Our Marketing Manager, Borden Rhyno was meeting with a local car dealership (no names mentioned) about the possibility of doing some online marketing and SEO work for them. So as my customary first step, I “Googled” the business name.  This is usually the simplest search term that people would use to find the business. 

Online Search Result's

So a site came up for them in the #1 result.  Looked like things were working for them at least somewhat for their online presence.  Then I saw what can only be described as an online relic of a website from 1990.  I was little perplexed but saw a link to a new webstite.  It started to somewhat make sense.  I click the link but it doesn’t’ work.  If I’m a customer, I just potentially gave up my search.

Borden mentioned this to them and they were shocked.  They hadn’t seen it in 10 years.  But on all their business cards that was the website address they had listed.

Now they are using new website through a national program through the car dealership franchise.  A simple URL forward could solve this problem in a second. 
 

Eyes Of The Online Consumer

Now this is true for whatever business you are in.  Real estate, cars, tourism, etc.  Make sure you get inside the head of the customer.  If they are having a hard time getting to your website and they are looking for you, it doesn’t stem well for people to find your website for other related keywords.