The majority of automotive websites are optimized for the most popular version of Internet Explorer and rarely take into consideration Safari, a browser that represents less than 10% of the web browser market and 71% of mobile browsing.

With aggressively growing iPhone sales in the Smart Phone market, you have an entire audience of potential customers on the go and connected to the Internet. All you need to do to bring your dealership’s website to them is to make sure your website functions in Safari. As mentioned above, most companies who build web applications and websites build for the masses, which means Internet Explorer. The iPhone uses Safari as the default browser (and only browser at the time of this writing) to display your dealership’s website. If your site looks good and functions correctly in Safari for the desktop, you’re on your way to iPhone ready.

If you’re a DHD customer, grab an iPhone and look at your Dealer HD website, you’ll notice that everything functions as it normally would in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Mobile visitors from iPhones can access every page of your website, zoom into into content areas, submit forms, view vehicle photos, specials and coupons. I’ve taken a few screen shots from my iPhone to illustrate some of the points above. As you can see, everything is highly visible, clean and organized. iPhone users can double tap, pinch zoom and scroll to the information areas easily.

While there are many other mobile devices that connect to the Internet it’s important to recognize Safari as a major player in the mobile space and making sure that your website functions in an iPhone is critical to your mobile marketing strategy.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

Click for actual iPhone screen shot.

With instant messaging, social networking, and blogging more popular than ever, now is the time your dealership needs to start looking to social media and start attracting customers to your online inventory with Social Bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking is a system that allows visitors to your website to save web pages they want to remember or share. This concept is very similar to using the Bookmark feature in your favorite browser except the bookmarked pages in a social system can be public and shared with an entire online community.

So why should your dealership care? Imagine this:

• Scenario One: A visitor to your website is browsing your online inventory at work and found a vehicle that they may like more information about so they save the page in their bookmarks of their default work browser. That night when they come home they have a few minutes and would like to follow up and possibly send you a lead letting you know they would like to come in to see the vehicle. They go back to your website and have to remember what search they performed, what the stock number was, etc. Because this information is saved on their work computer bookmarks they choose to start researching other dealership’s inventory and will come back to send you that lead tomorrow… maybe.

• Scenario Two: A visitor to your website is browsing your online inventory at work and found a vehicle that they may like more information about. They have a Social Bookmarking account so they save the page in their Delicious account, add a few tags about the bookmark and a note to help them remember why they bookmarked this vehicle. That night when they come home they have a few minutes and would like to follow up and possibly send you a lead letting you know they would like to come in to see the vehicle. They open their browser to their Delicious Bookmarks and click the link to the vehicle, review the information and send you a lead that they are interested. You get the lead, follow up and sell the vehicle. Everyone wins.

Some of you might may be thinking that the person illustrated in both scenario’s could have just emailed themselves the link or some other method for getting the information home. Sure they could have, but this post is about Social Bookmarking and by promoting the Social Bookmarking system on your dealership website you gain enormous value.

5 Reasons to support Social Bookmarking on your website:

1. Social Bookmarking helps your website create high quality back links. Back links are links to your website that exist on other websites on the Internet. In the world of SEO that translates to popularity.
2. Sites that are bookmarked socially can be viewed by anyone which exposes your inventory and brand to a variety of sources, including search engines
3. Social Bookmarking helps your content travel. By giving your content the ability to travel you allow your information to be distributed quicker online which makes your site available to other streams of traffic.
4. Social Bookmarking allows users to add tags and notes to their links to help them remember why they bookmarked the page. These user defined tags appear on the public listing and assist in promoting those tags as keywords. These tags are also used in search results on their respective pages.
5. Social Bookmark links promote accessibility. Links that are bookmarked can be viewed from any device (including mobile phones) that are connected to the Internet. If your inventory is bookmarked a visitor can return to their place no matter where they are and what computer they are using.

If you need extra traffic, you should focus on adding Social Bookmarking tools to your automotive website. Adding a Social Bookmarking tool set to your website allows your content to travel, assists visitor research and lets the Social Bookmarking community know that you support and understand their needs.