We’ve all seen the little link bars under blog posts and in forums asking people to Digg or Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. Do you need to try to get links in places where social networking can happen? Yes. Alone those links may not have a lot of value, but Google is increasingly looking at the “active Web” in determining site authority. Now why is this important? If your dealership website is constantly participating and being active in online communities wouldn’t you agree that your virtual dealership will have a higher site authority than your competitor who may not be as active?

Another fun fact, the average number of links a single person can have attached to them is 231. But think of how virally devastating it can be for your dealership if some mentions a bad experience in your store think of those links for that person, but then what about the 200 plus friends they have and the links attached to them?

Getting active in social media is time consuming, but participating in forums and social sites and getting blog owners to run your articles with your linked anchor text included can be worth your time. But remember, relevance is a basic rule in online marketing consulting. Also don’t coin yourself into just the top well known social sites, because keep in mind there over 100 social sites with over 1 million members. If that’s too overwhelming for you then you may need to do some social outsourcing.

Cheers,

Your Diva