[dougfentiman]

This may sound controversial, or a bit crazy, but you will get more reviews if you don’t ask for them…

I’ve done a ton of research and testing of review request/management tools over the last five years and found directly asking for reviews was a BIG turn-off for customers. Yes, you may get a few reviews when you ask, but deep down your customers will dislike you for asking.

The most common customer comment when asked in our private surveys was that review requests made the business look desperate. To paraphrase more than a few customers, If they are so good why do they have to ask for reviews?

When we changed our TrustBuilder system to asking for customer “feedback”, rather than “reviews”, the comment submission rate increased from less than 1% to an average of 30% (close to 98% with SMS text message feedback requests). Some of my TrustBuilder clients who place very high importance on customer service and satisfaction get +70% submission rate of feedback requests.

Why the huge increase? Asking for a “review” is seen as only benefiting the business, not the customer. Asking for “feedback” is seen as benefiting the customer. The big question in customer’s mind is “what’s in this for me?”…

Deep down people are selfish. That’s just the way humans are and something you or I can’t change. Most people won’t do something unless they see a benefit for them (OK maybe your mother will do it without feeling obligated…). But if your “review” request is presented in a different way your customers will see it as a benefit.

Asking for “feedback” as part of your quality assurance guarantee changes the focus to a customer benefit. And we found far more customers willingly provide their comments (reviews) about your business when presented to them in this way.

In our experience customers of the average shop will provide positive feedback 99.9% percent of the time. And that positive feedback can be used as great customer testimonials that can be used to boost your website search ranking, customer trust, and increase advertising response.

Often businesses think they are doing what customers want, but don’t really know if they are doing a good job. They shouldn’t wait until they get an angry, negative review to find problems. It’s too late then!

Businesses need to ask the customer how they truly feel about the service they are getting. And ask in a way that the customer doesn’t feel pressured. Our system allows you to find unhappy customers BEFORE they express their anger publicly. This allows you to catch problems, fix the customer’s issue, prevent an damaging negative review, and retain the customer (the real, costly loss).

To get honest, candid customer feedback you need an automated system that asks customers for their comments in a convenient, appropriate way. Feedback requests must not be seen as annoying, or just another marketing pitch!

Customers will open up to you if they feel if it is in their benefit, their comments will actually be heard, and acted on, and in a sincere and timely fashion. Your customers can be your best business advisors.

One of the most surprising benefits of regularly requesting customer feedback is finding the little things that irritate your customers. Those little things that annoy people, but not enough for them to say something to your face. Or for the business to know about. Finding and correcting these little annoyances can be the easiest way to longer customer retention, business growth, and greater profitability.

Feedback can also help you spot problem employees. If you are a remote business manager keeping “hands-on” control can be very difficult. Employees can hide problems for a long time until issues explode. If you encourage feedback from your customers they can act as your front line business monitors.

Once customers see the benefit and get comfortable with expressing their feelings they will share their dis-satisfaction, even if minor, in a much “nicer” way. This allows you to correct little annoyances early, maintain stronger customer relationships, and prevent lost customers.

Requesting feedback will also protect your business from those reputation damaging online reviews that come out of nowhere. Most customer relationships die from many small cuts that business managers are unaware of… They build up until anger reaches the breaking point and you loose twice: a bad review and a lost customer. Ouch!

The other major benefit seen from customer feedback was an increase in advertising response. Now days the first thing potential new customers do after seeing any advertisement you use, or even word-of-mouth from current customers, is to check your online reputation.

Having testimonials on your website, and getting those “reviews”, that you control, listed above third party review websites, will greatly improve how your advertising works. And this reputation reinforcement works with “any” type of advertising.
A good customer feedback system can be the most economical and effective way to grow your business. Just gathering reviews is short changing your efforts.

Hope this helps,
Doug

[dougfentiman]

WhatsMySERP.com can provide a great deal of insight into how your business is presented in search results. Also allows you to compare your business to competitors.

Here are some additional keyword phrases to check where your business is positioned in search results. Enter these into WhatsMySERP.com tool to see how/where your business is listed.

I see too many shop owners who only check “auto repair shop” in their city. That is a very limited view of how their business is listed and found through search engines. There are a huge variety of questions and search terms people can use to find your business. And if the information is not on your website search engines will not display your listing.

Remember that search engines have become very sophisticated in how they “understand” search questions. They go far beyond keyword exact match. Just because you have exact match for the search term it doesn’t mean your listing will be shown.

Search results position is very complex and involves MANY factors to get onto first page results. The focus of modern search engines is knowledge. Keywords have become so abused they play a very small part in how your business is listed. The days of just having a “brake repair” page with a list of keywords and your phone number are long gone… Much more work is required to get good listing positions for specific services and products. Especially if you have online competition from other shops in your area.

GENERAL AUTO SERVICE KEYWORDS:

• include your city and two letter state code to get accurate local search results (e.g. ‘auto repair shops lansing mi’ or ‘auto repair shops [city] [state code]’ ).
• watch that your keywords don’t overlap with other industries. Air conditioning service is prime example. Search engines have difficult time understanding if person wants AC service for their car, or house… need to include additional keywords to provide more accurate results that your customers are looking for.

auto air conditioning recharge
auto air conditioning repair
auto air conditioning service
auto repair shops
best auto repair shop
brake repair cost
brake repair shops
brake replacement cost
car air conditioning recharge
car air conditioning repair
car air conditioning service
check engine light repair
cooling system leak repair
fuel pump replacement cost
timing belt replacement price
tune up
wheel alignment cost
wheel alignment service
wheel alignment shops

VEHICLE MAKE:
Audi service
BMW service
Dodge ram cummins oil change
Ford powerstroke headgasket replacement
Honda timing belt replacement

