Tweet and Like Buttons

We’ve added the “Tweet” and “Like” buttons to specials coupons, news and events articles and vehicles with this update. Allowing customers to share what they’re looking at with their social networks with just one click – and everything links back to the item on your website.

Tweet and Post in RIMS

If you’re sick of logging in everywhere and switching between windows to post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, the RIMS posting feature is for you. By adding your user info to the admin you can Tweet and Post inventory, coupons, news items and employees to Twitter and Facebook without leaving RIMS. It’s a quick and easy way to post a unified message and generate additional traffic to your site.

Window Stickers

Our version of the Window Sticker prints right from the Vehicle Details page on your site. Each window sticker contains the vehicle information and options along with QR code for easy smart phone access, an abbreviated URL for quick online access and a text ID if you’re using Dealer HD’s texting platform.

Printable Vehicle Posters

In the RIMS Admin you can now print a vehicle poster by selecting and clicking the print icon. The vehicle poster will provide you with basic vehicle information for each vehicle selected in a printer friendly format. Vehicle posters provide abbreviated vehicle information, QR codes for easy smart phone access as well as a shortened URL to quick online access. It brings the information online one step closer to the lot.

Reorganized and Improved Sitemaps and RSS Feeds

Sitemaps have been reorganized to provide Search Engines with a semantic hierarchy (listed in order of importance and relevance) of all the links on your site. This helps Search Engines learn more about your site. We have also included Media RSS feeds which includes all images, videos and documents associated with each vehicle, telling Search Engines even more about the content on your site.

Animoto Video Support

Whether you’re looking for cost-effective video production or looking to supplement existing vehicle videos on your dealership’s website we’ve got you covered. Animoto takes the photos of your vehicle and produces amazing high-quality movies. Dealer HD has worked with Animoto to provide a quick alternative method to create vehicle videos.

Formbuilder

Are you running a special promotion or do you need specialized data collection? Dealer HD has re-engineered our data collection process and is excited to introduce Formbuilder.

Formbuilder allows us to create customized forms to collect a wide variety of data from your customers. These forms can be used on custom pages and even replace default forms to allow greater customization of your website.

Email Alerts

A new system has been added that allows visitors on your website to be notified when you update specific sections. When a customer signs up they can select the areas they are interested in. An email notification will automatically be sent when you update new specials, pre-owned specials, lease specials, service specials, parts specials, rebates, finance rates and hours of operation. The option to opt-out is available to customers at anytime.

Alt Descriptions

Due to their format, images are not recognizable to search engines for indexing purposes. To add visibility we’ve added new functionality on our Inventory/Edit screens to allow you to enter “alt text” for each of your photos. The goal of “alt text” is to provide the same functional information that a visual user would see. Search Engines read this text and can place your images in their index. “Alt text” is a great way to provide additional content to search engines and help in boosting organic SEO.

Specials with Videos

Vehicle Specials with videos in your inventory are now easily identifiable in the specials listings. We’ve placed a play icon over the photo that directs visitors right to that vehicle with the video placed right in front of them. It’s one click to video.

Inventory Data Sheet

We’ve added a new function to the Inventory screens of the RIMS Admin, the Print View. Select a vehicle and click the magnifying glass (i.e. Print View) on the Inventory screen. A new window will open an Inventory Data Sheet, displaying basic information about pricing, body characteristics and engine details. Other vehicle details such as stock number, VIN and carID are provided on this report to make setting up texting on your lot a breeze.

Send To My Mobile

If you’re using Dealer HD’s texting platform, we’ve integrated this service even further and created the “Send To My Mobile” button. This button exists on every vehicle on your website. When clicked a visitor can enter their mobile phone number and Dealer HD will send the vehicle details straight to their phone!

Pretty URLs

We call them pretty; search engines will call them friendly. We’ve changed the URL structure on all vehicles on your website from a dynamic to a static structure. We now include search engine friendly keywords on the URL of every vehicle you view. Type, Year, Make, Model are all listed in your vehicle URL for greater keyword indexing capabilities.

Smarter Image Gallery

The image galleries we host on your websites have gotten smarter. Now each image in the gallery has a descriptive tag to help search engines process what each image illustrates. Since search engines cannot “see” the images, description tags help them decipher and properly index images. We will be continually adding descriptive text for all Image Libraries, providing even more indexable content for your vehicles.

AutoTweet Improvements

For dealers tweeting their updated inventory we’ve made great strides. You can choose how often vehicles are tweeted — 15/30/60 minute increments and we’ve even created custom hash tags so your inventory will be searchable via Twitter with one click.

Texting

Our new texting product provides a unique text id for every car in your inventory. This allows you to advertise your entire inventory, run contests or promotions and get that Service Bay full!

Mobilize your inventory

Each vehicle in your inventory is assigned a unique code — customers can text the vehicle code to 89000 and they will receive a text with the pricing/options/details and a link to that vehicle on your website, allowing them to view photos and schedule a test drive!

These codes can be placed on your window stickers, print advertising, billboards and any other media.

Run Promotions and Generate Service Updates

You can set-up contests and promotions via text for dealership specials and giveaways. “Text ‘Contest’ to 89000″ could offer them a chance to win a new car or a free oil change, you decide and you run the campaigns right from the dealership.

Notify your service customers that their vehicle is ready for pick-up. Contact your customers with the convenience of a text to let them know their car is ready to head home. The possibilities are endless!

