What Not

Now that I am employed as the internet manager for Leikin Motor Companies, I have to look past my own website to the company’s three websites. Unfortunately, the three websites are not very SEO (search engine optimized). So, a few months ago, we hired a company to design a new site which will be SEO from the beginning. That sounds great, but why wait until the new site’s completion to get things started? My goal is to get the current site optimized now so that the new one will have an even better chance of success.

Using websitegrader.com as the benchmark, the following chart reports that the sites could use quite a bit of work.

SITE	GRADE
leikinbuick.com	36
leikinmercedes.com	39
leikinvolvo.com	55

Will I be able to make a difference before the new sites are completed?  I don’t know.  But I’m going to give it a try!

I’ve made a few changes at andyrupert.com which have paid off recently.  The front page has been revamped to reflect the promotional Mystery Car Contest.   I’ve also added a fall theme just to spice things up.  And for whatever reason, websitegrader.com thought the changes were worth an A!  Hurrah!

As mentioned in an earlier post, a change last month led to the accidental deletion of my blog (and possibly the demise of Cash for Clunkers) which led to a decline in September’s statistics. Another disappointment was over 26,000 hits resulting in “Document Not Found” because of the blog articles being deleted. Some of the articles (also posted at High Maintenance) have been retrieved, but the majority are lost some place in cyberspace.

However, before complaining too much, I should be thankful that the blog is up and running again. The technicians at startlogic.com and websitegrader.com were very helpful. And I’m hoping that the changes will lead to more traffic and subsequent sales. In any event, I hope that you enjoy the information shared here at What Not.  I enjoy writing each article and hope that the information written here will both educate, inform, and entertain each of you.

Coming Events in October

• The return of the bi-weekly Mystery Car!
• Volvo’s Safe+Sound 5 yrs/60k mi coverage plan continues for another month!
• The latest update regarding my 2005 XC90 extended test drive

Enjoy!

Remember the Jefferson’s sitcom back in the 1970-80’s?  The theme song gave the idea that the main character had finally made it up the ladder of success with the phrase, “Movin’ on up!” That song always comes to mind when someone gets a promotion, a new car, or something special.

To be honest, I don’t really care about the recognition.  It’s more the feeling of accomplishment as the website had been a constant challenge to update and maintain.  Unless you have built a website yourself, you don’t realize the time that goes into it.  So, bear with me as I enjoy the move from a C+ to a B-.

The biggest deal is getting the word out.  My business card magnets have been helpful as they contain the website address and contact information.  But the next step is establishing a web presence via links at places such as zoominfo, yahoo, google, dmoz, facebook, and digg.  I don’t expect that these will generate instant success, but they will (hopefully) get the word out and generate some interest.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to do was put out a shingle and people flocked into the dealership? Those days are gone (if they were ever here). But thankfully, the internet has given average people the ability to reach a larger audience.

Take my sales website, andyrupert.com, for instance. After only nine months, it’s been doing fairly well. Statistics were looking pretty good until I accidentally erased the blog. It’s been rebuilt (as you would presume if you are reading this right now) but statistics are not what they once were. So, I decided to look into what the reasons might be.

Last night, my website took a test—the website grader test. This helpful site was linked to on my control panel. The first time the results were pretty abysmal: 61 out of 100! That’s a D- on a 10 point scale. But thankfully, the test gives suggestions as to how to remedy the problems. After making some minor corrections, including registering my URL at several locations, the score jumped to a 78/100.

I’m not satisfied with that score but it does give me an idea of how effective the site is. I also took the time to compare my grade of 78 to several other sites. How do I compare? Let’s see:

99.9 — Hemmings Motor Blog
98.1 — Saabs United
78 — AndyRupert.com
65 — High Maintenance
57 — Leikin Volvo
47 — Swedish Solution
44 — Montrose Volvo

As you can see, I’m doing somewhat better than some and quite a bit worse than others. The point of seeing the grade is to make improvements and more sales. So, if you have any ideas … free ones, that is … then let me know.

I’m not sure what happened, but it appears that somehow I erased the entire blog.  That’s not quite the best way to start the month of September, but there still is good news. August was a record month for andyrupert.com. We had 11,545 unique visitors and over 130,000 hits!  And after 8 months on the web, we’ve recorded almost 1/3 of a million hits!  Hurrah!