How to increase your dealership website conversion rate (Part 2 of 2)

Here are 30 tips you can implement right now to increase your dealership website conversion rate.

1. Attract qualified traffic… if you are a Ford dealership don't just do pay per click campaigns for generic terms… like dealership, service center, auto repair, auto dealer.
2. Add a track able toll free number on your website. You can use services like CallSource , WhosCalling
3. Have a great looking dealership website design… since Jake over at HigherTurnover.com has done a really nice write up on this, go check that out.
4. On your finance applications make sure you are using SSL and the user knows about it.
5. Have a clearly defined privacy policy… on each form that you request for mailing list signup, state that you won't sell or rent the list out to any third party.
6. Keep the menu names standard… don't have the user guess what is under a menu item.
7. Include directions button wherever you display your address.
8. List your address, phone and contact link on each and every page.
9. Don't auto play sound or better yet have no sounds on your homepage… most visitors will visit your dealership site from their work. Check out an excellent post over at SEOMoz on why you don't need sound on your website. TIP: You can figure out where most of your traffic is coming from by looking at your website's hourly stats and network location maps.
10. Provide clear images of your vehicles… check out AutoTrader.com “How to Sell Your Car” section for more details.
11. Keep important information above the fold – at the very minimum show your potential customers make, model, price, general specs and contact button. If they can see this within first couple of seconds you can capture them, remember “Eye level, is buy level”.
12. Include points of reassurance by every point of action. Ex. – Let the visitor know that someone will contact them in the next 4 hours, a day etc.
13. Remove distractions form your lead generation forms… don't display any offers or flash banners on the pages or worst a pop-up.
14. If you have multi-step lead generation form use process indicator. Ex. - If your finance form has multiple steps, indicate what step they are on and how many steps there are.
15. Implement one click or at max two click inventory display.
16. If you have a lot of vehicles allow the user to sort on price, make, model, and year.
17. Use real customer testimonials and authentic customer photos… no stock photos. You loose on credibility.
18. Look over your lead forms and only keep the fields you need… if first and last name would do… remove the field for MI and Salutation…
19. Have clear and concise error messages on your lead form… Clearly state what the error is… where the error is… and how it can be fixed.
20. Have an “About Us” page on your dealership website.
21. Write a great description of your used vehicles… check out “ 10 Tips for Writing Online Car Ads”
22. Spell check your website.
23. Update those copyrights statements in the footer… its 2008 and not 2007.
24. Identify / Create a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to distinguish your dealership from the rest and exploit it. Ex… "we're the no-hassle car dealership. One price - you know exactly where you stand."
25. Optimize your website for search engines… most of your traffic will come from search engines… you can read more on SEO in our Search Engine Optimization category of this Blog and check out AutoConversion.net for more info on this topic.
26. Use your homepage wisely…. Don't just have an image of your dealership on this page… add some featured vehicles, quick inventory search, and link to service appointment lead form.
27. Provide a “Specials” or “Sales” section on your website.
28. Add “Reassurance logos” on your website site… such as local dealership association, BBB, CarFax, etc… (BTW Carfax 1-Owner vehicles sell faster and sell at a premium...)
29. Include live chat and/or click to call now.
30. And most important of all, make sure your website is useable.

Interested in more ways to increase your website conversion rate then checkout…

Google Conversion University
LunaMetrics Blog
GrokDotCom