LOCATION PAGES

• location pages are used to give search engines a strong signal of where you are located. This is very important for businesses like auto repair shops who have a limited customer catchment area (usually 10 miles).
• generally you should be listed for ‘auto repair shop’ (without using ‘city’ ‘state’ modifiers) on any computer located in your town. Check your shop to be sure (see ‘Tip’ below about being logged out of your Google account when searching). If you aren’t listed for this basic keyword phrase your website has serious problems.
• In large sprawling cities, if you are located a long distance from the center of the city you will have more difficulty getting into the select two or three listings in Google Map listings. Location pages can help.
• if you are in large city you may get better listings if you use the name of your neighborhood rather than the city name. In many large cities shops can have 10’s if not 100’s of competitors. There are only 10 listings on page one… it can be a struggle to even get onto page one let alone into the sweet spots at top or bottom of page one listings. You should use a separate “location” page for your neighborhood.
• if you are in a small town surrounded by many other small towns (e.g. New York Long Island area) you may have to create “location” pages for each town you want to be listed for and attract customers from.
• You will only be listed in Google Map (local) search box for the city you are located in. Just the way Google works. Sometimes Google gets confused and location pages are the only way to increase “signal” of where you are located. Location pages are the only way to get organic listing for towns outside your city.
• Search engines use the searcher’s Internet service provider’s location (IP address) so they can provide local listings. With many small towns their Internet service provider may be located in next town or long distance away. If your website content is not optimized for your town the search results people see may be inaccurate. I have seen cases where business have very difficult time getting their business to rise above competitors in towns closer to Internet service provider for local area.
• searches on mobile device will see very different results than desktop computers. That is because cell service towers are usually very close to any town/city.

TIPS:

• if you are looking at your search results in Google make sure you are logged out of your Google account. Google will use info from your personal account to change search results (especially local or map listing results). This will be different than what your customers may see.
• You want to be listed in the top three or bottom three positions of page one. Dead zone is in the middle. Page two and beyond you are wasting your time and money… Most websites are nothing more than an expensive online brochure if they aren’t listed in the zone where potential customers are looking.
• The longer and more descriptive the search phrase used, the closer the person is to buying. Generally longer search phrases are better.
• Search terms to avoid when selling service: part pricing, “how to” instructions. They are probably DIY searching for information and not the customers you want.
• Use keywords (questions) an average vehicle owner would use, not technical terms those in the auto industry would use. Remember your average customer is not an auto repair technician. Take your technician hat off and put on your ‘customer’ hat. Think like a customer looking for your services. For example vehicle owners will use “tune up” when they have a rough running or performance problem. Tune up is a very entrenched phrase in consumer minds. Very few vehicle owners know or use the term ‘diagnosis’…
• website content needs to be long enough that search engines can understand what the topic is about. They analyze the page and decide what the main topic is, give it a quality rating, and then use that to match the page to questions about that topic. In some cases you will need 1,500 or more words on a page. Quality counts very highly. Photos and video can help raise your page position if in a competitive city and for competitive service like oil change or brake repair.
• every website should have Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools installed. They allow you to see which keywords people are using to find your listings, your listing position, and which pages could benefit from improvement and optimization.

Hope this helps,
Doug

[dougfentiman]

Owner supplied parts, and the warranty issues they can cause, are a great source of reputation destroying negative reviews. Just like doing sub-standard “patch-up” repairs. You do the person a favor but if something goes wrong you are going to be held responsible regardless of the warnings… one of my clients calls them “snake bite” customers. Give them a chance and these customers will bite you!

After years of me telling this shop it was better to pass on people who don’t want to do business your way. The reputation damage these jobs caused has taken years to overcome. Zero income is better than spending on warranty work. That money is better spent on marketing for quality customers…

[dougfentiman]

Quick oil change business has been doing premium or tiered pricing like this for a long time. They are almost always much higher priced than independent service shops. The attraction for vehicle owners is convenience of no appointment and short wait times. Many auto owners are willing to pay a premium for the time savings. But not all. Making it an optional service is good business. But you must deliver what you promise!

Maybe premium pricing could be charged for “canned jobs” that have tightly specified service and drop in service. An even higher rate for set appointments and guaranteed time delivery.

I used to charge higher rate (overtime or rush-rate) for customers who wanted “rush” jobs, remote break-down service, over-night service, etc. Also premium for expedited parts delivery such as air freight, courier, and even cabs sent to get parts…

Average vehicle owner would rarely make time an issue when it would cost more. They always wanted faster service for free. Offering expedited service as an option often ended their complaints. Businesses and fleet owners would often gladly pay extra to get money making equipment back in operation.

[dougfentiman]

When looking for a website developer the first mistake businesses make is not defining what a “good” website is. A “good looking” website does not mean it will be a good marketing tool.

The biggest, and most common, mistake is focusing on visual “look” and ignoring the content. It is the text and photos about you on your website that answer questions people have about your business… not fancy graphics or a logo. Some of the simplest, plainest websites, with great content, generate the most new customers.

Good websites focus on answering the concerns of new customers to help them gain the confidence to phone you. Without a doubt it is the website content that makes a website the best.

From my experience business owners choose website providers who offer “quick and easy” websites. They don’t want to contribute the content that tells the all important story that prospective customers desire to feel confident in deciding to become a customer. Cookie cutter website that don’t really say anything personal about the business simply don’t work from an advertising and sales perspective. Business owners can’t blame the website provider if they don’t provide the information to create a good website…

The second big mistake business owners make is viewing a website as a stand alone, do-it-all marketing tool. Websites must be seen as just a part of 3 key elements in overall marketing.

To make ANY type of marketing work you need:
A – Awareness (advertising)
B – Background (your ‘who, what, where’ story on your website)
C – Credibility (reviews – what customers say about you that supports your claims)

Advertising makes people aware of you. Your website is your business “resume”. It should be the final destination of any advertising. Your customer reviews & testimonials are your “references”.

Anyone who has done any automotive performance tuning knows that the end result depends on the “combination” of parts and not any one part in isolation… You need to view your website as just part of your marketing. A very important part that won’t work just on its own!

EVERY business needs a website that tells their story in a captivating way. It needs to make them stand out from their competitors and make people want to be a customer. No matter what type of advertising you do prospective new customers will find their way to your website. What they see there will help them decide whether or not to phone you.

