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Another New Website
Hello,
I have a new website and would appresciate any feedback you guys could give me. I actually liked the look of my old website better, but the new guy I hired said the site coding was outdated. I do plan on making changes to the content as we go along. A lot of the things that are on it I don’t like from a technician’s viewpoint (IE Picture of diesel injection pump, some of the services listed). He told me not to worry we will review the performance in a few months. The good thing is that it is getting the phone to ring.
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3 Replies
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Hi Gary,
Nice basic site. Seems to be built well from a technical perspective. An improvement would be more personal content about the nature and character of your business and, even more importantly, the people who run it. People connect with people not the “business”. Things to focus on are About Us page, photos of staff and more details on their skills; Why people should chose you over your competitors; What is your value proposition (why people deal with you)? Highlight your shop with photos to satisfy prospective customer’s curiosity. Rather than just a shopping list of auto repair services you provide highlight the benefits of the services you provide. Also needs grammar edits. Like many websites it is written from the perspective of the web developer describing your company (third person), rather than from perspective of “you” describing your business.
Gary Armando wrote:
> A lot of the things that are on it I don’t like from a technician’s viewpoint (IE Picture of diesel injection pump, some of the services listed).
The big mistake most business owners make is to build a website that satisfies what they like (their needs) rather than what their customers want (customer needs). Shop owners typically want photos of car parts and to use technical terms and jargon when describing their services. Problem is that the average vehicle owner couldn’t recognize a brake rotor from a fuel injector if it hit them in the head. Build your website for your customers not yourself.
One of the most difficult things for all business owners is put themselves in the shoes of their customers. To help you make this difficult mind shift ask yourself how you feel, and how you act, when you need to purchase something you are not familiar with. It is a very uncomfortable feeling. And I place heavy emphasis on ‘feeling’ because that emotion is what people base their decisions on. Emotions are what motivate people to act. Picture yourself in a city where you don’t know anyone and you need to quickly make a purchase of something with either a high cost (e.g. transmission repair) or something that deeply affects you personally (e.g. hair cut). Prospective new customers will base their purchase decision on what they see on your website and how it makes them FEEL. Marketing is all about feelings, relationship building, and establishing trust. This is why online reviews have become SO important. Marketing needs to appeal to and satisfy emotions.
The number one purpose of your website is to create a connection and build trust with the viewer (your prospective customer). Everything on your website, including photos, should resonate with the average non-technical vehicle owner and communicate a BENEFIT for them. If not it just frustrates people and kills the sales process. For everything on your website ask yourself “What does this say to my customer? Can they understand it without being a wrench head? How does this make them feel? What benefit do they see in it?” If it makes your customers feel dumb, insecure, untrusting they won’t become your customer. Have you ever shopped for a computer and had some pimple faced kid overwhelm you with techno babble that totally turned you off? Auto repair shops often do the same thing. Talk at a level the customer understands.
Gary Armando wrote:
> He told me not to worry we will review the performance in a few months.
Be careful of placing too much importance on website traffic statistics. Website traffic is great but SEO can be a total waste if the traffic doesn’t convert into customers. The only true measure of website performance is customer contact. Best way to do that is with a phone tracking number, and count of emails requests from new customers for estimates and appointments.
Gary Armando wrote:
> The good thing is that it is getting the phone to ring.
Big question is whether this is due to new website content, better SEO (better position in search engine results), or just having a website now (you didn’t say if you had previous website). Be interesting to compare website analytics between old and new websites to find out what is making the phone ring. And do more of that…
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Gary:
The best indicator is what is it doing for your bottom line. You want
the site to be found and for it to get profitable customers in your
front door. How you like it or how I like it is not very important.
As soon as people start talking about how cool a particular site is,
immediately think of Craigslist…one of the top 5 sites in the
world…and in competition for the most boring.
The trick is to get a good website “geek” and follow his or her
direction.
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Hi Gary,
Your site looks good. It has a lot of text on the pages, which is clearly driving your great Google rankings (I found your page and your review site near the top of Google search for “little falls auto repair”.)
Doug’s point is right that all the web traffic in the world doesn’t mean anything unless it converts to paying customers.
Some questions to ask your web guy here: how many appointments are being scheduled from your website? How many phone calls are coming in directly from the website? How many customers are mentioning or printing and bringing in the coupons from your site?
Some thoughts to help improve your site’s conversion: in line with what Doug said, you might make it a little more personal, with pictures and or bios of you and your team. People buy from people after all.
Also, the site features a lot of images of parts: engines, brakes, oil filters, etc. These look great to automotive repair guys, but not so enticing to the average customer who doesn’t know much about auto repair. I would consider swapping out those images of parts or of cars being repaired, and replacing them with pictures that show the benefits customers get from visiting your shop… such as a picture of a family in front of their car at the beach, or taking the kids to baseball practice… or generally doing something that really matters to them… but was made possible by their car. That is what your customers will emotionally connect with much more than pictures of parts they don’t recognize 🙂 Getting even that split second of emotional engagement is what’s going to win them over as customers more than anything else.
Really the site is good and ranking well, just some considerations to help get more out of it!
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