Your dealership website serves a number of purposes. Hopefully it ranks well, and helps your dealership be discovered by interested buyers—but if that’s all your site is doing, then it’s falling short. Remember that your dealership website is the first impression most buyers will have of your business. As such, it’s vital that it be user-friendly—welcoming, helpful, and service-oriented.
Easier said than done? Not necessarily. Here are five tips to ensure that your auto dealership website always puts the buyer first.
How to Make a Buyer-Friendly Dealership Website
Remember: You’re There to Serve
First and foremost, remember that your website is part of your customer service outreach—and that a good website is one that offers real help and assistance to the end user.
There are plenty of ways to offer customer service through your website—via phone and email links, live chat, FAQ pages, and more. The important thing is helping buyers feel like they can always receive the service they need, without any hassle.
Provide Useful Tools
Another step to consider? Add some tools to your website, empowering buyers to make more informed purchasing decisions.
Just as one example, some dealerships offer budgeting tools and calculators on their websites, allowing users to estimate how much their payments will be and how much car they can actually afford. Tools like these go a long way toward showing buyers that you’re a trusted resource.
Highlight Sales, Specials, and Discounts
Remember that a lot of the buyers who come to your
website will be looking for the latest deals. Help them out; make it easy for website visitors to locate money-saving options.
This could be as simple as creating a landing page where you highlight your latest inventory, or cars you currently have on sale.
Focus on Ease of Navigation
It’s also important that your website have a fluid, intuitive navigation structure. Basically, buyers should always find it easy to retrieve the information they’re after.
Be thoughtful in the page hierarchy of your website and organize all your content in a logical way. Having different sections for different kinds of vehicles—for example, a category page for trucks, another one for minivans, etc.—is one good solution.
Enrich Your Site with Great Content
A final tip: Remember that your site isn’t just about closing the sale. It’s also about earning trust. One way to do that is to offer free, valuable information that can help your buyers—similar to what we said before, about including useful tools.
And there are a lot of ways you can add enriching, informative content to your site. Just a couple of options include a blog and embedded videos, where you weigh in on topics related to used car purchasing, financing, maintenance, etc.
Is Your Website Doing What It Should?
You won’t have too many opportunities to wow potential buyers with your amazing customer service—so seize every chance you get. One way to do so is to build a website that puts service first. We can help. Reach out to the automotive marketing experts at Get My Auto today and ask us for a website consultation!