Another mistake is not viewing website content and SEO as SEPARATE functions. SEO is just another form of advertising. It gets your business in front of people searching for what you sell. These people are often much more serious about finding what they need. This is one of the reasons Internet marketing can be so effective (but only IF they find what they are looking for on your website)!

But SEO may not work for your business (too few customers online in your local area, too large a market area, too many competitors, etc). Like any advertising you must find what works for your business and local market. Test. Test. Test. Don’t guess. Advertising, of any type, is too expensive to keep doing something that doesn’t work!

Bottom line is creating a website that serves your prospective new customers, drive them to it with advertising, whatever works in your case, and close the sale with a great online reputation. Work to perfect the combination that works for you.

Find a developer who is willing to work with you to get that 3 step marketing process sorted out. If you are looking for quick and easy don’t expect good results. Get involved, do your part. If you don’t your competitors will.

[dougfentiman]

You also have to consider the market you are swimming in.

I fully agree with Andrew. I have clients who get 50 – 60 new customers a month from Yelp (big university town), but many more that get nothing. All depends on the city you are located in. Generally, big city, yes; small town, no. Like any marketing you need to test it. What works for others doesn’t mean it will work for you.

BUT, with Yelp’s renewed presence in Google listings you should (must) have a fully optimized free listing on Yelp. With their top listings in Google search there is good opportunity for people to go onto Yelp and find your listing. Research ‘Barnacle SEO’ for why being listed on other websites is important.

[dougfentiman]

Also, there are many, many types of SEO. Each depends on what your want to achieve and whether it will provide a Return On Investment. The main types of SEO are your business name, services/products, vehicle types, and location SEO.

1. The absolute minimum SEO any website should have is having your website in #1 spot when people search for your business name or phone number. Yes, I still see many websites that don’t rank well for even their business name or phone number… and not just DIY websites! Any website developer can easily do this with basic understanding of SEO. Check out how your business is listed by doing a simple search yourself. Your website homepage should be #1. Your citations and directory listing have major effect on this. Your reviews/testimonials page on your website should be #1 when you search for your ‘business name + reviews’. If not your website and SEO has problems. That being said keep in mind that SEO changes rapidly and websites quickly become obsolete.
2. IF you want to be listed for specific services in search results you need a separate page for each service or product. General “services” pages just don’t work in competitive markets. The narrower the topic of the page, e.g. “brake repair” vs “auto repair”, the greater value search engines award the page and stronger the SEO will be. The page should have details about what YOU do when providing that service (what makes you a better choice over your competitors), typical problems specific to that service (things people will search for), any options in how the job is done and parts used (OEM vs aftermarket, etc). Photos that are correctly tagged and named will both add SEO strength to the page and make it more interesting to people. Keep in mind that the longer readers spend on a page the greater the value awarded to the page. Longer pages with INTERESTING content and photos rank significantly higher in search results!!!
3. Being listed in Local Search results box requires different SEO than general organic listings. Local SEO focuses on optimizing for search in your local area. This is becoming more important as more people use mobile devices to search.
4. Search results are VERY localized. The distance you are from the city center has an impact on how you are listed (especially in Local Search box results). In big cities you may have to do a lot more SEO to get anywhere near the front page. Just a fact of more competition. For example, for any city there are only 3 listings in the Local Search box. Not that difficult in a town with only 5 shops, but a city like Dallas, TX still only has 3 listing in the Local box and 10 organic listings on page one. Competition can be fierce. Often you are forced to use paid ads to get onto page one and get any response.
5. Getting listed for surrounding cities/towns can be a challenge. You won’t get into Google’s Local Search results for any town other than your own, and for organic search results you will need a separate page for each town on your website. Might also need to get links from other businesses located in each town if you have competition in those towns with strong web marketing.

[dougfentiman]

Here is another free tool for checking your Google position for specific keywords. Good way to check your SEO.
http://www.whatsmyserp.com/

[dougfentiman]

Hi Fred,

To answer your question about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), my first reply is that SEO works well for many, but doesn’t work for every shop. In fact for many shops it is a total waste of marketing dollars.

There is little point in spending on SEO if there are not enough people searching online for your services to make the investment worthwhile (think small town vs big city). Good way to test is with Google Adwords. If you get good response to your ads then invest in SEO. Adwords are a quick test, but very expensive in long run. SEO is long term investment. Good SEO that is…

And you need to do the correct SEO to actually make it work. Doing only part of the SEO puzzle, or doing in wrong order, is a huge waste of dollars. Do it right or you will waste you money and spend more in long run.

EVERY business is different and cookie cutter SEO has little value. You need someone who can look at your situation (SEO audit) and work out best approach for your business.

All too often people start spending on SEO before getting other more important parts of their marketing in order first. There is little point in attracting people to your website if it doesn’t have the information people are looking for.

People follow a basic process when shopping for auto repair:

ABC’s of Marketing:

A – Attract customers (advertising & promotion).

B – Background (your story: who, what, how about your business).

C – Credibility (your online reputation – customer reviews).

How To:

#1) Get your online reputation in order. Customer reviews are “proof” of your claims or story. Your reputation is the reason people will phone you. Think trust building. Don’t focus on just reviews. Customer satisfaction and feedback are more important. Need to catch unhappy customers BEFORE they become negative reviews and the reputation damage that does. Get your business management right and positive reviews will come naturally.

#2) Get your website in order. Help people understand who you are, not just what you do. Long term, loyal customers build “relationships” with people, not tool boxes. Show and tell them about the ‘people’ in your business. And how your customers will be treated.

#3) Find advertising that attracts your type of customer. Not all types of advertising works for everyone. You need to test (try) to know what works for YOU.

Advertising is all about attracting new customers who want your services.

SEO is just another form of advertising. It is only one way to attract new customers.

Like other forms of advertising SEO doesn’t work in all cases.

Regardless of what advertising you do people will check out your website.

The final decision to become your customer depends on your online reputation.

Hope this helps.

