Things change in business, new technology enters the market
place and brings along a whole new dictionary of terms. Either you adapt to the
new reality or your business and/or job go to the ones that do adapt. The new
reality for auto dealerships is that the big three of Print, Radio and TV are
fading fast as dominant means of advertising. Digital, online advertising is
gaining ground at their expense. If you’re not asking “Are we spending enough
in Internet advertising?” at each budget meeting then you are not adapting. Most
dealers are doing the website, SEM, SEO, ILM combo but that is just the tip of
the iceberg. There’s mobile, contextual, and behavioral along with numerous
others that are available to the dealer looking to move up the sales chart.
The key to gaining an understanding new technology is coming
to grips with the terms or lingo it uses. Let’s start with the one central to most
dealers’ online marketing, SEM and SEO.
SEM – Search Engine Marketing: This one can vary in meaning
depending on the author. The strictest meaning is paying for links at the top
and right hand side of results page. SEM can also be used to describe a wider
array of services which include the use of graphic ads in search engines that
allow them, such as Google, and SEO.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization: This can be a stand alone
service or once again as part of overall SEM. It goes more toward the design of
the website. SEO uses certain techniques to make sure your site is at the top
of the search engine results page (SERP), just below the paid ads at the top.
The ideal situation is to have your paid ad and your natural/organic listing
both at or the top of the first page.
Natural/Organic Search Results: These are the non-paid
search results. If you go to your favorite search engine, type in some keywords
and hit search. The results, other than paid ads, are called either natural or
organic search results.
Keyword Campaign: The core of Google, Yahoo and MSN’s ad
models. The advertiser selects a group of keywords, then bids to be displayed
when people search for those keywords. The payment method for this PPC.
PPC- Pay-Per-Click: Payment model where the advertiser only
pays when someone clicks on their ad.
Geo-Targeting: Geo-targeting
lets you target your ads to specific countries, states, cities and languages.
When you create a new campaign, you select the regions and that campaign's ads
will appear only to users who live in the areas.
Landing Page: An active webpage where customers
will 'land' when they click your ad.
These are just an extremely small sampling of the terms involved in online
marketing. If they seem basic to you, then congratulations, you are on your way
to success. If these terms are new to you and you are worried about your survival,
then here is a great place start increasing your odds for survival.
