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Creating a Successful Shop Web SitePosted 1/20/2000By Alissa Arford-Leyl
Over the past year, the most popular phrase in advertising seems to be "WWW." Web addresses are everywhere -on the radio, television, magazines, newspapers, billboards and even on T-shirts. At the 1999 International Autobody Congress and Exposition (NACE) held in Atlanta last month, someone was walking around the showroom floor wearing a T-shirt advertising a collision industry-related domain name for sale. The number of small businesses with a Web presence has nearly doubled since 1998, and millions are projected to come online this year, according to the results of a November 1999 national survey of small businesses (under 100 employees) conducted by Prodigy Biz Corp., a subsidiary of Prodigy Communications Corp. (http://www.prodigy.com) Despite geographical barriers, nine in 10 small businesses anticipate benefiting from the Internet, the study found. Respondents said their primary uses would be promoting to prospects (69 percent), followed by e-commerce (57 percent), providing better customer service (48 percent) and competing with other businesses (46 percent). Nearly 75 percent of small business owners said that cost is not a barrier in setting up a Web site. Most small business owners currently budget for traditional means of advertising and promotion and a Web site may help save money by eliminating the need for some fliers and brochures. The study found that businesses with fewer employees were less likely to have a Web presence. Only one in four companies with fewer than 10 employees has a Web site, whereas half of those with 10 or more employees are online. If you don't have a Web site for your shop, the following information may help you merge onto the information superhighway.
Picking a Domain Name
Before you start building your Web site, you will need to register a domain name and find a company to host the site. Visit the Network Solutions Web site (http://www.networksolutions.com) to search for and purchase available domain names. You will need to have the Internet Protocol (IP) number from the company that will be hosting the site to finalize your registration. Some Internet service providers (ISPs) will handle this process for you. If you have e-mail and Internet access, inquire about Web hosting fees with the same company. At this time, the cost of initial registration of a domain name is $70 for the first two years, then $35 per year thereafter. When choosing a domain name, pick something easy to remember and something that relates directly to your shop name or services.
Designing a Web Site There are four major areas to consider when planning a Web site: content, design, navigation and speed. A successful Web site needs to have a balance of graphics and information in a user-friendly format that loads quickly.
Content The most important information to have on your home page is the shop's address, phone number, contact name and e-mail address. On a separate page, include detailed directions and a map. A list of services is the next most important component of a shop Web site. Most mechanical, collision and transmission shops can perform practically the same services as their competitors, but if a customer needs his wheels aligned and it says "Wheel Alignment" on your list of services, you have made a connection. Make your service section as detailed as possible. Comprehensive Web sites even list prices and procedures for common repairs along with maintenance schedules. What if the customer doesn't know what's wrong with his car? Include a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" with general repair information. Successful sites offer interaction where a potential customer can submit a question and receive an expert's opinion. Give your shop credibility by including a mission statement, business philosophy or code of ethics and link to associated organizations. Customers may not know what ASA, ASE and I-CAR mean, so you should include a brief explanation or a link to organizations that you are referencing. All members of the Automotive Service Association (http://www.asa shop.org) can use the ASA logo on their Web sites and link to the ASA Web site. ASA will also provide a free link to member sites from the Find Nearest ASA Shop database, located at the ASA site. If your technicians are certified, you should link to the ASE (http://www.asecert-org) and I-CAR (http://www.i-car.com) Web sites. Include pictures of your shop, inside and out, showing a professional atmosphere. Employee profiles with pictures and a list of credentials is essential. Include an online version of shop newsletters, automotive tips and other personalized information that will make the customer more familiar with your shop. Neil DeBoer, president and general manager of Lloyd's Automotive and Transmission Inc. in Olympia, Wash., said his favorite Web page at his site is the history page that shows the original site where they built the new shop. "It is such a contrast to the later picture of the new shop. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years now since we moved into the new shop," he said. "We are very excited about the pages that we are adding now to promote other area businesses. I think there is the potential for a lot of business and a feeling of community." You can visit DeBoer's site at http://www.lloydsauto.com. After a potential customer has decided to take his car to your shop, what's the next step? Make it clear what action should be taken to set up an appointment. If you have an online appointment form, be sure that the customer knows what to expect. Will you call him within 24 hours? Will you reply via e-mail? If he drives into your shop, will you ever know that he found it over the Internet? Write on the site, "Tell me you found me on the Web!" Web coupons are another good way to track your site's traffic. A nice service for current customers is an online status report. Customers can log on and get hourly or daily status reports on their cars. Another variation of this would be to send customers e-mail periodically throughout the day. Collecting e-mail addresses is also a great way to let customers know about specials and when it's time for a tire rotation or oil change. If you are accepting e-mail from your site or communicating with customers via e-mail, be sure to check it a few times a day.
Design Greg Huntley, president of Greg's Japanese Auto in Seattle, Wash., feels that the best feature of his site is the consistent look and feel. "All of the pages are no more than two clicks away from the home page, and there is usually more than one way to get to a page," he said. "This, along with strict adherence to the html standards, has made our site very usable." Visit his Web site at http://www. gregs.com.
Navigation To be effective, a non-frames site needs to have consistent navigation on each page, reloading the entire page each time a new link is opened. The initial design of a frames site is more complicated, but maintenance is easier because the main frame page can focus on content, not navigation.
Speed Getting a Web site is only the first step in online marketing. Once your site is accessible, you'll need to register it at search engines, request links from other sites and add your Web address to all promotional material, business cards and stationery. Before you register your site at search engines, be sure that your Web pages have "meta tags." Meta tags are imbedded in the hypertext markup language (html) code to help search engines identify content. They include a short description of your site in sentence form and a list of keywords. John Rush, John's 4x4 Center Inc. in Boulder, Colo., promotes his site by listing it on all printed materials. "From invoices, to business cards, to Yellow Pages, we print it on every piece of advertising we do," he said. Aside from registering it at search engines, they have also used it in radio advertisements and they have a message about it on their on-hold phone system. Visit his Web site at http://www.johns4x4.com. Search Engines When registering at search engines, look for the link on the home page that reads "Add Your Site" or "Add URL." URL stands for uniform resource locator, which is the technical term for Web address.
Measuring Success It's hard to measure the success of your Web site. You can analyze hits, page accesses and e-mail requests but that may not give you an accurate view of its effectiveness. A Web site will not only help attract new customers, but it will help keep current ones loyal. You will never really know how many people saw your site before they came to your shop unless you ask them. DeBoer thinks his Web site is still in a toddler stage. "We are ahead of the learning curve and it will be an important medium in the future. It is not that expensive at this time and therefore any response that we get is easy to justify the investment," he said. Rush considers the Web to be the way of the future. "It's a very useful tool to get information to our present and future customers," he said. "If you're not involved in it now, you will be at some point in the future. Whether by choice or being forced by the competition, you will have to have a presence on the Internet." Look through the Top 10 Automotive Repair Web Sites, as named here in the January issue of AutoInc., for innovative ideas on how to create an effective Web site. Small Businesses on the Web
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