[dougfentiman]

Now that Google has moved almost everything to Google Plus it has made fixing bugs much easier. Once you have verified your ownership of a page they will help you solve problems. Getting issues corrected is in their interests also. As said by others there is great value in what Google is providing for “free” and we just have to work within those limitations.

Biggest problem I see when doing Google page optimization work are duplicate pages for same business and businesses that either copy and post reviews, or have customers post reviews from computers in their shop. Bad, bad, bad. If you mess with reviews too much Google will just hide all your reviews when their SPAM flags are triggered.

Reviews are very important for supporting your online reputation and gives a strong SEO signal for your website and local search results.

[dougfentiman]

Big tip is do all you can to avoid bad reviews in the first place! Doing that is mostly improving your customer communications skills and being very clear with what you do and don’t do. Clear expectations and no surprises is key.

Not much you can do once bad reviews are online. Best advice is to take the issue off-line and try to make the customer happy. Often they will go back and change their review. Comes right back to communications… If you can’t contact the person then you need to write a careful reply. Prospective new customers will use your reply to judge how you will react if (when) things go sideways. You don’t want to be defensive or blame the customer. That only makes you look worse. Sometimes getting an outside 3rd party to act as mediator and write a bad review reply. Contact me if you need help with a particularly bad one.

All too often customers don’t want to experience having to ask for warranty (fighting for satisfaction) so they just go away angry. Online reviews are just a place they can vent that anger without getting into a fight. If they know you
actually “want” to know if they are not totally happy they are usually
much more willing to let you know something is not right with the work
that was done. Proactively seeking feedback is a strong signal of trust.

The secret to avoiding bad reviews is that shops have to be actively seeking customer feedback so they can catch service failures before people vent their displeasure online. The shops who actively seek customer feedback have almost zero problems with bad reviews. But auto repairs being what it is (complicated, expensive, & unwanted) you will always have service failures… What you need to do is have a safety net to catch the cases that blow up. I have been working on a system to capture unhappy customers BEFORE they vent their frustration online.

My system works by placing a simple form on your website that ALL customers are directed to by the SA. some shops use a small card they place in every vehicle and staple to every invoice that asks people for feedback and provides a link to your website. They are asked to simply rate their experience on a scale of 5. Based on their rating it directs them to where they can leave feedback to you: if they provide a low rating (dissatisfied) they are channeled to a review/feedback form on your website where you can moderate before their comments get published online (captures bad reviews); if their rating is high (happy) they are presented with option to post review on your website or any other review website (G+, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc).

SA’s like it because it is quick & easy to explain to customers, customers like it because it is simple & easy to use (and shows your commitment to their satisfaction), shop owners like it because it captures unhappy customers BEFORE they post bad reviews online. The bonus is all the additional reviews the shop gets which increase your online reputation (trust factor) and SEO improvement for your website.

[dougfentiman]

Check out Chicago Lube . They seem to have overcome many of the obstacles of working on-site by having a mobile shop on a trailer: proper lift, full array of tools, stock of fast moving parts, sub-floor to catch dirt and liquid spills, lift up doors provide weather protection which can be easily supplemented with awnings/tents, etc. Solves many of the problems of working outside of fixed location shop and messiness of auto repair work. Not sure how they cope with eastern winter weather? Tenting and space heaters? Having worked as a technician in northern climate (5-10F) I can say that being in a fixed shop does not mean it is a warm place to work in winter…

Most interesting is their marketing approach where they align themselves with corporate offices in a win-win arrangement. Convenient for office employees and employer cuts down on late and absent employees who must take time from work hours to get auto serviced or repaired.

Also greatly increases efficiency of service by cutting out huge overhead expense of moving mobile shop from location to location and having an organized workplace for technician.

In my opinion shops needed to start thinking about innovative ways to make their service truly convenient for the customer…
Be interesting to hear from Chicago Lube’s owner.

[dougfentiman]

Zed’s suggestions are great!

Photos are one of the biggest influences on people’s first impressions of your business. I’d add that using a quality camera can really help. Don’t use a mobile phone or tablet! Most mobile phones create poor quality images that no amount of Photoshop work can fix.

I am constantly amazed at the poor photos shop owners want to use to represent themselves… I can spend hours writing a great description of a shop but no one will get to the point of reading it if the shop photos are out of focus, have poor exposure, or show a run down building with a lot full of junk vehicles…

If you don’t have the photo skills or equipment it doesn’t cost that much to hire a pro photographer. The results can make a HUGE difference.

[dougfentiman]

Some comments based on what I have seen:

• actively pursuing Facebook ‘Likes’ is not worth the effort for general auto repair shops. For the time required to do it well there are more productive forms of marketing you can spend your time on.
• general repair shops can use Facebook to maintain current customer relationships. It is not so good for attracting new customers. The effort to get to point where you have enough “friends” to make new contacts often does not justify the effort to build that network.
• Facebook can work very well for specialty shops that can develop a ‘community’ of enthusiastic followers. Performance shops are a good example. Photos, videos, and sport news give you lots of content that people are actually interested in. So difficult to come up with content that general vehicle owners are sincerely interested in… they just don’t care.

[dougfentiman]

A book suggestion is “It’s Called Work for A Reason!: Your Success Is Your own Damn Fault” by Larry Winget.

Every new employee should be given a copy and required to read it… Maybe give job candidates a copy and ask them if they still want to “work” for you… be a good way to weed out the dead wood.

Having been a public school teacher I believe values come mostly from home. and are established very young. Almost impossible for schools to change kids values. And especially when not supported by bone head parents… Sadly many (most?) parents aren’t doing a good job of raising their kids. But society has such a huge influence that it is difficult for even concerned parents to positively influence their children. So difficult for young people to not be affected.

[dougfentiman]

Hi Gary,

Nice basic site. Seems to be built well from a technical perspective. An improvement would be more personal content about the nature and character of your business and, even more importantly, the people who run it. People connect with people not the “business”. Things to focus on are About Us page, photos of staff and more details on their skills; Why people should chose you over your competitors; What is your value proposition (why people deal with you)? Highlight your shop with photos to satisfy prospective customer’s curiosity. Rather than just a shopping list of auto repair services you provide highlight the benefits of the services you provide. Also needs grammar edits. Like many websites it is written from the perspective of the web developer describing your company (third person), rather than from perspective of “you” describing your business.

