posted on August 26, 2009 07:02
The SEO (Search Engine Optimization) engine built into the MyRVAdvantage web platform is designed to deliver terrific search engine rankings right “out of the box”. By using our “built in” SEO Engine we’ve seen our dealer’s rankings improve within weeks of switching platforms or targeting specific keywords, increasing relevant traffic and increasing the leads generated from their website.
Well, we’ve been able to make this even better with our latest release of the Inventory Showroom module, ensuring that not only the dealer’s web pages and content get found and properly indexed on search engines, but their inventory does too.
What Did We Do That’s So Special?
While the current Inventory Showroom Module already did a great job of picking out keywords and getting inventory indexed properly on search engines, we noticed that our Articles Module always seemed to get information ranked higher on search engines than anything else on the site. We use the articles module to publish all of the informational content about a dealership; from about us and the dealership’s history to the latest promotions and sales. So if those pages always ranked higher than anything else than why and how can we achieve the same results with inventory?
Human Friendly URLs
One of the things our Articles Module did well was automatically re-write the page URL for each article published. This allowed us to take a page on a site that might look like this:
www.mydealership.com/promotions/articleid/45/tabid/345/default.aspx
and turn it into this
www.mydealership.com/promotions/20-tips-on-selling-your-rv-in-this-tough-economy.aspx
Since the name of the article was “20 Tips on Selling Your RV in this Tough Economy” and we repeated that in the Page Title (at the top of the browser window) and in the keywords (20 tips, selling, your, rv, economy) and on the page itself…when combined with the page name actually matching these pages ranked higher because the search engines tend to reward page names that appear to be static and something called keyword density which show repetition in the specific words and phrases people are likely to search on.
Sounds complicated doesn’t it? But forget about the tech talk for a second and just look at the two URLs. Which one are you more interested in clicking on if you want to know how to sell your RV in a tough economy?
Leveraging Your Inventory – Your Greatest SEO Asset
So what we did was apply this same concept to our Inventory Module. After all, if you have 200 units in stock right now then you should have 200 unique pages of information, each indexed based on the particulars of each unit. So in addition to the keywords, keyword description, page title and linking we already provided in the Inventory Module we now have the ability to index each RV as a unique page to the search engines.
So now this URL:
www.mydealership/showroom/tabid/123/agentType/View/PropertyID/12345/Default.aspx
becomes this URL:
www.mydealership/showroom/display/view/rv/12345/2009-class-c-winnebago-view-24j.aspx
Again, which one makes more sense to you? So now, by combining the search phrase “2009 Winnebago View” in the page title, the keywords the keyword description, the page content and now in the actual URL, our presentation to the search engine appears as if we have a specific page setup on our site for each any every unit in inventory, search phrase density is even better and we’ve given the search engines everything they need to index specific units from our website.
Setup and “Tweaking”
One of our design goals was to eliminate as much work as possible to maintain this engine. So we’ve created a way to setup your inventory module one time and let it start to work for you. Of course, it’s flexible and allows for customization of the URLs based on your specific goals. Your MyRVAdvantage Account Manager will work with you to setup the engine, monitor the results and tune the engine as necessary to meet your business needs down the road.
Additionally, when you sell a unit and it comes off the website, the engine automatically handles the 301 redirect to the search engines, telling them that this page is not longer here, please update your index further reducing workload and increasing the accuracy of your rankings and indexing.
The Results
We won’t know specific results until we see this running for a few months. We do know that when we convert someone from a previous version of MyRVAdvantage or a competitor’s site the Articles Module typically improves SEO Rankings and Indexing within 30 days and achieves page one results on most targeted search terms. Given that our Inventory Showroom Module already provides excellent SEO rankings, we expect this update to only improve a dealer’s overall SEO position on specific search terms for specific units.
The goal is simple. When someone types in “2009 Keystone Montana” into Google we want your units to come up first and with links to that specific unit on your lot so we can engage them and convert them into an active lead.