Conversion is probably the most important thing for getting the maximum bang for your buck on your dealer website. A conversion happens when someone visits your website and fills out a contact form or calls your dealership. Conversions happen as potential buyers begin their journey through the purchase cycle.
- Browsers – awareness
- Researchers – evaluation
- Shoppers – engagement
- Leads / Appointments – conversion
- Sales – share experience
Let’s start by asking ourselves this question: “Do you have a clear call to action on your home page?”
The top 3 items that consumers click on when visiting your dealer website are: pre-owned inventory, new car inventory and of course specials.
If a customer clicks on your specials button on the home page, and goes to a blank page without any specials on it, they are likely to immediately leave. This will attribute to a high bounce rate and those customers may be lost for good. This lack of requested content will also lower your conversion rate.
When a customer does click on a vehicle you have in your inventory, he is presented with the vehicle details page. Is this page easy to understand? Does it have relevant information? Is the vehicle price clearly marked? How easily can a customer request more information or call you? These are all important factors when it comes to increasing conversion on your dealer website.
As a customer looks at the vehicle details page on your dealer website, what does he or she see? Do you have multiple vehicle photos? Do you have actual videos of the car? Vehicle videos have been PROVEN to increase conversion rates and time on site. You want to give your customers the information that they seek and keep them engaged as long as possible. A happy, educated customer is much more likely to buy a vehicle from your dealership. If this is a new vehicle, are you presenting the customer with all the available rebates and incentives? Give him the tools so that he doesn’t have to venture back to the OEM or manufacturer site for this information.
High conversion rates depend on whether your dealer website is providing customers with valuable time saving tools. I will expand in future articles on ways we can increase conversion rates by examining specific sections of your dealer website.
