Craigslist has become vital to the success of many modern dealers, but there’s a huge number of dealers who just don’t understand how to post cars to Craigslist. Our VP of Sales was featured last Thursday as part of the CARFAX PowerUp webinar series, and he presented our new Craigslist secret formula. We’ve studied hundreds of dealers in markets all over the country, and using the results, we’ve come up with a simple, straightforward formula that any dealer can use to maximize Craigslist posting success.

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Google provides a handbook to its team of human website raters, and this year’s copy has been leaked to the web. I’m not going to link to the doc here, if you really want to read it for yourself, it’s just a quick Google search away… It’s a 161 page pdf that instructs its team on how to rate websites, and this year’s handbook has a new section that tells reviewers how to rate the quality of the page they’re looking at.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Search Quality team, has insisted on several occasions that the human ratings don’t “directly” affect the results on Google. However, it’s widely suspected that the feedback from Google’s team of human raters plays a big part in tweaking and testing the hundreds of updates to Google’s algorithm that roll out every year.

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We’re finally settled in to our brand spankin’ new office space! We moved in about a month ago, but there were a few small things that were still being worked on… Now we’re all done, and we wanted to share a few photos. We moved just a few miles up the road from our old office, but we’re in a MUCH nicer building – and we had our entire space finished out to our own custom specifications. (We owe a huge “thanks” to Erik and Travis, who spent months of time going over every little detail)

We moved from a boring space that had zero personality to an awesome office with such a good vibe that we’re all excited to come to work every day. We set up an “agile” environment that encourages communication – you’ll notice the lack of cubicles and the open layout. Enjoy the photos, and if you happen to roll through Dallas, come by and visit!

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It’s been a big week here at AutoRevo: we’re once again honored with a spot on the Inc. 5000, an annual list of the fastest growing companies in the US. This is our third consecutive year on the list, and we couldn’t be more proud of our team.

Every single employee has contributed to this honor. We’ve worked hard to get the right team in place to help this company thrive, and making the list for a third consecutive year shows that we’re doing things right. With the recent move to our brand new office space (check back next week for pictures), we’re ready to continue our hard work so that we’ll make the list again next year… and the year after… and the year after…

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We saw this video online last week and just had to share it with everyone… While it’s scary for the guy involved, you can’t help but laugh at how he very calmly says to the FBI that “I’m in the used car business, I could have made a lot of people mad recently…”

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Brace yourselves, car dealers – things are about to get interesting…

Local search has become increasingly vital to success in the auto industry, and today, Google made a huge change that will change the way that every auto dealer optimizes for local search. Say goodbye to Google Places… And say hello to Google+ Local.

Google Places has been the go-to destination for local search dominance, and now Google is replacing them entirely with Google+ Local pages. As of this morning, approximately 80 million Google Place pages were automatically converted to Google+ Local pages. Apparently, this isn’t a typical staggered rollout either – all of the Places pages will be converted to Google+ Local pages within a matter of days.

Currently, we’re not seeing the new Google+ Local pages in the SERPs, but apparently they’re coming soon. You CAN see them inside of Google+, with the new “Local” tab – so head over and take a look. (UPDATE – As of Thursday morning, the changes appear to have rolled out across all Google products.)

If you’re an auto dealer who’s been relying heavily on Google Places and Google Reviews, you’ll need to update your strategy ASAP. If you haven’t gotten into local optimization yet, there’s never been a better time to start.

Here are the most important changes that have been made:

• Google+ Local pages will replace Google Places pages.
• Google+ Local pages will be indexed by Google. That means that unlike the old Places pages, they’ll show up in search results.
• Google+ has a new “Local” tab
• The old 5-star review system has been replaced with the Zagat 30-point review system.
• Google+ Local pages will be integrated across Google properties (Google+, standard search, Google Maps, mobile)
• A Google+ circles filter has been added so you can find reviews from people you know

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Our “dashing” V.P. of Sales Bill Berry spoke last week at the Innovative Dealer Summit 2012 in Denver, Colorado. He covered a simple, three-part marketing strategy that helps auto dealers draw in qualified customers when they’re actively engaged in the purchase cycle. This speaking engagement is the latest in our series of educational outreach efforts for auto dealers – we want to help as many dealers as we can to be more efficient and successful online.

For everyone who wasn’t able to head to Denver for the Summit, we’ve included Bill’s slides. Check them out, the stats really are mind-blowing… and feel free to share these slides with your friends and colleagues in the industry.

Ferris Bueller is back … and a LOT of fans are upset about it.

Instead of returning in a sequel to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Matthew Broderick is reviving his role in a Super Bowl commercial for Honda.

A teaser was posted on YouTube last week, sparking a huge wave of excitement. Fans across the country assumed it was a teaser for the sequel to one of the most iconic movies from the 80′s. Check out the teaser:

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Yes, you read that right – there’s a car dealership in Chicago that’s offering FREE cars if the Packers get shut out by the Bears this Sunday. For any vehicle sold from December 16th through this Friday, Sawicki Motors will rebate 100% of the purchase price if the Chicago Bears shut out the Green Bay Packers on Christmas Day.

They’re limiting the payout to the first $1 million worth of vehicles sold during that period, but it’s still a potentially costly bet. continue reading..

Google announced a new update to their ranking algorithm today. If you’re interested in the full details, just click that link and you can read their full update on the official Google Search blog. The opening quote really sums up the main focus of the update:

Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.

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