Gary Armando wrote:

> A lot of the things that are on it I don’t like from a technician’s viewpoint (IE Picture of diesel injection pump, some of the services listed).

The big mistake most business owners make is to build a website that satisfies what they like (their needs) rather than what their customers want (customer needs). Shop owners typically want photos of car parts and to use technical terms and jargon when describing their services. Problem is that the average vehicle owner couldn’t recognize a brake rotor from a fuel injector if it hit them in the head. Build your website for your customers not yourself.

One of the most difficult things for all business owners is put themselves in the shoes of their customers. To help you make this difficult mind shift ask yourself how you feel, and how you act, when you need to purchase something you are not familiar with. It is a very uncomfortable feeling. And I place heavy emphasis on ‘feeling’ because that emotion is what people base their decisions on. Emotions are what motivate people to act. Picture yourself in a city where you don’t know anyone and you need to quickly make a purchase of something with either a high cost (e.g. transmission repair) or something that deeply affects you personally (e.g. hair cut). Prospective new customers will base their purchase decision on what they see on your website and how it makes them FEEL. Marketing is all about feelings, relationship building, and establishing trust. This is why online reviews have become SO important. Marketing needs to appeal to and satisfy emotions.

The number one purpose of your website is to create a connection and build trust with the viewer (your prospective customer). Everything on your website, including photos, should resonate with the average non-technical vehicle owner and communicate a BENEFIT for them. If not it just frustrates people and kills the sales process. For everything on your website ask yourself “What does this say to my customer? Can they understand it without being a wrench head? How does this make them feel? What benefit do they see in it?” If it makes your customers feel dumb, insecure, untrusting they won’t become your customer. Have you ever shopped for a computer and had some pimple faced kid overwhelm you with techno babble that totally turned you off? Auto repair shops often do the same thing. Talk at a level the customer understands.

Gary Armando wrote:

> He told me not to worry we will review the performance in a few months.

Be careful of placing too much importance on website traffic statistics. Website traffic is great but SEO can be a total waste if the traffic doesn’t convert into customers. The only true measure of website performance is customer contact. Best way to do that is with a phone tracking number, and count of emails requests from new customers for estimates and appointments.

Gary Armando wrote:

> The good thing is that it is getting the phone to ring.

Big question is whether this is due to new website content, better SEO (better position in search engine results), or just having a website now (you didn’t say if you had previous website). Be interesting to compare website analytics between old and new websites to find out what is making the phone ring. And do more of that…

[dougfentiman]

Joe Valind wrote:

> > Larry Bloodworth wrote:

> > > I believe running a logo of a carmaker that may hold water, but just the name, I disagree.

> Tom Ham wrote:

> > As I understand it, you can use the brand name if you do not use the logo and do not use their fonts and colors when you list the name (their fonts and colors are trademarked just like the logo). This would go for anything from signs to uniforms to website to print ads, etc. Also cannot say “authorized service” or similar language.

> > If someone knows differently, please respond.

> Tom,

> My Google PPC ad was just denied because I used “Lexus” in it.

> Here’s a copy and paste of why google disapproved it.

> •Your ad has been disapproved because it contains a trademarked term: Lexus.

> My Honda, Acura and Toyota ads have been approved and are running however.

I have had Toyota and Lexus denied. Honda and Acura are OK at this time.

Google has very specific trademark rules and it is worth reading them carefully. They send me a very stern 2nd warning to DELETE any ad containing a trademark. ‘Pausing’ while I read the “fine print” was not good enough and said that not following their order was grounds for cancelling your account…

[dougfentiman]

Larry Bloodworth wrote:

> I believe running a logo of a carmaker that may hold water, but just the name, I disagree. To believe that is essentially to believe in the mattress police. You know, the cops that arrest you for tearing off the label off the end of your mattress under penalty of federal law. Yeah, right.

Google will reject your ad if a trademark is used anywhere in a text ad AND the trademark owner has filed a formal trademark claim/dispute. This is why you can use some vehicle names but not others (I expect all manufacturers will file a claim very soon). But you are allowed to use trademarks as a keyword.

> We spend about $8/click, $4K/mo. with Google alone and have about a 2.4%CTR and our average position is 1.

Of the clicks you what percentage would contact you?

What percentage would become a paying customer?

I can’t say how it would work for general repair, but for the transmission business, it works like gangbusters.

From my experience it is easier to target a specialty service or specific vehicle make. General repair has so many more keywords and requires a lot more work to optimize them all for higher quality score and lower bid prices.

[dougfentiman]

Alan Ollie Gelfand Pres. wrote:

> My shop is VW Audi only so it makes it easier to target campaigns.

Thanks for your comments Ollie,

Google will not allow references to VW/Audi, Toyota/Lexus, BMW, and Ford in ads due to trademark challenges from vehicle manufactuers.

Have you found not being able to use VW/Audi in your ads impacted your ad response?

I suspect all manufacturers will soon act to protect their brands. Makes it difficult to advertise for independant shops who specialize in specific makes.

Anyone else run into trademark problems with advertising?

[dougfentiman]

Larry Bloodworth wrote:

> I know what you mean. I just came back from a marketing symposium in Monterey, CA. and I was surprised only about 50 people were there.

From my experience marketing is “the” weakest point in most small businesses. Especially in the service industries. They seem to view marketing as an “expense” rather than a profit center…

> This guy charges $5K for a website and $300/mo. web hosting makes it sound like he’s good. It’s sad to see stuff like that. The SEO/SEM field didn’t exist in the 90’s and now it’s a multi-billion dollar business.

Depends on what you get for that amount. $5K is not a lot in many non-auto repair website development projects I have worked on. $300 is high for “hosting”, but if it includes web hosting, email server hosting, CMS maintenance and security updates, plus ongoing SEO and website optimization it could be viewed as a good deal. Website ‘packages’ are apples and oranges and really need close, fair comparison.

