By Colby Horton
Shop Site of the Month
Clintonville Automotive Repair Service - Columbus, Ohio
www.clintonvilleauto.com
This site offers dynamic content and a professional design. The site's "Recommend a Friend" incorporates referral marketing into its online presence. An appointment scheduler and "Ask an Expert" section provides interactivity and convenience for visitors to the site. A virtual tour of the shop, car care tips and a list of automotive links make this site informative.
Web Wise
Redesigning Your Shop's Web Site - Part 3
For the past couple of months, Net Worth has discussed the initial steps in redesigning your shop's Web site. This month, we tackle the most important aspect of your redesign process: navigation.
The navigation scheme of your Web site is like a map. If you do not incorporate good navigation and organization into your site, your visitors will become lost. A lost visitor means lost business.
Before creating a navigation menu, you must first decide how you will organize your site. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to dive into a redesign without having your site organized on a piece of paper. This can be an arduous process but well worth the time and effort.
Create an organizational chart of your new site. Decide which sections you want to incorporate. During this step, you are not only deciding which sections you want on your navigation menu, but also which subsections you want to incorporate. For example, under the section "About Us," you may want to include subsections dedicated to your staff, your credentials, your history and ways to contact your shop. Once you've completed the process, take a look at your layout from a visitor's point of view. Do all the sections make sense? Do all your subsections fall under the proper section of your site?
Now that your Web site is laid out on paper, you should have a better understanding of the importance of implementing a good navigation scheme. Depending on how many sections you incorporate into your site, there are a number of navigation schemes you can look at. Remember, you do not have to implement just one of the schemes. What may be obvious to you during your redesign process may not be so obvious to your visitors. Each navigation system provides another opportunity to find the information they seek.
Most sites implement a menu on the left side of the screen. This is the best option if you have more than six or seven sections on your site. If you have fewer than that, you may want to consider tabs at the top of the screen. Visit various Web sites to find examples of navigation systems that best suit your organizational style. You may also want to check out AutoInc.'s Top 10 Automotive Repair Web site winners from past years. To access these sites, visit AutoInc.'s Web site (www.autoinc.org) and click on "Previous Issues." Award-winning sites are featured each January.
Next month, Net Worth will discuss writing content for your site - the next important step in redesigning your shop's Web site.
Net Numbers
Approximately 92 percent of customers use the Internet as part of their car shopping experience.
Source: Dot-Com Insider
ASA Web Ways
Visit ASA's Members Only Area
The Automotive Service Association has created a special area of its Web site specifically for its members. The Members Only area features a wealth of relevant information at the members' fingertips. Members can sign up for a free e-mail account with 10MB of disk space, shop in ASA's secure online store, access more than 9,000 business abstracts from the Information Center and chat with a membership representative in real time. To access the Members Only area, go to www.asashop.org/private and enter your six-digit ASA member number in both the username and password fields.
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Net Worth is written by Colby Horton, ASA's electronic communications manager. He can be reached at (800) 272-7467, ext. 234, or by e-mail at colbyh@asashop.org.
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