Why your own website is worth more than another advert

Most dealers know exactly what their advertising costs each month. Far fewer could say what their own website brought in. That is a pity, because the website is the one part of your marketing that you own outright, and the only part that becomes more valuable the longer you work on it.

Adverts and your website do different jobs

A marketplace advert is rented attention. It works, and for most dealers it is essential. But it lasts as long as the vehicle does: when the vehicle sells, the advert goes, and next month you start again.

A page on your own website behaves differently. A good “about us” page, a guide to part-exchange, or a page for the kind of vehicle you specialise in keeps being found for as long as it is there. The work is done once and carries on paying.

What a buyer does before they call

Very few people ring a dealer cold. They look you up first. They want to see who you are, what else you have in, whether other customers were happy, and whether you look like a business that will still be there after the sale. Your website is where they go to find out, wherever they first saw your stock.

So even a buyer who found the vehicle elsewhere is quietly judging your website before they pick up the phone. If it is thin or out of date, some of them never call.

Content is what gives a website its reach

A website with nothing on it but stock can only be found by someone searching for that stock. Add useful pages and it can be found by far more people: someone asking how finance works, what to check on a used van, or whether there is a specialist near them. Each page that answers a real question is another door into your business.

• Explain how you do things — part-exchange, finance, delivery, warranties.
• Answer the questions you are asked every week.
• Write about what you know — the vehicles you specialise in, and what to look for when buying one.

A little, regularly, beats a lot, once

You do not need to become a publisher. One useful article a month and a tidy set of pages will, over a year, put you a long way ahead of where you started. The habit matters more than the volume.

Where MotoVend fits

MotoVend gives you the three tools this needs: a page builder for the pages, a blog for the articles, and SEO tools to describe them properly to search engines. All three are included for every dealer.