Websites must have visitor appeal to drive traffic

Dealer websites should be designed so that buyers have a reason to visit them, according to Martin Dew, digital solutions director at website developers Autoweb Design.

Dew was addressing the Motor Trader Summit held at Edgbaston.

“It’s the most important thing and often missed. You need to give people a reason to enquire,” said Dew.

He said most dealers had professional and trustworthy sites, and these elements were essential, but in design terms sites should offer ‘a clear call to action’ in the way they engaged with viewers. Used car sites in particular weren’t there just to sell individual cars, but also to place dealers in ‘hotspots’ that would be easy to see.

Dew said that websites needed to ‘create a conversation.’

This was helped by both the content of pages and design elements, such as positioning click through buttons where they were easy to see.

“Have a very clear call to action on where customers are looking, but each page has a purpose, often to get customers to talk to sales staff. Put buttons where people are looking,” he said.

“What about a person comparing this car with another car at another dealership? That’s the person we want. We want to sell them something,” said Dew.

He suggested that dealers who were the first to talk to potential customers would do best, and that they needed clear strategies for different customer types, and that features such as video walk rounds, free finance checks and live chat all played their part.

The Motor Trader Summit was themed around Profitable Digital Marketing in 2019 with sessions covering how dealers can optimise their digital spend, the effective use of CRM data, customer engagement and digital retailing and profitability.

The IMI accredited event included two keynote speaker sessions with Martin Sewell of the digital Rockar business and Ian Godbold of Cambria Automobiles giving presentations on key issues impacting dealers.

The event, attracting an audience of 150 included Q&A session offering delegates the chance to put their questions to the speaker line-up.