The “Blog” has been the buzz for the last few years but many businesses have unsuccessfully implemented this marketing tool. I would say that half the car dealer website blogs I come across lost their steam within the first month of their initial post. It's like a business's interest in their blog diminishes as quickly as a hipster moves to the next “new black”. And the dealership is off building a Facebook profile one week, inviting a million friends to their Myspace page the next. Unfortunately, most of these efforts become skeletons on the web, forgotten projects that never saw the love they needed to be successful.
CheckeredFlag.com on the other hand appears to know what they are doing. A few Google searches brought me to this Virgina Beach car dealers blog. To sum this auto group's blog up I would say it may be the best I have ever seen on a dealers website. The design is clean and well organized, we are not talking about another cookie cutter WordPress blog here. It also features beautiful rss feeds with local news, weather and green car news. The current post even embedded a video which is a easy way to add multimedia to your blog. Remember that we are now in the YouTube age of the Internet (but that's a whole different post).
If a customer ever wanted to get to know their dealership I think an active blog on a car dealer website is the place to find out. Their blog features bi-daily postings that give customer's an inside look at the dealership and how they fit into the local community. A recent post highlights community service work, complemented by pictures of the employees. There are also interviews with customers, employee profiles and automotive articles. Keep in mind that a blog will help with your SEO efforts as well. Content is king and blogs also have the benefits of frequent site crawls. Google loves them!
After visiting this dealership's blog I feel like I know what to expect from them. I would be dealing with people rather than a smooth talking sales people trying to make a quick sale. This company obviously cares about their customers and employees; it is no surprise that they have been so successful. Checkered Flag you would have certainly earned my business if I was shopping for a new car in Virginia Beach.
Anyone else out their have a car dealer website blog worth checking out???
