Complete Dealer Solutions

What does a customer want when they visit your website? 

They are looking for information.  They are looking for a new car or ways service their current car.  They are looking for a dealership. 

They are not looking for a good time.  They are not looking for you to entertain them with games.  They are not looking to waste their time.

If you do not satisfy the general need they came looking for, everything else is irrelevant.  If they do not see the path to their needs, they will leave.  IF someone comes looking for a used car, and cannot see how to find the used cars, your big article boasting your community service event is irrelevant.  If it takes more than 3 clicks to start seeing vehicles, they will stop looking.  They don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, and decide to try the next one.

Now when you’ve satisfied their search, then everything else become relevant.  Now they see your a community sponsor, and feel better spending their money with you.

So what’s it all mean?  Realize what you visitors are coming to your site for.  Then provide the easiest way to get there, with your other information playing the supporting role.

Regards,

Aaron

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, I want it!  I have to have it! It will make me millions and sell a ton more cars! ha!

The fact of the matter is most visitor that want to look through your site will find you in the search engines by your dealership name or city/market area.  These should readily appear based on your website’s basic content, if designed properly.  (IE: You cannot have your dealership name only appear in graphics.)

And even then about half will probably direct type-thrus, if you have your domain name properly marketed in your community.

The biggest problem I’ve noticed is when you begin to shift your focus away from your customers and onto search engine spiders, who won’t ever buy a car.  Too much keyword stuffing or poor human navigation will cause your visitors to turn and run.  So even if you attract 10% more visitors, they won’t stay. 

Over stuffing pages with content irrelevant or constantly repeated will desensitize your visitors who may end up missing information you truly want them to see.

If you have a highly optimized website, be sure you get the whole picture.  Increases in unique visitors doesn’t tell the entire story.  Look at their depth of visit (how many pages to they look at before leaving?).  Check the bounce rates on your optimized homepage.  Do you scare your customers away?

I have seen some dealerships who have a bounce rate of near 40% on the homepage because of over optimized SEO.  They have less than 6% making it through 20 or more pages.  They get roughly 20 leads a month.

On the other hand, another site we tailor to visitors with basic optimizations in place (every website should have the basics) as well as general techniques that do not draw too far away from the optimal experience.  They average over 160 leads a month and average 168 credit apps a month.  They have over 20% of their visitors staying through at least 20 pages.  Most of their visits are direct address or searches based on their name.

While some other factors do play into getting those number of leads, the % of bounces and page depth are main indicators of the website’s performance.

Regards,

 - Aaron

Welcome to my new Blog.  My name is Aaron Hergenreder, owner of Interlink Computing, LLC and creator of our Complete Dealer Solution system.  While I don’t like to think of my company and just another web provider.  There are too many of those.  We are more web consultants. 

This means we don’t just provide your business with a website, instead we help you maximize your website, through experience and understanding of both technology and behavior.  We’ve seen many things come and go, many ‘hotest and latest widgets’ fall flat on their face.  Many were promoted by faulty or biased statistics that just do not work.

I will have quite a few post appear over the next few days to get caught up, as well as a steady stream as time progresses.

If you have any question or concerns, please leave your comments on the board or feel free to send them to me.

Regards,

Aaron Hergenreder