The typical car buyer no longer spends hours scouring the localdealerships when they want to see what new makes and models areavailable. Instead, the first instinct is to get on the Web in thecomforts of their own home and gather as much information as possiblebefore moving off the couch. This puts pressure on car dealerships, andeven the auto manufacturers themselves, because if a potential buyerdoesn’t find what they’re looking for they’re only one click away frombeing lost to the dealership forever.Significant time and money is spend on finding and luring-in potentialcar buyers online well before they reach a dealer’s official URL. Newmethods of advertising and promotion are being employed to make surethe shoppers find a dealer’s site before they find their competitors.Search engine optimization and marketing are two such methods thatfairly recently were simply buzzwords, but are now mainstream marketingtactics that dealers must employ to reach their increasinglyWeb-centric customers.With nearly 80% of all searches on the Internet being done in Google,Yahoo, and MSN, most car dealers now know that being found in thesesearch engines is a crucial component of a successful website. But whathappens after a potential car buyers finds and visits a site? That’swhen the design, layout, and usability of the site all have to be honedto ensure those visits are not wasted.Optimal usability of a dealer website requires it to be simple and well organized.
A website such as offers visitors to their site a clean, uncluttered look, withnavigation that is straightforward and easy to decipher. Whethersomeone is looking for new vehicle or parts information, theinformation is organized and labeled in an intuitive way. And when indoubt, simplicity is always a good strategy, as with , that isn’t over-designed or cluttered.In addition to solid navigation and usability, the site simply shouldlook good. Although usability issues may be easy to overlook, theimportance of design is imperative because a dealer has to stand outfrom the competition! Whether it’s the color of the site, the graphics,or photography, the site has to be both inviting and memorable.Many dealerships are also getting better commuting with people andgetting them excited to make an offline visit. Websites such as and have Flash content right on their home page, giving the site addedcharacter with moving imagery that is more captivating to userscompared with more commonly used static sites. Some dealerships useFlash in innovative ways that help build lasting impressions withpotential customers. For example, uses Flash for video testimonials on their home page, letting actualcar buyers explain their experience at the dealership. Such designtechniques are becoming widely used, especially with the popularity ofvideo content sites like YouTube, where dealers get expand the exposureof their online videos.Having a feature laden site is also helpful for keeping visitors of thesite longer, and providing additional content for the user to interactwith. , for example, gives visitors many features to explore right from its home page. is another website that helps to bring many features immediately to theusers’s fingertips, such as trade-in value information, a searchableinventory database, and even a form for a quick quote on a vehicle.With traditional marketing methods becoming more expensive anddelivering increasingly less impressive results, car dealerships arerethinking their marketing efforts to boost online exposure, often atthe expensive of traditional media dollars. In the end, the potentialcar buyer is becoming more knowledgeable about the dealer, itsinventory, and its staff, and the dealership is getting higher ROI forquality leads.
