The Conundrum of a Good Website

[Nick Spolec]

Hello everyone!

Our dealer group websites are all on dealer.com --- the only exception is our GM store, which CDK is still the only OEM option. Despite this, we have a dealer.com website for that store as well. So, we have two websites for that dealership (a .com and .net)

My position is "Digital Marketing Manager", so I'm involved in the handling of the websites and other online aspects of the dealerships.

The manager of the GM store wants to cancel our dealer.com website, and just use the CDK website. I think this is a bad idea, in that, well, the CDK platform sucks. I've sent along a list of reasons why we should keep our dealer.com website.

ANYWAY, I figure maybe it might be a good idea to get some input and see if our dealer.com website is even considered good (from other experts). Maybe I am wrong in thinking we should keep it? Maybe it's crap? Maybe there is something off about it? Could I possibly get some opinions and recommendations?

www.schimmergm.com

I appreciate any input/help/advice

 

[ChrisR]

My thoughts are, the people who's opinions matter most about whether a site is "good" or not, are the consumers. If the information they are looking for cannot be found, it doesn't matter how slick a site looks. Do you have any metrics to compare between the two sites, to show which one actually performs better?

 

[Nick Spolec]

I do not have any worthwhile metrics --- the reason being is, of our two addressed, www.schimmergm.com and www.schimmergm.net, the .com website is used in all our advertisements, social media, adwords, and in store. The .net website, the CDK site, which only exists to serve GM's OEM website requirement, is pretty much completely de-emphasized. So, I can't compare the traffic really.

I believe the decision to just used the CDK website is based on budget. We have to have the CDK website, regardless, so why have two websites in the first place? But I am hoping for the opposite, because I really do not like the CDK platform, features, usability... And in a trying a last ditch effort to find out if there really is anything missing/needing improvement on the dealer.com, so I can say "Hey, before we make this change, let me try these adjustments/updates, as recommended by other dealers/admins".

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Many dealers (though less now than before) are still sporting 2 websites due to OEM compliance. With the compliant website usually taking the backseat.

A GM trying to save himself into a paycheck.

Ask the GM if he aspires to be the red headed step child... get with the freaking program.

 

[Nick Spolec]

Ha, ha, thanks Jeff

 

[Steve Stauning]

I just wrote about this on my personal blog: http://askthemanager.com/2016/12/8-...lers-make-that-are-killing-their-conversions/

Have your GM read "Mistake #3" - and that just represents the leads and sales lost from CDK/General Motors not allowing ONE third-party application. I cannot imagine how many total opportunities are actually being lost every single day if we looked closely at all of their roadblocks.

(By the way, if you're really bored or just have a thirst for knowledge, here's a free 21-part video series that will make you a website conversion expert overnight: http://stevestauning.com/how-to-convert-more-website-visitors-into-buyers/.)

 

[Alexander Lau]

While I worked at WorldDealer (good platform for the money), our strategy was to sell secondary websites (depended on the OEM and their compliance rules -- heavily varied). OEM "preferred" website platform vendors tend to restrict 3rd parties from a number of things. The secondary sites that we had put out heavily performed groups like CDK and Dealer.com, from an organic standpoint. Plus, we had full blown inventory manipulation. Obviously, there are far less obstacles / hoops to jump through, just in terms of accessibility and less rules to follow, as we owned the platform.

I will say, you should hold all vendors up against best practice usability, which includes a number of things (I'll not go into, fully) such as home page, landing pages, SRPs and VDPs. Not to mention SEO components, etc.

What I see Dealer Inspire doing, is second to none, but that depends on your budget.