Homepage Tips for conversion

[Ryan Thompson]

Hello,

I thought I'd reach out to my friendly southern neighbours as I know there are only a handful of us Crazy Canadians on the Forum ('sup Mitch!!).

Dealers here are hearing from all different "Experts" that they need to increase website conversion, your conversion sucks, your website does not convert etc;

I would like to know what DealerRefresh thinks are important elements on a dealership website that will help with the amount of inquiries a website will generate. As the homepage is the most important piece of real estate I d like to hear some stories from the frontlines on what they believe works and doesn't.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

 

[MattScalcione]

Hello,

I thought I'd reach out to my friendly southern neighbours as I know there are only a handful of us Crazy Canadians on the Forum ('sup Mitch!!).

Dealers here are hearing from all different "Experts" that they need to increase website conversion, your conversion sucks, your website does not convert etc;

I would like to know what DealerRefresh thinks are important elements on a dealership website that will help with the amount of inquiries a website will generate. As the homepage is the most important piece of real estate I d like to hear some stories from the frontlines on what they believe works and doesn't.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

Well first off you need to effectively market the site or there will be no visitors to convert.

Once you have visitors, here are some fairly basic fundamentals:

• Consumers read left to right, top to bottom. Priority of your marketing efforts placement should coincide with this.
• Dealer sites are meant to sell cars. Don't get crazy with bells and whistles (at least initially), your goal should be to provide the easiest route from your homepage to the content the consumer is looking for in the least amount of time.
• You should have direct inventory integration on the homepage. Searches, specials etc.
• Your site needs to load FAST. Consumers don't like to wait.
• Your site needs to be SEO optimized. (duh)
• Regardless of homepage or interior pages, you can't convert without a method for the consumer to contact you. Easily accessible "calls to action" in logical areas are paramount.
• The more you do to enhance the consumers experience on your site, the more search engines like Google will like you.

Hope these help!

 

[Ryan Thompson]

Thanks Matt. I agree that specials must be clean and easy to find on the homepage.

 

[joe.pistell]

... As the homepage is the most important piece of real estate I d like to hear some stories from the frontlines on what they believe works and doesn't.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

Ryan,

Screw the Home page, it's the "fly over" page. put all your time and energy in the VDPs (Vehicle Detail Pages) and work up from there.

Want Proof?: The Best, Most Profitable Home Page in History

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Homepage needs to get people to where they want to go and quickly. Not the page I work on for conversion.

Vehicle details is your prime landing page for conversion (in the sales side).

Is your site optimized and indexing strong then many people are finding your dealer website through back doors. Every page on your site should be optimized for conversion or easily persuade the visitor to the next step of conversion.

 

[ehoopman]

I know this will make some people cringe but a forced 1 time presentation of a coupon will absolutely generate leads immediately. The only question is it enough to offset some of the negatives involved - primarily bounce rate.

I can tell you that the coupon system on a standard dealer website receiving 10k visitors/month as a forced overlay (not a popup) will produce 10 to 15+ new leads per day with a closing ratio pushing 20%.

You can see a sample here Topeka Kansas Dodge Dealer | Briggs Dodge | New Dodge, Used Cars, Trucks, SUVs in KS - the coupon itself is currently being redesigned and should have new system ready this month.

All the best - Eric

 

[joe.pistell]

I know this will make some people cringe but a forced 1 time presentation of a coupon will absolutely generate leads immediately. The only question is it enough to offset some of the negatives involved - primarily bounce rate.

I can tell you that the coupon system on a standard dealer website receiving 10k visitors/month as a forced overlay (not a popup) will produce 10 to 15+ new leads per day with a closing ratio pushing 20%.

All the best - Eric

Eric,

Great info. TY!

Curious, New vs Returning?
Have you had an opportunity to see if the person filling out the coupon is a new visitor or returning? If there is a strong correlation (I suspect to returning visitors), then it could open up all kinds of opportunities. Possibly experiment with no popup to new visitors. Then, when the returning visitor arrives, make the overlay have a strong call to action (expires in X days, or, quantity limited to 1st ___, etc)


Curious Part2, VDPs?
Eric, I always thought that popup/overlays would work well on the Vehicle Detail Pages (VDP) and set to display if the page is open >the average time a VDP is open (my avg VDP is open 1:23mins). This is a win - win. VDP is the money page, it wouldn't disturb the casual browser, but, someone that's "serious" is on the page > average time.

Great work and thnx again!
Joe

 

[Katie]

• Consumers read left to right, top to bottom. Priority of your marketing efforts placement should coincide with this.

I can't tell you how many people and businesses DON'T adhere to this basic tip. Refreshing to see that some still know this.

 

[Ryan Thompson]

I know this will make some people cringe but a forced 1 time presentation of a coupon will absolutely generate leads immediately. The only question is it enough to offset some of the negatives involved - primarily bounce rate.

I can tell you that the coupon system on a standard dealer website receiving 10k visitors/month as a forced overlay (not a popup) will produce 10 to 15+ new leads per day with a closing ratio pushing 20%.

You can see a sample here Topeka Kansas Dodge Dealer | Briggs Dodge | New Dodge, Used Cars, Trucks, SUVs in KS - the coupon itself is currently being redesigned and should have new system ready this month.

All the best - Eric

Eric,

I actually don't think that coupon is that annoying. Def stops you in your tracks and makes new visitors read it.

Great stuff guys.

 

[ehoopman]

@ Joe.. Right now it's a session so people either complete it right away or it gone from their sight after they close it. It's also in the nav tab and usually a button on the sidebar somewhere. What also helps is there's a response system attached that touches consumers 3 additional times post coupon printout. It comes from DF - not the dealer.

The coupon system was the first tool DealerFire ever built, before we even started building websites. 500,000 leads later little has changed. That said we are moving it along with some other peripheral tools into our Ignite Platform and layering on some additional features.

I'll keep the options to display coupons as open as possible so they can be integrated into VehDetail pages etc as well as offering up different presentation options repeat page visit.. inactivity.. etc.

As soon as we are ready with the new interface I'll give you one to test out Joe!

All the best - Eric