> As a business owner, it’s my job to make the phone ring and people comee in the door.

I wish more shop owners had this attitude. Most are too busy “in the shop” rather than running the ‘business’. No wonder most struggle to show a profit… If they were “businessmen” they would be in their office with the door closed figuring out how to get more customers in the door. That is their true responsibility.

> That includes SEO/SEM. As an update to what I posted 6 months ago, we now spend $5K/mo. on our online efforts.

> We’re on track to do $1.5M in sales this year out of our 4-bay shop. A large part of that is due to our online marketing activities.

Impressive results! SEO/SEM is do-able on your own but does take time to learn. Shop owners are notorious for having a DIY mentality and I wonder if they would be better off hiring out their marketing and focusing on shop management, customer relations, and driving their referral business. Keeping your customers is much cheaper than finding new ones… (Although shops with high customer turnovers, like transmission shops, rely on a steady stream of new customers.)

[dougfentiman]

Spencer deCordre wrote:

> Above you mention spammers. I have witnessed three businesses attacked by bad reviews by people that have not used the services of the place they are reviewing.

>

> Next in one week I am received two calls from two different services that monitor a company’s reviews and pumps them up (for a fee) with good reviews when a poor review is posted and/or it’s been a certian length of time since your last review.

>

> My wife and I have started to put a lot less weight on reviews in light of what I just mention. How sad…

>

Google and other review websites are getting better at weeding out the bogus reviews so don’t get discouraged. The worst thing you can do is ignore your online reputation! You can’t control what people say about you but you CAN control how YOU respond.

Any business will have the odd service failure and if you get nailed with a poor review you can turn it into a positive by showing that you are human and how you back up your work. A business with nothing but 5 star ratings looks suspicious… No one expects you to be perfect. What they want to know is HOW you will act IF something goes wrong! That is called trust building.

[dougfentiman]

Bump…

Nobody from AMN uses Adwords?

Non-AMN survey submissions show:

-general frustration in time requirements to manage effectively.

-can be a huge failure if not setup correctly.

-Adwords ‘Express’ is a dud. Google is happy to take your money to get you started but then ignore the account. (What would you expect for nothing…) Mostly a big sink hole of $$$ without active management.

-ad spend of <$300 requires average of 2 hours per week to self management.

-ad spend of $1,000 -> $2,500 requires average of 5 hours per week to self manage at a minimum.

-landing pages have HUGE impact on conversion rate (views compared to phone calls) and what the ads cost (Google Quality Score).

-ad text writing has Huge effect on click through rate.

-Adwords works VERY well when you get it dialed in…

[dougfentiman]

Some very good points about paid ads Larry. The disturbing part is that no one has payed any attention to your post in over six months…

Larry Bloodworth wrote:

> If I hear one more SEO/SEM guru talk about “traffic” ,”clicks”, “visits”, or “being at the top of the organic listing” I’m going to puke. It’s total unadulterated meaningless hogwash to me.

Bang on! And it should be hogwash to everyone. Sadly SEO has been overrun with scam artists and has got a very bad name. As you said traffic without conversion is worthless. I recently saw a comment in one of the SEO “specialists” forums from an unscrupulous SEO provider who was bragging about charging some naive soul $1000/month for SEO and all he was doing was posting a couple of bogus ads on some Groupon knockoff deal-of-the-day website. The ads almost instantly increased website hits 100 fold and the website owner was thrilled. Probably cost him at least a few grand before he figured out the hits were worthless.

The other one that drives me nuts is their “top position” guarantees. When they phone me, yes they even phone me, I usually have some fun and ask them for what keywords their guarantee applies to. Most say your business name. It is a sad website indeed that won’t rank for top spot on the businesses name. Even worse some of them don’t even understand my question…

Larry Bloodworth wrote:

“A phone call IS the definition of a conversion in our business.”

I can’t agree with you more. But don’t discount inquiries from your website contact form or estimate form as a conversion. Sure email adds another step or two to the contact process, but if you handle them correctly email leads will result in a connection through the phone.

One caution about using tracking phone numbers on your website. Since search engines are now placing great emphasis on your business “citation” (your business name, address, and phone number) for website ranking, using more than one phone number consistently throughout your website (or anywhere on the web) will seriously harm your website search ranking. Tracking numbers should NOT be used on any website that is aimed at organic search. Tracking phone numbers should ONLY be used on ad landing pages which are blocked from indexing by search engines.

If I am not mistaken you are using separate landing pages for your Google ads on which each have a different phone tracking number. This is the best way to do it. And to prevent harming your SEO these pages should all use a noindex directive for search engines (both on the page and in a robots.txt file) so search engines will ignore the association between your business name and the different tracking numbers. The other method to hide tracking numbers from search engines is to place them in a graphic image (picture) which is displayed on the page. People don’t know the difference and search engines can’t “read” the number on the image (yet…)

So What Is A Website Good For?

I too have been questioning the value of websites for pure search marketing. I forecast that very soon websites will play a very different role in small service business marketing (auto repair included). I feel auto repair search marketing will have three essential parts: 1) a company website to communicate who you are and the “benefits” you offer (not just a list of services…); 2) public reviews (e.g. Google Reviews) to create the trust people need (want) to see before doing business with you; 3) and paid ads from Google AdWords or Microsoft AdCenter to attract your new customers.

Like a three leg chair, if any one “leg” is weak, the chair will not “perform” as it could. So to answer my question of what a website is good for, your website should provide the background and details about you that people want to know. Your website is your brand evangelist and the only content and SEO needed is to support your business name (brand). Once your website is setup correctly you won’t need to spend on expensive organic search SEO. All your website needs to rank for is your business name.

