Five Reasons Why Your Website May Be Keeping Customers Away From Your Dealership!

It’s no secret that you only get one chance to make a first impression and that includes what your website visitors see and experience when they come to your website.  You may have someone on staff that manages your dealership website or you may contract a professional website development firm to keep your website up to snuff.  Either way, the 5 reasons you may be keeping away potential customers described below will give you the knowledge to make your website a goldmine instead of a dead-end.

Your Website Uses Frames

What is a frame in a web page?  A frame is when one web page gets displayed inside of another web page.  A website designer may choose to use frames when showing website visitors what units they sell by displaying a web page of a manufacturer’s website or site navigation or some other reason.

Most sites that use frames today are built and designed by less experienced website designers because of their limited knowledge.  While this may seem like the only option there are much better ways to accomplish the result you desire.

Here are just a few issues with using frames that can easily provide a negative experience for your website visitors:

1. Frames can be troublesome to print and it’s not uncommon for a website visitor to print off a web page from your site, show family and friends, bring it with them to your dealership, or post it on their refrigerator in November because it’s the unit they want to buy in April.
2. Most Search Engines don’t like frames.  Think this isn’t a big deal then consider that one of our dealers in 2004 had over 30,000 visitors to their website and over 17,000 of them came from search engines.  That’s over 55% of their website visitors that came from search engines.  It is a big deal and you are keeping people away from your dealership if you are using them.
3. Bookmarking and linking are very frustrating for your website visitors when using frames.  They will bookmark a page or link on your site and when they try to use that bookmark at a different time it won’t show them the page they bookmarked.

If your site is using frames you might want to reconsider!

Your Website Uses Pop-ups

Pop-ups can be annoying but even worse computer viruses have been known to be transferred through pop-ups.  Because of this more and more website visitors are using popup blockers.  So if you are using pop-ups to show a special event or a weekly special try taking a look at how you could fit it into your home page design or at the very least provide a small advertisement with a link to another page that displays the important message.  If you are using pop-ups your website visitors are probably not responding to your message.

Your Website Design Is Dirty
 
Most dealers that I know of take great care and go through much effort to make their grounds and buildings appealing to potential customers.  Yet, many fail to recognize that their website is the ‘grounds and buildings’ to their website visitors.  If your website doesn’t have a clean look, great navigation, and a trust factor you are turning away potential customers.  Even if you have great information on your site, it doesn’t matter.  Your website visitors are finicky and critical and your competitor is just a click away.

Remember that statement in the first paragraph of this article?  You never get a second chance to make a first impression!

Your Website Doesn’t Have The Right Information

I’ve heard it before too many times… ‘Our website is awesome!  We can do this and we can do that or it can do this and it can do that’.  Great!  But what can it do for your website visitors and potential customers?

Stop and ask yourself what do your website visitors want to see?  Why are they at your website?  If you can’t answer those simple questions then chances are you have some wrong information on your website.  If you don’t know what they want then ask them.  Use an online survey or simply ask the showroom traffic that comes through your door.

One example of not having enough of the right information is the common inventory feature on many dealer websites.  They only display what they have in inventory instead of showing their website visitors what they really want.  Which is… what do you have available for them to purchase.  Unless you have EVERY floorplan you can sell in your inventory then you aren’t showing your website visitor everything you have to offer them.  If you are wondering how to accomplish this, Interact RV has a great solution.

The Information Is Outdated

Think about the last time you went to a website and staring right at you was a coupon, an event, or some news text that was either expired, past, or so old that you wondered if they were still in business?  Not a position you want your website visitors to be in.

Why is it so difficult to keep your website updated?  More than likely you have the wrong person doing it.  How can that be?  It’s simple.  Most of the time your website is seen as an ‘extra’ or something that is a low priority.  So it gets handed off to the newbie or an already busy assistant.  These are people either too busy already or the young sales person trying to make it to the top.

Stop treating your website as a disposable part of your overall marketing plan.  Hire a website manager or find someone at your dealership that has a vested interest in the success of your website.  Make sure that your site is getting at least a few hours of the right kind of attention each week.  Making sure that the information you provide to your website visitors is fresh and persuasive.

Take action now on these five simple tasks and watch your website results and your showroom traffic improve.

Updated 7/15/06 by Kevin Wallenbeck

If you need assistance we can help. Give us a call at 1-800-515-9672.