Importance And Price Of Having An Updated Auto Repair Website

[Ron Ipach]

All auto repair shop owners should know the importance at this point of having an auto repair website for the shop. This idea was brought to me by a client who sent me an e-mail letting me know that she's going to be updating her website, which is a really good idea - If your website is old or if you don't have one, you really do need to have a newer updated website.

I suggest that for everybody. Her question was really to the point, how much should she spend on a website and how important, really, is having a website right now?

Let me go ahead and cover the second question first:

How important is having a website? It's important.

You really do need to have a website. It's not nearly as important as everybody makes it seem, especially with the guys who want to sell you a website, but the reality is, you doneed to have a good website. Most people will go to your website and check you out a little bit before they choose to do business with you.

It's similar to people reading reviews. Everybody looks at a review before they decide who they want to do business with. They're going to review you. If you've got good reviews, chances are they're going to check out your website. If you have an auto repair website that's made by a six year old, ten years ago, and it looks like crap - chances are that's going to turn them off.

It doesn't take a whole lot of time, money, or effort to have a professional looking website, an updated website. It is important that you do have it because people will check you out online. Ever since I started doing my Car Count Daily videos, I've had a lot of people checking out my website. It just goes to show, when people find you they want to know more about you. That's why it's important you have that good, and updated website.

How much should you spend and how much time should you spend doing it?

Not a lot because the reality is, most people aren't going to find you by searching for an auto repair shop in their area. There's just too much competition. Unless you really want to jump into that fray and work with search engine optimizers so that you're at the top of the page all the time - most shop owners don't have the time or money to mess with that. You just need to have a good looking website. You can get a cheap website. You can get one made for $500 and that's pretty much all you need to spend.

I know it will be easy for most people in the industry to argue with me on this, especially with the people who are providing websites as a service. The reality is, you want a good professional looking website, but the majority of people are never going to find it. The only people who are going to find your website are the ones that are actually typing in, doing a search for you.

On the other hand, you can get some beautiful made websites for thousands of dollars and then spend hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of dollars every single month to keep them optimized, to keep them on page one. If that's the game you want to play, that's perfectly fine. Me? I'd rather you just have a nice looking website so when they do look and check you out, they're going to find something really nice.

I wouldn't spend a ton of time on there. The reason why I talk about this in the way that I do is I find that too many of my clients are spending entirely too much time putting together the perfect website.

They spend hours, and hours, and hours with their designer and back and forth, back and forth for the perfect website that the majority of people are never going to see anyway, or it will be difficult to get it in front of the right customers, at the right time.

Put your time, and effort, and money where people are really going to find you. I'd suggest market more to your current clients than market to people that have never seen you before, which is what your website is essentially doing in the automotive repair industry. You're marketing to people that don't know you and chances are they're never going to find you anyway, even though you have a beautiful, well-made site. The better looking your site is, doesn't get you to the top page of Google or the main search engine. Put your money, and time, and effort in things that really matter - like your marketing.

Have a good, professional looking website, but you don't need to spend thousands of dollars and hours putting that together.

-- Ron Ipach (a.k.a Captain Car Count)

• President/Founder of Repair Shop Coach
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