• Stop being a LURKER - join our dealer community and get involved. Sign up and start a conversation.

What Makes For A Well Designed Dealer Website?

OMG Tordiway!
Where did you find this treasure of car sales chaos! It's a visual IED, but this gal has so much passion she can't contain herself! I just can't believe the content I am seeing. When does she have time to sell cars?? oh.. thats why it's a visual nightmare, she selling cars in the daylight and piling stuff on her site when everyone else is sleeping!

If ever, any ISM wanted a model to build you own personal brand, this gal has it going on by the truck load! Look thru the visual pepper spray and find the jewels shes made... my God, where do I start?

One day I wondered if websitesthatsuck.com was still around, so I went there and, lo and behold, that day's "Worst Website" was Ling's. (She's on the websitesthatsuck.com home page right now, in fact, contending for Worst Website Of The Year.) Members of graphic design forums across the USA are climbing all over themselves to be the one who condemns Ling's site the loudest - they totally miss the point, eh?

Anyway, I was so dumbfounded and awestruck by Ling's Cars (the site and the business concept) that I wrote her a love letter and she wrote right back. She is more than happy to discuss her business with anyone who wants to correspond with her.
 
Last edited:
...Just curious, what's your site's bounce rate? I think your site is one of the best in the field. Surely it is more sticky than most?

Tordiway,
TY for the compliments, that design is 2 years old and needs an a** woopin. All I see are the holes that need fixin'. I've been working with the staff at Homenet to keep working it and they have been nothing but the best.

Not all bounce rates are created the same.
I am not so sure that Bounce rate is a good single point of reference. We dealers are a local bunch, we market locally. For example, let's loolk at extremes: Dealer A spends gigantic mountains of money on local broadcast media and Dealer B is an itty-bitty shop with an itty bitty ad budget. I don't care how bad dealer A's site is, my gut tells me his bounce rate is lower than Dealer B because of the direct traffic. NOTE: Only logical deductive reasoning, not an ounce of proof ;-)

Probably the better measurement would be to filter the traffic and for SEO visits only, then notch out the SEO visits driven by dealers name (ala a phone book search like Joe Johnson Chevy).


IMO,a more interesting measure is the visitor loyalty metrics like:
--How much of your traffic is return visitors
--What your return visitor metrics like (vs your noobie visitor). Measurements like "time on site" and pages viewed etc..

Another VERY important metric is # of units in inventory.
I've written here before, Inventory is like a candle to a moth, it sucks in and holds the visitor. Last I looked its about 1 min per 100 units in stock.


Also, franchise connections that skew this (i.e Buick vs anything! hahaha).

Thnx again Tordiway
(just what in the *T&^%^&% is a Tordiway any hoo?)
 
I like this measurement:

# of leads (calls and emails) per unit in stock.
BUT, there is a problem comparing to this measurement to other sites. Again, lets look at outliers. Say Dealer A has a large inventory 30 mins from a major market sweetened by a great franchise with little competition. Dealer B, the inverse. An Buick franchise with 30 units that lives off of referrals that are measured in generations. See where I'm going? Dealer A has a big geographical & Inventory advantage. Dealer A needs CHAT! hahaha...
 
... Members of graphic design forums across the USA are climbing all over themselves to be the one who condemns Ling's site the loudest - they totally miss the point, eh?

Anyway, I was so dumbfounded and awestruck by Ling's Cars (the site and the business concept) that I wrote her a love letter and she wrote right back. She is more than happy to discuss her business with anyone who wants to correspond with her.

Most noobs have NO IDEA how painstakingly difficult it is to arrange content in a way to make it all flow naturally. OH... everyone has an opinion, but, when the try it themselves the fun begins! It's like handing a Guitar to any noob and tell them to go make money. They all have opinions but few time to master the craft. hahaha... rather funny to watch the learning curve frustration too!

This quote nails Lings world:
“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.â€
- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
I didn't have time to write a short...