How to Design and Develop Best Car Dealership Website

One of the first points of contact with the customer is through your dealer website. Buyers go on car dealerships websites to browse invent...

One of the first points of contact with the customer is through your dealer website. Buyers go on car dealerships websites to browse inventory, look at the financing options and learn more about the vehicles. The best car dealership websites can rapidly increase the bottom line for a company. Good website design is critical if you want to stand out in this industry.

How to Design and Develop Best Car Dealership Website

To help you start off on the right foot, we’ve put together some tips for your car dealership websites.

1. Consider the First Impression

You have 15 seconds to capture the attention of your audience. If your targeted consumer doesn’t see what they want at that time, you might have lost your chance forever.

Car websites must have a clean design and remain distraction-free. It helps to have navigation tools plus the CTAs in a common area. If the user receives too many options, you will only confuse them. That’s why it’s essential that you minimize the frustration with a simple design.

Make sure your independent car dealer website contains:

• A bright color scheme
• Contact information in a prominent location
• All of the vehicle information – VIN, features, etc.

2. Shopping By Price

Most of your shoppers have a budget they want to stick to. Successful dealerships allow the website viewers to browse based on price. When you provide the pricing on your website, you showcase the company’s transparency and accuracy, which further gains trust.

You want your online pricing to be good. Start by presenting the MSRP. Then, highlight the deals, incentives, and savings that go along with it. When your audience visits the dealership, they will know precisely what they want and how much it is.

You must also spend some time crafting a strategic call-to-action on your pricing pages.

3. Easy Searches

If you want your car shoppers to find exactly what they are looking for, you need to provide a simple site search tool. Auto dealer websites with a search further prove their dedication and commitment to the consumer.

The trouble is that some car dealership websites create a search tool that’s all wrong.

Best practices include:

• Create a magnifying glass icon
• Display the search field prominently
• Put the bar where customers expect
• Implement proper field size (ideally 27 characters)
• Allow for an auto-suggestion function

4. Facilitate Easy Navigation

Sometimes it’s tempting to get too sophisticated with web design, but in the long run, that makes things complicated. The navigation of your site is critical to your ROI. You want intuitive and simple-to-use navigation so that the car buyer can find their way around the site.

Make sure your content is broken up into chunks and provides a clear pathway to the information people are seeking.

5. Add Finance Tools

A successful car dealership website isn’t solely focused on selling a vehicle, but also wants to inform and help. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to add some finance tools to your website.
Shoppers love to comparison shop and play with numbers before heading to the dealership. By adding a financing calculator and other tools, you help them evaluate their situation and find the best fit.

6. Showcase Your Specials

It’s hard to get the point across regarding your specials online, so you must take your time with this step. You don’t want the page to look like a coupon site but must provide clear and concise information.

Make sure your specials include:

• Qualifying vehicles
• Expiration date
• Term details

You should also showcase each special with the corresponding vehicle in your inventory. That way, people looking at the car understand there is an available offer.

7. Seamless Forms

You want your forms to be easy to use so you can increase conversions. Customers won’t fill out forms on car dealership websites if they are frustrating to use.

Create simple forms for them to fill in. Whether it is to schedule a test drive, contact the team or book a service appointment, it should be clear and to the point. Limit the number of fields that are offered and only include what’s essential.

8. Don’t Neglect the Power of Testimonials

Shoppers are looking to hear what other people think. Make sure you include reviews and testimonials from other customers. Over 70% of car buyers claim they will drive to visit a dealership that has excellent reviews.

9. Educate the Buyer

Customers can’t get enough information. They want to know everything about the car before they ever step foot in your dealership. If you don’t give them the data they need, they will look for it elsewhere and you will lose the sale entirely.

Curate content that includes:

• Vehicle information
• Financing know-how
• Service tips
• Maintenance highlights

There’s no limit to the ways you can use your website to educate the consumer. In the process, you can also add some unique automotive digital marketing solutions to stand out from the crowd. Consider implementing video content as a way to show you are the leader.

10. Be Yourself

Your customers want to work with your dealership because of its personality. Make sure they can see it through your website. We always recommend highlighting the various staff members. You can do this through written content or create videos of them. Either way, you allow your shoppers to pick the salesperson that best fits their personality.

You are creating a solid relationship before the car buyer ever shows up.

You Can Have One of the Best Car Dealership Websites

It’s not difficult to create a high-quality website for your car dealership. If you take your time and strategize, you will find that you hit all of these key points. Keep things simple and include the information that your audience wants to know about.

In the end, if you are open, transparent and honest, those characteristics will be revealed to your target consumer. What results is in an increase in website traffic, foot traffic and, ultimately, more car sales. It all starts with the dealership website and flows outward through your other digital marketing strategies.