Best Practices For Auto Shop Websites

We are in the digital age. Your shop is now a 24/7 business because your customers are searching for you online. What will they find? 

BOLT ON TECHNOLOGY's Pit Stop, offers shops the ability to build out websites that are already SEO-optimized. Our customers see results in less than a week!

Website Tips for Auto Repair Shops

When building out your new auto repair shop website, or optimizing your current site, there are certain things you should do in order to stay ahead of your competition. If you're not sure where to start, check out how to build an auto repair shop website with these helpful tips.  

Create an Inviting Home Page

Your home page should serve as "home-base" and guide website visitors to other pages on your website. It should be simple and clear with a concise message while representing your overall brand. 

• The navigation in both the header and footer should be easy to maneuver and highly visible.
• All contact information should be displayed (address, phone number, etc.) 
• Social media channels should be provided for customers to follow

Using different color text or bolder font can help the most important information stand out. Try not to clutter your home page with sliders, coupons, featured services, or too many photos. These are important things to include elsewhere on your website, but the homepage should be as clear and concise as possible so as not to overwhelm your visitors. 

Tell Your Story

Your ‘About Us’ page should hit three main points:

1. What makes your shop unique?
2. How/why did you get started?
3. Who you are—Include photos of key staff (Owner, GM, etc.)

Your ‘About Us’ page is meant to humanize your shop so customers feel like they can get to know your business. Give enough information to seem warm and welcoming. Customers do business with brands and people they trust, so the friendlier and more knowledgeable you sound, the more potential customers will trust you.

Optimize Service Pages

Service pages are the meat and potatoes of your site. It’s really why customers are there. They want to know that you offer what they need. There are several things to be aware of when populating this page.

• High-quality images are best. Let the customer clearly see what services or products you offer
• Creative and clear descriptions will help convey your message and educate the customer
• Use keywords and SEO-friendly phrasing so your site appears higher in the search results.

You might not have to list all your services and available products, but listing the most popular items will allow the customers to get an idea of what to expect. 

Display Your Reviews

When online visitors to your website are visiting your page, they're trying to get a sense of your shop. Are you trustworthy? Do you have good customer service? People are constantly using websites to decide whether or not certain places of business are worth their time and money or not. 

While all of the other information you include on your site is valuable, nothing quite gives potential customers a good sense of what they can expect like reviews. These are the real and unfiltered opinions from their fellow neighbors and community members, and they carry a lot of weight when it comes to decision-making. Adding these reviews to your business website can help increase the odds of those website visitors turning into booked appointments. 

In addition, reviews are also beneficial to your overall SEO goals. You should consider encouraging existing customers to leave reviews on Google as the search engine favors businesses that have a larger number of reviews. 

Include Clear Calls-To-Action

Your website should be working hard for your business long after you close your garage doors for the night. Give customers the opportunity to do business with your auto repair shop, even in your off hours. Popular calls-to-action for auto repair shop websites include:

• Schedule an appointment: adding an online appointment scheduler if you don't already have one can help you see real tangible results from your online efforts. When website visitors have the ability to make an appointment while they're already on your page instead of having to take the extra step to call your shop, the more likely you'll see an increase in booked appointments. 
• Reserve tires (if website has a tire catalog)
• Sign up for rewards program or newsletter

Think about your shop's business goals and determine how your website can help you reach them!

Mobile Friendly Design

Above all else, your auto repair website should be mobile friendly. There are over 224 million smartphone users in the US—customers are searching for auto repair services on their mobile devices. Having a site that is mobile friendly simply means its dynamic outline converts to fit the size of whatever screen it's being viewed on without distorting your content.

Google ranks mobile usability in the top three factors of deciding how your website will rank on search engines. If your website is not user friendly, you will not be able to outrank your local competitors online.

Pit Stop: Professional Websites with 100% Real-Time Integration

Applying these best practices to your new automotive repair shop website will help your site look good to your customers and rank well in search engine result pages. While a shop management system is not necessary to use Pit Stop, it is the only website platform for auto repair shops that integrates seamlessly with your shop management system, helping your shop to:

• schedule more appointments
• sell more services
• improve your rankings on search engines

The most effective website not only makes it easy for customers to find your shop online, but also provides critical business value. Now that you know how to build an auto repair shop website, it's time to take the next step. When you're ready to get found online more easily and book more appointments, request a demo to learn more.