Google Panda refers to changes made in search algorithms used to improve Google search results. The changes took effect in early 2011 and continue to be tweaked and changed by Google in order to give the user the best search results possible. The new machine-learning algorithm affects both page and website ranking in several ways, with the goal of weeding out poor content and content that is irrelevant to the search term entered.  Many sites had a dramatic loss in traffic as a result of Google Panda, and with each change, they risk losing the traffic they’ve rebuilt.  What does that mean for dealerships looking to optimize their sites and increase traffic through Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing?

It’s important to understand that SEO needs SEM.  In a perfect world, a dealership could spend lots of money upfront on SEM and then once they’ve built up their campaigns and their content is filling up the first few pages of Google, they could stop spending on SEM and rely solely on SEO.  Well, it’s not a perfect world, and Google isn’t going to continue making billions of dollars from advertisers without SEM.  Therefore dealerships need to be spending in order to stay relevant and keep their ranking as high as possible.

It’s important to know where to focus your SEO efforts.  Panda’s most recent update seems to be focusing on video content and favoring sites with lots of it.  Therefore, it’s important for dealerships to make sure they’re uploading video in the form of test drives, walk-arounds, service video and anything else that will drive traffic.  YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, with many consumers going directly to the site to search for video of the products they’re purchasing. Staying current with video content is essential to boosting SEO.

That answers a few questions on SEO, but what about SEM?  How does a dealer make sure they’re optimizing SEM dollars?  The most important word in SEM is content.  Make sure your keywords and descriptions are accurate and relevant to your campaigns.  Having good content will increase your quality score which means your ads will come up more often in searches, which means a greater opportunity to drive traffic to your website.  Make sure you’re advertising in both search and display networks.  Image ads are just as important as keywords to drive traffic through clicks, and they have the added benefit of impressions.  Be proactive and constantly monitor and optimize your campaigns.  Don’t set them up and leave them to run – you can’t cook a perfect turkey without basting it, and you can’t run a great SEM campaign without optimizing it.

Learn more about how how your dealership can benefit from a well planned SEO strategy.