I develop web systems for auto dealers. I have seen in so many forums guys talking about this system, or that system. Some systems look really good, like these flash sites that are popping up all over, but these companies building these systems are really taking advantage of dealers lack of knowledge about web design. I am wondering how many of these service providers actually tell a dealer that yeah, your site looks cool, but it is not search engine friendly and if a person at work, whose server blocks the use the flash, tries to view your site, they won't be able to. Dealer sites are getting more advanced in functions, but they are also getting further and further away from being a valid design. I bet some dealers lose 1000's of visitors a year to poor design.

I couldn't agree more. Flash can be used in a good way, but most of the larger web design companies I see are typical cases of doing what you can do and not necessarily what you should do. I'll admit, the designs are slick, and they look great, but function is more important than form, and that holds true for the SEO side of function. While our designs may not stand out as much as the other guys, our dealers are reporting fantastic conversion rates, tremendous search engine traffic, and they aren't paying for a bunch of website tools they don't use. Sometimes keeping it simple is better.

I will admit that we specialize in the smaller independent dealers, so one-upping the store down the street isn't our typical client mentality. If it were, we would probably be forced to implement a lot more of the "sizzle" features that are cool but useless.

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Higher Turnover, LLC - Websites for Independent Auto Dealers

Online Auto Dealers - Blog with information for auto dealers who use or plan to use the internet

Many companies, or developers, like us do specialize in independent dealers, true, but I think this is where we, as the "smaller" guys need to begin to change things. My company develops the AutoWebEngine.com script that is used world wide, mostly by the smaller independent dealers. A big problem is that we don't have access to all the tools needed. My company just finished a partnership with a company to offer data polling of DMS systems for franchise dealers to poll their DMS systems. We have plans for much more. The bigger issue though is that all these "big" companies offering these ridiculously priced services has almost, in a way, trained dealers to want these useless sites and tools. If you walk into a franchise dealer and ask them about getting their site listed in Google, for example, many will either not know what this benefit will be, or, they will tell you they are at the top. You look at their listing in Google and see they are paid Adwords, not organic links in Google. They don't have a clue because these big companies have trained them to want their services. Some time ago, when we were first developing our AWE system, I worked as an Internet manager. I of course know all about valid design and the sort. I had a salesman come in from a popular company that specializes in Flash sites for dealers. His main goal was pushing how fantastic looking, and when asked about how their site would help our SEO, he claimed they could help get us at the top of searches. Even though he did not specifically state it, it was via Adwords. The automotive web services industry really does need to come up with a set of standards to follow. If all of us, companies and developers like ours, can come together and develop these standards and really promote them, I think we can bring valid design and services to dealers and get these big guys to either step out of the way, or perform their jobs as they should. The biggest thing is that we really need to educate dealers on what they should be looking for in a web system. With 80% of all shoppers visiting dealer sites before they visit the actual lot, these dealers cannot afford to do this wrong.

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AutoWebEngine.com

I have to say that selling a dealer on making their site not some flash based glorified video advertisement is almost impossible. In the real world, everyone wants wat they see the other guy doing.

If you tell them, they need something simple that works, they think you are an idiot.

I was looking for a car one day and clicked on a google ad and the site comes up with you need to upgrade and install the newest version of flash.

I wanted to figure out what the site was just so I could e-mail them and ask them if they really belived people would go download software just to see their website? But like everone else I hit the back button and to a site that worked on my 3 month old antique computer.

I run a cheap and sometimes graphicly chalanged system for dealers, often ugly because they do it themelves. So I am no competition for any real company. But people show up at my door after spending tens of thousands on flash websites and then having long time customers telling them they can't figure out or view their website.

Not every person has windows vista and not every person has broadband. Most people are lucky to access e-mail and they don't want to learn to program to buy a car.

Keep it simple guys. Take it from someone that has made millions online. All my websites are as plain as possible. Your website does not need to look like it was produced in Hollywood. People are not coming to see the show.

They are there to buy a car!

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Webmaster of buzztrader.com a free automotive classified.

An interesting tidbit I noticed the other day on several of my auto dealer client sites - The number of people accessing the dealer sites via dial-up was only around 5%. Lower than I expected, especially since many of my customers are in rural areas. I believe design elements are important in terms of creating a professional image, however this doesn't mean creating crazy sites that require downloads, etc. Even at just 5% of users with dial-up connections, if the dealer has 10,000 unique visitors a month, that's 500 customers that will probably back out of the site when it takes too long to load the pages. Would a car dealer turn away that many customers if they showed up to the lot? Not on your life!

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Higher Turnover, LLC - Websites for Independent Auto Dealers

Online Auto Dealers - Blog with information for auto dealers who use or plan to use the internet

This is just starting to happen. As car dealers realize the potential of the internet and start to weed out what is useful and what is not, they will eventually catch up with the rest of the technological world. It seems that many of these small companies are the ones that are coming up with the innovative ideas, and not the big ones. These small companies, capturing business of this niche market are what is driving these dealers to move forward.

I'm curious who this company is.

Many of these companies don't know a thing about SEO. All they know is how to sell a dealer an over expensive flash website and make it look pretty. They are really just giving the customer (dealer) what they want. Unfortunately this is not always what the customer's customer is looking for.

I recently peeked into the real estate business and I was astounded at how organized things were. The trend MLS system is amazing. It's essentially the same idea as listing a car. You have a number associated with the house being sold (vin) and there are certain features of the home that are listed (option codes). I believe sometime in the future, the car industry will eventually come to more and more agreements on basic standards as the small companies supporting the industry become smarter, larger, and more efficient. Dealers will eventually be forced to comply with new mediums if they haven't already.