It’s time to amp up your shop’s online presence and make sure your top website pages are maximizing their full traffic and sales potential. Here are the top three pages customers traditionally visit on dealer websites, along with ideas on how to get the most out of these pages to sell more tires, wheels and service.
1) Homepage
Your homepage is, in many cases, the first page a buyer sees. It should be treated as prime real estate for your most important marketing messages and dealership information, placing these items “above the fold” (the area that visitors view without having to scroll down the page). Use your homepage for the content most likely to drive traffic and sales to your dealership:
• Factory promotions or services currently available
• The top brands you carry, including product groups for lines of tires or brands that you want to promote
• Special sales or discounts you’re offering
• Logos of associations, certifications, organizations you are a member of – BBB, AAA, Chamber of Commerce, etc. – to build trust with visitors
• Local information, including sports team logos and events, goes a long way to show your commitment to the community
All of this content should be designed with an urgent call to action, such as “limited quantities available,” “two-day sale,” and “hurry in now.”
2) Product Search Results page
Your website should allow visitors to search by vehicle, tire size and/or tire brand. For visitors who do not have a brand preference, you can use this page to promote particular brands that are part of programs through distributors or manufacturers, such as Goodyear G3X, Michelin Alliance, or Bridgestone/Firestone Affiliates. Doing this allows you to display the results in “order,” leading with the brands you want buyers to consider.
3) Service pages
Hassle-free scheduling of appointments, requests for quotes or more information about your dealership, such as location and business hours, are essential to your customers’ needs and crucial to your business success. Check your online forms and evaluate the required fields. Here, less is more, so require your customers to enter the least amount of personal information possible, which will reduce the form abandonment rate. Each form should be accompanied by a clear explanation, along with images and/or videos of what you offer, not only to guide the customer, but also to influence search engines to crawl your website and improve your rankings.
As you review your website, remember that your specific content must fit your customer base, location and dealership culture, so always think like your customers when planning your content. Before making any changes, pull website analytics reports on your homepage, main search pages, and service pages to get a baseline metric on page performance. Then, if you made changes, go back and check the same page reports 30 to 60 days later to see if the updates you made resulted in traffic increases. Once you are on the right track, remember to update and refresh content on your most highly trafficked pages to provide customers with a reason to come back for a visit.
Nate Lehmann is sales manager for tire and automotive at 50 Below, an ARI company. ARI creates software solutions that help more than 2,100 independent tire and wheel dealers spanning over 3,400 locations “Sell More Stuff!” – online and in-store. Nate can be reached at [email protected] or 218-740-1407.