Search engines, especially Google, are rapidly and radically changing how they rank and position websites (yes the spammers and con artists are spoiling the web. Oh, and don’t forget the greed of search engines . With search engine’s growing emphasis on keyword focused website content and off website SEO for search ranking the average small business will find it increasingly difficult to afford the expense of getting AND maintaining the top search positions required to attract new customers with organic search. In comparison paid ads will be the only way to get the results you need. And if you like conspiracy theories maybe that is Google’s plan… since they do make the bulk of their profits from their paid ad networks…

At first glance Google AdWords looks expensive. But if you nail down the lifetime value of a new customer, and what it costs to attract each customer, it makes spending on these ads so much easier. There are a number of shops here on the forum that are experiencing great success all thanks to paid ads. Its sad that more people aren’t investigating their use.

[dougfentiman]

I have created a PPC survey where you can enter your numbers anonymously. This way we can share without disclosing private business numbers.

Even if you are not using paid ads please take a few minutes to complete the survey. Should only take you a couple of minutes.

I will publish anonymous survey results back to the forum.

http://robertmaxim.com/849-ppc-ad-management-survey.htm

[dougfentiman]

Bump…

an old post that would be still interesting. Too bad there wasn’t a way for people to provide numbers without identifing themselves…

[dougfentiman]

Matthew Lee wrote:

> I don’t want to take the wind out of your sails,

Matthew: we are all here to help each other so no need to poke me in the eye..

but the only caution

> I typically advise about hyphenated domain names is that if you have

> to give somebody the address in a conversation or over the phone, it

> becomes cumbersome. You have to include all the ‘dashes’ and that can

> be confusing to some. (People ask if that’s the forward slash or stuff

> like that – also depends on the user) But if you’re using it on a

> sign, you’re right, it is probably easier to remember.

>

> For long names, although not too common, another good idea is to break

> the names or words up using different colors. It makes those long

> names almost instantly identifiable.

I should have made it clearer that the hyphenated domain name would be second domain name that is only used on signs or vehicles and redirects to the main domain name. Research shows that from a distance black on white text (high contrast) with domain name words separated by dashes are far easier to read, and remember, than any other form.. even color.

> One last matter is the issue of Mobile Websites. With the overwhelming

> use of smart phones (I saw a stat that claims there are about 3-4x as

> many web-enabled smart phones as desk top computers in the world) you

> really need to rethink your web presence. Yes, you need a regular

> website. But in most cases, they are not easy to read on an iPhone

> screen. Above that, your mobile site doesn’t need as much info. You

> can create a site with just the facts, ma’am… just the facts. Then

> include a link to the regular site (and vica versa) so that you’re

> not making mobile users load huge pages (that they won’t wait for

> anyway).

Everyone is ramping up the spin on mobile but like any business decision you really need to look at the numbers and see if it will benefit your particular case. Before spending on a mobile site check your website usage stats and see just how many of your users are using a mobile device. From what I am seeing the percentage of mobile visitors is quite low (<10% average) and a quality built website works fine for the person just looking for your phone number. The only clients I have that justified a dedicated mobile site were located near university/colleges or high tech business parks and had mobile use pushing +40% of website visitors. Any business decision should be based on numbers not the latest fad… also, by the time you truely need mobile functionality, separate mobile sites will be obsolete due to standard websites being able to automatically adapt to the device they are being viewed with. That is available now and should be common in 1-2 years.

By all means if your usage numbers support it a dedicated mobile site will see your page views and time on site numbers go way up for mobile users. Also, your website should detect the device the users is landing on your website with and automatically redirect them to the mobile site. Making mobile users download your full size homepage and hunt for a link to your mobile website is a show stopper.

[dougfentiman]

Unfortunately Aaron if you are not careful how you handle this situation no one will win. You will lose a good customer, to say nothing of your reputation, and your customer will lose their trusted repair shop. Ignoring all the technical aspects of how difficult this problem was to diagnose, the customer’s view, whether they express it or not, is that you made a mistake and they should not have to pay for the fallout. Right or wrong you will be held responsible. You’re going to lose a bunch of money on this one and your only decision is if it will continue to harm your bottom-line into the future.

In my opinion asking him to pay for anything to do with the head-gasket diagnosis would be a bad move. This will only make him feel wronged and could lead to litigation if he is offended enough. If you can’t convince him what you did was justified you haven’t much hope of convincing a judge…

If you make him pay for any diagnosis you risk loosing a good customer and anyone associated with him. But the big hit will be to your reputation which could suffer a serious black eye if he takes his displeasure online with a negative comment about you. Social Media gives people a powerful voice when they feel unfairly treated. This is a case where no matter how you defend or justify the work you did the average person will not understand the technical difficulties of the diagnosis and find you guilty. And this black mark will live online, damaging your reputation and costing you forever. Forget about even breaking even on this one. You’re in recovery mode now.

The only way to partially recover from this one would be to positively identify the cause of the leak. After two head-gaskets the block and cylinder head are still highly suspect. Maybe do a very careful pressure test to rule out everything else and positively identify the cylinder. Then pull the engine, strip it, chemical clean both, have block deck and head surfaces carefully checked for flatness and warping, and non-destructive test for cracks. Find a shop that knows what they are doing. Look for someone who does heavy marine, diesel, or aircraft work. When people’s lives rely on the work they do the quality of work goes way up. And yes you will pay a lot more than your average auto machine shop but that is the price of high quality work required in this case. One big plus for pursuing the correct diagnosis would be saving your reputation. If you don’t the customer will always wonder if they truly needed a new engine…

Only when the problem is positively identified could you ask the customer to pay for a portion of the diagnosis. But even then, the inconvenience cost to the customer may far out weight what little diagnosis costs you may get from him. In the end asking him to pay for any diagnosis will put your relationship at great risk. You have damaged their trust in you and writing off the diagnosis cost would be a goodwill sign to them that you respect them and want to keep them as a customer.

Building, nurturing, and protecting your online presence and, especially, your online reputation must be at the top of your business mission statement. Everyone in your business, from the person who answers the phone to the technicians who do the repair work, must be aware of how their actions can impact your online reputation and how important it is to their livelihood.

