Digital Automotive Marketing Maxim #2: Place First in the Fingertips Race

A sexy dealer website means serving the customer the right page at the right time. To avoid, “fingertip fatigue,” minimize the number of clicks it takes for the consumer to reach their desired content. A rockstar site isn’t just about delivering the content that’s most aligned  with the customer’s desires-all your competitors are doing that. Relevance means delivering it in the least amount of time.  “ Relevance is all about making that quick  match between the customer’s goal and what your online experience delivers,” Paul Nagy, Vice President of Core Products said. “If a consumer searches for “Mazda oil change Seattle,” don’t settle for having them land on the home page and then click-through. Maximize your chance of conversion by having them land on the best-match page, the Services page, by optimizing that page for those key terms.”

Sexy Dealer Website Checklist

• Killer Keywords. Go through your site and think carefully about what kind of terms a consumer would search to get to each page. What terms can you add to help consumers land in the right place with the minimum clicks? For example, optimize your Parts page for “Seattle Chevy Shock Absorbers.” Try optimizing your Finance page for “Bad credit auto financing Culver City.” Don’t assume every customer needs to land on the homepage; reduce click fatigue by optimizing each and every page for its own key terms.

• Shining Specials. This tip relates to the Relevancy Golden Rule: one topic=one page. Create a more focused funnel by creating and optimizing individual pages for each topic your site covers-no need to cram everything into one page. This is especially important for specials and promos. “You wouldn’t have a Valentine’s Day promo next to a Veteran’s Day promo on your showroom floor, would you?” Andy Largent, Senior Product Manager at ADP Digital Marketing, asks. “The same focused selling should apply to your website.  Don’t saturate the customer, steer them toward a singular purpose: conversion.”
• Defeat “Dealer Speak.” While it is fun and convenient to use abbreviations, industry slang and inside jokes when chatting with your lot buddies, avoid the temptation to use industry terminology on your website. Keep in mind the types of phrases that consumers will be searching for, and remove any that are too technical or industry-specific to be helpful to the consumer. For example, say “Used Mazda” in your website copy rather than “Pre-Owned Mazda.”

Stay tuned for part 3 of our Sexy Dealer Website Series, coming next week!If you’re ready to try out the sexiest new dealer website platform in automotive history, go check out our new Dealer Command Center and make your competitors bow down today!

Paul Nagy is Vice President of Core Products ADP Digital Marketing (formerly The Cobalt Group). Nagy brings over 12 years of technology management experience to the role, including senior management positions at Apple, Metreo, and Selectica. When he’s not crunching technical problems, Nagy enjoys fly-fishing in the great outdoors.

Andy Largent is a Senior Product Manager at ADP Digital Marketing, where he works on the core website platform and services.  With 10 years of automotive website expertise, Andy uses his experience to build high-performing solutions for dealer, dealer group, and OEM customers. Andy hopes to turn the hundreds of pictures of his kids into an amateur photography sideline someday. Until then, his favorite new social media/photo app is Instagram.