|
Discovering a Formula for Success
What happens when a dealership that has been succeeding with Cobalt for more than a decade – adds ProCare, is upgraded to Cobalt’s new Websites 3.0 platform and then mixes in PowerSearch? Crown Motors in Holland, Michigan did just that – and along the way discovered a formula for success.
Add ProCare: Take One Giant Leap
Sales Manager Brad Siegers has been with Crown almost as long as Crown has been with Cobalt. That makes him well positioned to comment on every aspect of the company’s online progress. “We’ve always felt we were well ahead of the curve, in terms of our Internet effort,” he said. “So we were surprised to find that when we added ProCare two years ago, our website visitors nearly quadrupled. I think this was our first inkling that, by fine-tuning our approach, we could reasonably expect big leaps forward, instead of the slow, steady growth we were accustomed to.”
Mix in Websites 3.0
When the pilot for Websites 3.0 was announced, Siegers was more than anxious to signup. His previous experience adding ProCare yielded great dividends, so he had high hopes for Websites 3.0. “I thought this could be another giant leap forward for us.”
In fact, Websites 3.0 shares a common thread with ProCare, Cobalt’s proactive website maintenance service: to improve a website’s organic search results by keeping the site optimized so that search engine spiders can accurately access the site’s content and relevance.
The new website platform is designed to aid search engine spiders in their work, allowing spiders to burrow deeper into the site, indexing more pages and content that directs searchers to more relevant results. This key feature provided Crown Motors with a significant advantage over their competition, by increasing the number of website pages indexed from 10 to over 250.
Siegers marveled at the improved organic search results. “We are definitely seeing an increase in traffic with the combination of ProCare and the new platform,” he said.
Websites 3.0 – Worth the Wait
There are many new and exciting website designs, features and services available to improve your support options and give you more flexibility than ever. After all we believe you should be selling cars. Let us deal with your online marketing. We do appreciate our clients and we want you to know we are listening and we built this new platform to meet your needs.
Top-it-off with Paid Search
Although ProCare and Websites 3.0 were proving to be winning ingredients in Crown’s success formula, Siegers didn’t feel the formula was complete. He was searching for a catalyst to add to the mix that would really drive results. He found his answer in PowerSearch, Cobalt’s paid search service.
“We started experimenting with PowerSearch a few months ago, and I was completely amazed with the results! Our search engine referrals went through the roof – an increase of over 700%,” Siegers said.
PowerSearch combined with ProCare form a lethal combination known as PowerSearch Complete - providing dealers with integrated paid search, organic search and website tuning services. By adding these services to Websites 3.0, Siegers had finally concocted his success formula.
“I was completely amazed with the results! Our search engine referrals went through the roof – increased by over 700%”
- Brad Siegers, Sales Manager Crown Motors
The Bottom Line: More Conversions
“It’s great to have more website visitors,” noted Siegers, “but it doesn’t mean anything if they don’t become leads. We’ve always had a strong conversion rate with our Cobalt site, but it’s gotten even better through the combination of Websites 3.0 and PowerSearch Complete.”
But “better” just might be a bit of an understatement. Not only has Crown seen a huge increase in website traffic and search engine referrals, they’ve also seen a big increase in their conversion rate – up now to 22%. New car inventory and pre-owned inventory searches are up 70% and 74% respectively.
“Customers are now easily able to find our website through search, and once there, our site is fine-tuned to provide the information the customer is looking for. This ultimately translates to more leads for us – and more sales,” Siegers said.
|