[dougfentiman]

Speaking of tips and signs, I am always surprised at businesses that do not include their website address on their signs. And if they do have it listed, it is more of an afterthought squeezed in at the bottom in small font rather than being as prominent as the phone number.

If you consider the sales process prospective new customers are more likely to check out your website than make that first phone call. Psychologically, initially checking you out by looking at your website is safer than speaking to you and enduring the inevitable sales pitch. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to make that first step in becoming a customer! So your website address should be readable from a passing vehicle.

And your website address should be easy to remember (at least memorable enough to last to the next stop light so they can write it down..). If your domain name is a nasty, long beast, e.g. “www.joesfabulousautorepairandtire.com” there is no way they will remember it. In place of a long domain name you can use a second short, catchy (memorable) domain name that redirects to your main website. Using a different domain name on your sign will also allow you to track hits resulting from your sign (can also be used in other forms of marketing similar to using different phone numbers).

Hyphenated domains are also much easier to read and remember. And using common words related to your shop or location is also good (e.g. “Joes-Auto-Repair.com”, “Brown-Street-Auto.com”, etc).

Using camelcase text is better, but not as good as a hyphenated domain (e.g. “JoesFabulousAutoRepairAndTire.com”).

Another tip is to not use the “www” portion of the domain. It just adds unnecessary clutter on the sign and is not needed (your web server should be set to redirect ‘non-www’ to ‘www’ URL (or vice versa) anyways if your webmaster knows what they are doing…)

[dougfentiman]

Tom Ham wrote:

> I checked this morning and all but one of my replies have been removed. Our approach now will be to only reply to bad reviews and do so as professionally as we can.

> I have been saving all reviews and replies on my computer, so all I had to do is copy and paste the missing one that I wanted to put up again.

Tom,

Your problems with Google may result from two things:

1) Reposting of “removed” comments.

2) using same or very similar content for comments.

Your “removed” comments have not been deleted by Google. They most likely have just been temporarily suspended due to what Google considerers suspicious activity with your account. When you post the same comment again all you do is make the problem worse. Google views your actions as manipulating and they will smack you down hard. If you contnue they may just suspend your whole account.

Posting of identical or very similar comments is “viewed” as a SPAM tactic and gets your account flagged as suspicious. Remember that much of what happens on Google is automated and patterns of behavior are picked up very quickly. This is also why using the same comment (cut and paste) for comment replys is bad practice in general. Each comment needs to be different. Yes, that is more work, but you must play by Google’s rules or you get penalized.

I still recommend commenting on good and poor reviews. Shows people you are paying attention and they will be more willing to make comments. Also, the more active your profile is the more attention it will recieve from both people and Google (ranking).

Just be patient. There is nothing you can do for now. Stop reposting on previously replied comments. Keep commenting on new reviews. Even if they disappear they will come back when Google takes you off their “blacklist”…

If you want you can do some reading in Google’s forum. There is a section where you can confess your “sin’s” and beg for forgiveness. Google staff do respond (eventually… remember it is a “free” service) and they will investigate your issue. If they see your actions as more a lack of understanding than done with bad intention they will usually take you off their “watch” list and restore your coments and account.

Google has a huge amount of “Best Practice” guidelines in their help info. If anything it tells you what not to do.

[dougfentiman]

Ollie said:

it is constant work on the shop owner side that will ultimately get you into the top on many search terms.

Website marketing doesn’t have to place huge demands on the owner’s time, but I’ll agree it is something that requires regular effort. I also feel it is a top priority for any business manager and only second to monitoring finances. In my experience small business owners need to place more of a priority on marketing in general.

Shop owners don’t need to become web developers but they need to guide the developer as to what their goal is (have any of you sat down and done a yearly marketing plan with a budget…). The developer should then advise what is the best way to build that into their website in light of the budget available. But keep in mind that web “developers” are not “marketing” experts (personally I have more understanding of marketing than most developers due to experience, having been a shop owner, and education in marketing). Developers are website builders and it is not fair to hold they responsible for marketing outcomes. The business owner needs to be the business manager and decide what marketing they need.

The other big change to website marketing is how search engines are affecting SEO and search engine ranking (results). And these changes are requiring more effort directly from the business owner. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your viewpoint, many of them are things you can’t pay someone else to do for you.

Google (and pals) have made great efforts to help the little guy (believe it or not). In the past anyone with enough cash to throw at SEO could dominate any online market. Big companies, spammers, scams, etc. with deep pockets crushed the little guy no matter how good their product was. Search engines saw this as a weakness in their system and have changed to use a more fair combination of website quality and your public reputation. Their reasoning is that websites can be easily manipulated by their owners, but it is almost impossible for a company to control the actions of Internet as a whole, and so the “Internet” is viewed as more trustworthy (hence Google’s increasing focus on reviews and social media).

If the overall Internet population prefers your website the search engines see it as having greater public approval and so it will naturally rise to the top of the organic search results (also works the same in Adwords). So in response website SEO has shifted emphasis from what you do on your website (on-site SEO) to what is done on the Internet (off-site SEO). The balance is now estimated to be 15% on-site and 85% off-site SEO. This is why you may have noticed big changes in how websites are positioned in the search results, and especially for local search dependent website like auto shop sites.

This is a very simplified explanation, but points out that shop owners now play a much bigger role in how effective their website marketing is. They need to become aware of their off-site online reputation, manage that reputation, and, most importantly, build that reputation.

How can you do it?

1- marketing plan – what have you got to spend, where to spend it, actions time lines, and measuring results. Have a purpose, a goal, a way to measure it, and react to the results.

2- create a website that “truly” represents who you are – not who you want to be… honesty counts! The online community will crush you if you are not honest and transparent. If you, or others, don’t like the way you do business then change or you will wither and die!

3- build your online reputation so it supports your website claims. This is called building your “trust factor”. Only the shop owner has the direct contact with customers necessary to encourage their feedback. You are in the “service” business. Interact with your customers. Don’t be afraid of public opinion. If it is not good they will tell you what they don’t like – so change it. Get it right and it is a marketing supercharger.

But in the end it is the shop owner that needs to take charge and make the effort.