The typical car buyer no longer spends hours scouring the local
dealerships when they want to see what new makes and models are
available. Instead, the first instinct is to get on the Web in the
comforts of their own home and gather as much information as possible
before moving off the couch. This puts pressure on car dealerships, and
even the auto manufacturers themselves, because if a potential buyer
doesn’t find what they’re looking for they’re only one click away from
being lost to the dealership forever.

Significant time and money is spend on finding and luring-in potential
car buyers online well before they reach a dealer’s official URL. New
methods of advertising and promotion are being employed to make sure
the shoppers find a dealer’s site before they find their competitors.
Search engine optimization and marketing are two such methods that
fairly recently were simply buzzwords, but are now mainstream marketing
tactics that dealers must employ to reach their increasingly
Web-centric customers.

With nearly 80% of all searches on the Internet being done in Google,
Yahoo, and MSN, most car dealers now know that being found in these
search engines is a crucial component of a successful website. But what
happens after a potential car buyers finds and visits a site? That’s
when the design, layout, and usability of the site all have to be honed
to ensure those visits are not wasted.

Optimal usability of a dealer website requires it to be simple and well organized. A website such as Ford Orange County
offers visitors to their site a clean, uncluttered look, with
navigation that is straightforward and easy to decipher. Whether
someone is looking for new vehicle or parts information, the
information is organized and labeled in an intuitive way. And when in
doubt, simplicity is always a good strategy, as with Ford Salem Ohio, that isn’t over-designed or cluttered.
In addition to solid navigation and usability, the site simply should
look good. Although usability issues may be easy to overlook, the
importance of design is imperative because a dealer has to stand out
from the competition! Whether it’s the color of the site, the graphics,
or photography, the site has to be both inviting and memorable.

Many dealerships are also getting better commuting with people and
getting them excited to make an offline visit. Websites such as Honda Jackson Mississippi and Houston Chevy Dealership
have Flash content right on their home page, giving the site added
character with moving imagery that is more captivating to users
compared with more commonly used static sites. Some dealerships use
Flash in innovative ways that help build lasting impressions with
potential customers. For example, San Diego Corvette
uses Flash for video testimonials on their home page, letting actual
car buyers explain their experience at the dealership. Such design
techniques are becoming widely used, especially with the popularity of
video content sites like YouTube, where dealers get expand the exposure
of their online videos.

Having a feature laden site is also helpful for keeping visitors of the
site longer, and providing additional content for the user to interact
with. Nebraska Nissan Dealers, for example, gives visitors many features to explore right from its home page. Sacramento Toyota
is another website that helps to bring many features immediately to the
users’s fingertips, such as trade-in value information, a searchable
inventory database, and even a form for a quick quote on a vehicle.

With traditional marketing methods becoming more expensive and
delivering increasingly less impressive results, car dealerships are
rethinking their marketing efforts to boost online exposure, often at
the expensive of traditional media dollars. In the end, the potential
car buyer is becoming more knowledgeable about the dealer, its
inventory, and its staff, and the dealership is getting higher ROI for
quality leads.