6 Must Have Wordpress Widgets For Car Dealer Blogs

A simple Wordpress blog can be your greatest tool, and for less than $100.00 a year you can easily beat the dealer down the street for internet traffic.

If you are a struggling Internet Sales Manager or Director, we all know that your job is in jeopardy at the end of every month. “You’re only as good as your last sale”, as Dave Ingold at Park Automall puts it.

If you plan on staying in the business, I would suggest getting your own blog. Spend the 96.00 a year for hosting, and buy a good keyword domain for 10.00 a year. You should already know this stuff, and if don’t now is the time to start learning. Here is a hosting company I recommend. Don’t go to Wordpress.com and get a free blog, because you will never own it. Get your own.

Once you juice it up, you can take it with you wherever you go. If you get a better job down the street you simply change it to reflect your current dealership.

When you first install Wordpress on your server, the first thing you will need is a theme. You can find many free ones here.

When you setup your widgets you can still change themes as often as you’d like. To see this actual blog in action, you can see it here.

Now print out the photo above and see what each Wordpress Widget is:

A: RSS Feed With Photos

This is a great way to advertise your inventory. If you have an RSS Feed for your inventory you want to go to feedburner.com and create this widget. You will need Feedburner so the images will show for each vehicle. When you’re on the Feedburner website, simply find the box that says “Burn This Feed Right This Instant”.

Copy and paste your RSS Feed Url into this box, and follow instructions. Here is an example of what an RSS Feed Url looks like: http://www.tampa-used-cars.com/feed.php

When you’re done click the “Publicize” Tab. Now click “Buzzboost” and follow the direction. When you’re done, simply copy and paste the code they give you in a new wordpress TEXT widget (Do not use an RSS Widget). Buzzboost converts your RSS Feed into HTML, so you can use it in blog posts as well. Every time your inventory updates your blog widget will too.

B: Feedburner Inventory Updates

Now that you have your Feedburner account set-up, this is another cool thing you can do. Your reader can sign up for email updates, so evey time you get a new vehicle in they’ll get an email with all new vehicles, complete with photos, description and direct link.

To make this click the “Publicize” tab again from Feedburner. Now click “email subscriptions” and follow the directions.

When you’re done simply copy the code they give you and paste it in a new Wordpress TEXT Widget.

C: Twitter Widget:

This is a great way to get more Twitter followers, and to show off your recent promotions. It takes about 5 seconds to send a tweet. Once you send a tweet, this updates automatically. To set this up, log in to your Twitter. Now click “settings”. Scroll down a little an directly below the “more info” url box you will see clickable text that says “You can also add Twitter to your site here“. Simply click that and follow the directions.

Again, copy the code they generate for you and paste it into a new Wordpress TEXT Widget.

D: Facebook Badge Widget

Facebook is just as easy as Twitter. Be sure you are logged in to Facebook, then click this link and get your code. For my example widget, I clicked the “Fan Box” from that page.

Once you have the code, create a new Wordpress TEXT Widget and paste the code in there. Depending on the template you use for Wordpress, you may have to manually change the width in the code they provide you so it will fit better. I had to change this one to 250 pixels wide because the width they generated was too wide.

E: Link To Your Credit Application Page

You will need to know basic html and the location of your image for this one. Simply make another Wordpress TEXT Widget and write your html. If you already have the image you want to use on a website, simply go to it and right click over the image. Click “properties”  and it will tell you the location of the image.

F: Image Link To Your Dealer Website

Use the same method as above for this widget. Many people look at pictures before text, so this is  a great way to get clicks to your dealer website.

You still want to put a text link to your dealer website from another spot for the SEO benefit, with anchor text. Just like this:

Visit Napleton Jeep Chrysler Dodge of used cars in Orlando Florida.

Now play around with your blog. It’s easy to learn. If you get stuck on something, leave me a comment below and I will help you.