Tips for improving your website
Your website can be seen as your ‘digital showroom’, so it’s important that you give it the same care and attention as your actual showroom.
As with any website, you want to put your product front and centre and show it off in the best light. You also want to make sure you’re giving customers as much information as possible about the listings and your dealership. But, there’s more to it than that. You also need to give your website an edge that makes it stand out, keep content fresh to improve your Google rankings and ensure that customers can easily get in touch with you.
The main feature of a dealership’s website tends is a strong product push centred upon the vehicles on sale. This is important but all too often potential car buyers are unable to find little information about a dealership and the other services it can provide.
An AA Populus poll which canvassed 18,077 AA members on the most important purchase considerations noted; Safety (25%), the car’s condition (23%) and trust in the dealer (14%) were all rated higher than the price tag (12%). This should provide some extra insights about what to focus on in developing your web content.
Larger dealerships might have an in-house marketing team or person, while some dealerships will favour using an agency. But, if you’re working on your own website you might be using a media provider or CMS tool that gives little guidance. We’ve put together some top tips to help you take your website up a gear and drive more sales across the line:
- Make sure your site is mobile friendly. For reference, about 70% of traffic to findandfund is mobile based
- Include an ‘about you’ section to tell customers about your approach, people, history, news, values, charitable activities and awards
- List accreditations and testimonials from happy customers to help endorse your dealership
- Provide plenty of information on your products and services, such as finance, insurance and after care
- Meet those needs for safety with detailed safety information on cars, photographs and warranty information
- Make your contact details easy to find and establish a rapid response mechanism
- Utilise the templates on the CMS software you are using to improve the design and user experience
- Show the real business behind the website using images of your premises and people, not stock photos
- Feature your best listings on the homepage to make them stand out
- Refresh the content on your website regularly to ensure it’s up-to-date and to show Google that your website is active. You could also hire a freelancer to write useful blogs for your customers
