! Some recent studies have shown that the reason most people fail at marketing (and other business ventures) is simply because they never take action even when their hand is held and have free consulting provided to them. Weird!

The main underlying reason for this post is to hopefully jar some of you fence riders into at least taking a small baby step or at least dipping a toe in the internet waters. It can be something as simple as a Facebook page, answering questions on auto repair forums, commenting on automotive related blog posts, starting your own blog and other very easy web marketing mediums. The key is to first pick one and learn it, then do it – TAKE THE FIRST STEP!

You want to get your name out there because you will be amazed at how some people find out about your business through different channels of the internet. A good example would be how one of our clients was getting referrals from some insurance company three states away because they could not find any website’s that provided the services in the area their client’s were in….except for one!

One of your marketing steps, if not the first, should be getting an auto repair website set up for your shop. You need to make it the “KITCHEN” of your marketing campaign. The place were all the goodies are stored, where people can hang out, and where you can cook up some treats that will keep your clients coming back for more. Its what you will always include in your forum posts, blog posts, email signatures, and any print media you utilize. You will find its actually pretty fun to work with and VASTLY cheaper then any yellow page advertising.

In following posts, we will be covering some recipes for goodies you can cook up in your “Kitchen” (website).  Stay tuned and take that first step!

We hope you enjoy our new blog and find it a valuable resource throughout the year! Thanks for reading!
Kirk Ziegler – President
Turnkey Auto Shop / Turnkey Body Shop