Manufacturer Links to Dealers

Importance of Manufacturer Links to Internet Authorized Dealers

By having a network of authorized dealers, a manufacturer is trying to promote sales of their products through those dealers instead of unauthorized dealers. Manufacturers will often provide links to authorized dealers’ websites to help consumers find an authorized dealer for their products.

The most important reason for the manufacturer to link to the authorized dealer’s website is for the customers comfort and trust. By linking to the authorized dealers, customers know that those dealers are held to a higher set of standards. The customers can be assured that they will receive quality products, a high level of customer service and a valid manufacturer’s warranty.

By not properly linking to authorized dealers, it makes it more difficult for customers to buy from authorized dealers. With no authorized dealer links, there is no differentiation between authorized dealers and unauthorized dealers causing customers to potentially have a bad experience with the manufacturer’s product.

Most manufacturers do not realize how these links used by search engines in ranking web pages. Retailers often receive the most traffic to their website from search engines. By the manufacturer giving these links, they are telling the search engines that the authorized dealers’ websites are more important, therefore returning them higher in a list of search results.

Google originally developed this idea of one website “voting” for another website based on what links they provide. Google calls this technology PageRank. The following is Google’s explanation of PageRank:

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.” [ Source: Google Technology, 11/25/05 ]

A manufacturer tends to have many links coming into its website which make their website’s pages more “important”. Thus by the manufacturer linking to its dealers’ websites, it makes the authorized dealers’ websites more important. It is important for manufacturers to use links that the search engine can understand. When linking to the dealers’ websites, it is vitally important to use standard text links because search engines can not read Flash or JavaScript.

By following these guidelines, a manufacturer gives its authorized dealers several advantages over unauthorized dealers, thus increasing sales through the network of authorized dealers.

Recommendations for Linking to Authorized Dealers

The following are some recommendations to give to your webmaster to help promote sales through your authorized dealer network:

  • Use regular text links to link to the dealers’ websites. Use the <a href=> tag, not Flash or JavaScript. If the manufacturer would like the link to open in a new window, put TARGET=”_blank” as an attribute in the >a< tag. DO NOT USE JAVASCRIPT OR FLASH FOR THIS!
  • It is ok to use images to link to the dealers’ websites. If images are used, be sure to use the ALT attribute on the IMG tag with the text of the Dealer’s Name.
  • The Find a Dealer link on the Manufacturer’s website should be prominent on every page on the manufacturer’s website. Ideally, this page should have a list of Internet Authorized Dealers as well as a dealer lookup by zip code. See Example: MonsterCable.com
  • Provide a Buy Now/Buying Options link on the manufacturer’s product information page. This link would display a list of Internet Authorized Dealers that carry that particular product along with price and stock availability information. Authorized dealers would provide a data feed to the manufacturer that would contain price and inventory availability for each product. See Example: MonsterCable.com: M850 HDTV HDMI Cable
  • Search engines have a difficult time understanding FRAMES. Avoid using FRAMES on your website.
  • The benefits of buying from an authorized dealer should clearly be stated. (i.e. high level of customer service, valid manufacturer’s warranty, brand new products) See Example: Bose.com
  • Provide an authorized dealer badge that the dealers would be required to display on each product page of their website. This provides a uniform standard for all authorized dealers, making it easier for the customer to know whether a particular dealer is authorized. See Example: Bose Authorized Dealer Badge on 4ElectronicWarehouse.com
  • Provide a single page on the manufacturer’s website that the dealer could link to from their internet authorized dealer badge that verifies that they are an authorized dealer. This page should have:
  1. The authorized dealer badge
  2. The manufacturer’s name and logo
  3. The dealers name and logo
  4. A statement verifying that the dealer is an Internet authorized dealer
  5. A list of the benefits of buying from an authorized dealer

The only link on this page should be to the dealer’s website. The page could also have a short biography of the dealer. See Example: Bose.com

Definitions:
Flash is an animated graphics technology and format from Adboe. Since Flash is viewed through a web browser plug-in, most search engines can not read the contents of a Flash file.

JavaScript is a popular programming language that is supported by web browsers to add interactive functions to HTML. Most search engines won’t follow the links embedded inside JavaScript code.