LEAD CENTRAL — Integrated Lead Manager

Combining the ease-of-use of our RIMS Admin and our lead capabilities we’ve created the LEAD CENTRAL Integrated Lead Manager. Lead Central is designed to manage leads from your website and all your 3rd party lead providers. Lead Central provides your dealership better lead management tools, documenting all correspondence between your customers and your sales staff in one centralized location. Send HTML mailers, log phone calls, schedule appointments, email vehicles to interested customers and create tasks to ensure that your employees are following up on the leads they are assigned. As Dealer HD website clients you can easily toggle between Lead Central and the RIMS Admin for complete access to everything you need. Do it all in one easy-to-use tool.

Mobile

Your website is now available 24/7 even if customers are away from their computer! Customers visiting your site from their mobile phones will now be able to browse inventory, view specials, get directions and send leads in a mobile version of your website optimized for their phone. We have also created an iPhone specific version of your site that looks and functions like the iPhone. With the iPhone site users can get additional photos and Google Map directions right from their current location!

Vehicle History

The Vehicle History shopping tool allows customers to keep a record of all vehicles they’ve viewed on your site. As customers view vehicles they are interested in we store and display them in a tab along the left side of your website. If a customer wants to return to a vehicle, they simply open the tab and click the vehicle. It serves as a quick reference for customers so they don’t need to re-search for the vehicles they’re interested in getting another look at.

vCards for Employees

To make your staff even more accessible to your customers, we’ve added vCards to each of your published employees. This standard form of “Electronic Business Card” is a quick way to exchange business information online. vCards are a standard format that can be used with almost every Email program on the market. To download your employee’s contact information customers just need to visit the staff detail page and download.

WordPress Integration

We’ve integrated WordPress blogging capabilities directly into your websites. WordPress is a full, featured professional blogging platform that is both easy to use and powerful. We’ve worked hard to integrate this tool into your website so that you’re blogging efforts will bring better on-site SEO and content that can be indexed by Search Engines quickly.

Email Tool

Now you can email inventory to customers right from the RIMS Admin. Simply select vehicles you’d like to send, click the Email Icon and enter the email address of the person you’d like to send to. An HTML formatted email will be delivered containing the vehicles you’ve selected. Each vehicle is a link that sends them to your site to view additional details and schedule a test drive.

Twitter Bar

As an extension of Social Media Integration we’ve added Twitter to the RIMS Admin. You can now Tweet right from the admin. It’s more convenient than ever – one login to save you time.

Canonical URL Tag

The Canonical URL Tag is said by many to be the most important advancement in SEO practices, so we had to give it to you. The tag eliminates duplicate content and helps search engines direct indexed pages to the correct location on your website. This will also serve as a funnel of sorts and direct all traffic to the correct address we are tracking in Google Analytics.

noODP Meta Tag

This meta tag ensures that the information displayed in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) about your dealership is coming from your site and not other sources.

Live View

Ever wonder what people are looking at when they’re on your website? Live View will ease your curiosities – it will show you how many sessions are taking place and where each visitor is on your site – all in real time! A quick snapshot will tell you if they’ve viewed coupons, vehicles or submitted leads.

YouTube Integration

Add video to vehicles in your inventory via the admin! Our vehicle details pages can now host video from You Tube! Upload videos to YouTube through the admin or add videos to your inventory by copying and pasting a link.

Fresh Auto Responder Content

We’ve re-written our default auto responders to give your customers a more personal response. Each auto response now uses dynamic information to address the customer by name. Vehicle lead auto responses even refer to the vehicle that is inquired about.

AutoTweet

Is your dealership on Twitter? AutoTweet tweets new additions to your inventory daily. It’s a great addition to posts you’re already making for the store. Not on Twitter yet? Get there: twitter.com – it’s free, easy and will get you and your inventory exposed to a different audience.

Search By Payment

Help customers find vehicles at a price they can afford before they get to the dealership. Implementing Search By Payment calculates and displays payments for your inventory based on a default interest rate, term and down payment. If a customer wants to adjust from the default, it’s no problem. Changing the numbers will change all of the payments so they can shop for what works with their budget.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, YouTube, Flickr? If you’re on it, flaunt it. We can now link to any of these social media sites for each of your employee’s profiles or add icons to the bottom of your home page to direct customers to check them out. We just need a link to the profile!

Social Bookmarking

Make it easy for customers to view vehicles they’re interested in no matter where they are. Social Bookmarking allows visitors to add a link to the vehicle they’re looking at. This will allow you to access it at a later date from a different location or even share with friends. We have over 10 book marking sites that you can make available to customers. Let us know the ones you’d like to display and let the sharing begin.

Click To Add Specials

Marking specials in the admin is just one click away. Now you can mark vehicles specials the same way you feature them. Just highlight the vehicle(s) you want to mark as specials and click the new specials icon! It’s so easy, we’re not sure why we didn’t think of it before!

Category Search

A new way to search! Our category search does away with the dropdowns and allows visitors to search by criteria. When mousing over each category, Type/Make/Model/Color/Transmission, it presents them with a list of options to choose from. Once they’ve narrowed their search by one criterion they can narrow their search even further once they arrive at the line listing.

Web Clips

Get a custom web clip for your site to be used on the iPhone and iPod touch. Just a little something to differentiate you from the next guy.

Custom Options

Adding options by hand? We’ve added a custom category option. If you have options that don’t fit into our pre-determined categories, no problem. Just create your own category, and it will be there for you to use every time.

Notifications

Know the second a lead is received, we now have real time notifications – if you’re in the admin you’ll receive a notification that lets you know someone is interested in learning more.

Aging Inventory Specials

We’ve added a new automated special. Now we can set your vehicles to be marked as ‘Special’ depending on their age. You name the number of days in stock and never have to worry about marking specials again.