Today’s customers are heading to the web first to begin their search. Having visited numerous websites, they choose the most visually appealing and user-friendly website. If you’re in a car business, you need an outstanding car dealer website design to boost traffic and engage your customers.
People want to get the core content about vehicles quickly and intuitively. UI/UX design deals with it immensely. In this article, we want to drive you through some specifications and present you top 5 best car dealer website designs. Have a nice ride!
Why Does Your Car Business Need a Website With an Outstanding Design?
The global car market has a high competition rate. Having a great website for car dealerships is crucial for gaining customer trust in the first few moments. In order to stand out from the crowd, companies pay special attention to advertisement campaigns, online accessibility, and auto appraisal website design.
Here are some statistics that enhance the importance of car website design:
- Only one in three potential car buyers know the exact vehicle that they want to purchase. User-friendly design helps to make the right decision.
- 95% of vehicle buyers use the internet as a source of information. Therefore, a responsive auto dealer website design lets your business get inside the customers’ smartphones.
- 76% of new and used vehicle shoppers run a Google search before buying. The SEO-friendly design makes your website be at the top of search results.
- Automobile consumers visit an average of 4.2 websites in their purchasing process. Catchy and elegant design motivates users to choose only one — yours. Simplicity in design has to make the purchasing process easy and fast. It helps you to stand out among the competitors.
With customized website design, you reinforce the digital presence, expand the target audience, increase conversion rate, etc.
Managers from Cadabra Studio help you leave the hesitations and rely on UI/UX design power. Start working with us today — schedule a call with our managers.
What Makes a Successful Used Car Dealer Website Design
Whether you are a mature car entrepreneur or you have a startup, your business’s primary goal is to set up positive relationships with customers. And you have to get it right.
The best car dealer website design can be hard to define, but generally, you realize its quality when you see it or use it. It has to make users feel comfortable and set up their dealership experience to be a good one. So, what do you need to create a car selling website successfully?
- Invest in a responsive design. Earlier companies created a mobile version of their website and its desktop version from scratch. Nowadays, it makes no sense because there is a responsive design. By investing in it, you need to make one website, and it will adjust itself automatically to fit the gadget it’s being viewed on. A responsive car website design creates a good user experience.
- Choose the right color. Colors have a significant impact on general automotive dealership web design. By using the colors correctly, you directly impact the user experience. Colors shouldn’t be irritating and tacky — it’s much better to choose a calm and warm palette.
- Make useful information easy-to-find. Everything should be on the surface, so the customers don’t need to play the guessing game. Analyze the customers’ needs and make this information handy.
- Less is more. Instead of cramming too many special offers, vehicle descriptions, and general information onto a hero page, use a smooth, elegant, and user-friendly design. Include only key information.
These essential elements make your website design successful. Let us know about the advanced design features. Our managers will provide you with expert consultation.
How to Make a Car Dealership Website
Let’s move from theory to practice. The development process of a car website isn’t a one-day task, obviously. This passage will cover the essential steps to take if you want to know how to create a car selling website.
- Step 1. Promote Your Brand. Associations normally remind users about specific companies in specific situations. A brand can evoke associations with a logo, slogan, visual elements, color theme, etc. That is why you should promote your brand to become the first association that comes to mind when people want to buy a car.
- Step 2. Choose The Focus Of Your Website. We mean that your car selling website should focus on solutions to specific problems. It is important to sell not only cars, but also trucks, motorbikes, car parts, and details. Provide users with relevant information about car selling and purchasing, insurance details, shipping, payment, etc.
- Step 3. Add High-Resolution and Custom Photos. The visual part of the website creates the first impression. Hire professional photographers to take images of your team, office, vehicles, etc. What is more, custom illustrations will enrich a website and make the customer experience more exciting.
- Step 4. Create An Original Content. Your website should contain original content that will make your website ranks higher in the Google search. You can find talented copywriters and SEO specialists who will build original content using best-fitting keywords. Pay special attention to vehicles’ descriptions — the reason we will describe in the passage dedicated to typical mistakes. Keep reading!
- Step 5. Hire Design & Development Team. A dedicated team of professionals knows how to build a website for a car dealership you have always dreamt of Cadabra Studio makes such a team. To build a car dealership website that meets all the requirements of your business, we first take your idea and create wireframes.
Our dedicated design and development teams create outstanding and visually appealing car-selling websites that align with modern trends. We ensure your website loads smoothly across all devices and functions well without any problems.
Essential Design Features to Implement in Used Car Dealer Website
Browsing used car dealer websites must be fun for customers. The design, style, and content have to reflect the visitors’ tastes since their target audience is very specific.
To catch the customers’ attention, some car companies use applications that showcase their products, vehicles’ capabilities, and appearance from different angles. They try to captivate the consumer, considering simplicity, accessibility, and presentability.
Special attention should be given to the website structure. It should have categories/subcategories, improved cars filtering system. The website structure influences the interaction experience and enhances clients to purchase easily. When website users decide what they want to buy, there shouldn’t be any barriers.
For creating the best car dealer website design, we advise including the following features:
| Feature | Description |
| Sign-up/Sign-in | Users need to have personal accounts to communicate with the car dealer, bookmark interesting listings. |
| Verification | Car selling websites operate with large amounts of money, so only verified users can perform transactions. The verification is obligatory when customers want to buy, sell, and bid on vehicles. For verification purposes, you might ask users for Social Security Numbers, bank credentials, or other information. |
| Profile | This feature is useful both for dealers and customers. It displays the name, photo, contact information, sales history, and reputation points. |
| Search and filtering | This is one of the most crucial features of any car selling website. Customers have thousands of criteria, especially when choosing the used cars. Filtering and search functionality help them process large amounts of data to find the most relevant results within thousands of offers. Make filters as flexible as possible. We recommend adding the following filters:
|
| Price calculator | This feature lets sellers and buyers calculate the approximate selling price for their car. |
| Friction-free forms | From registering to submission, scheduling a test drive, or booking a service visit should be intuitive and effortless. Limiting the number of fields to fill saves the customer time. |
| Car history check | When buying a used car, people want to know the current state of the vehicle and its history. If you plan to start an online used car dealership, let your customers check a car’s history by VIN code to find the number of owners, see the car’s accident history, etc. |
| Legal registration check | This feature helps to find out whether the owners are registered or not. |
By including these features in your car selling website design, you ensure customer engagement and contribute to the growth of great projects. See the examples of successful websites in the next passage.
Typical Mistakes in Used Car Dealer Website Design
- The absence of landing pages. The lack of relevant landing pages is a widespread problem. If your website contains a wide range of different vehicles for sale, having a landing page is obligatory. It will help you rank high up in specific search results pages.
- Few pictures of cars. Those car dealers who think that only five photos of the outside and three photos of the inside are enough to sell a car are wrong. Don’t repeat this mistake. You need at least 35 pictures of a vehicle to get anyone even to come and look at the car.
- Horrible auto-generated vehicle descriptions. Some websites contain auto-generated descriptions that aren’t compelling, emotional, or engaging. They have to be unique and catchy, not basic. Also, you need to add to the content keywords and search terms that you would like to rank for.
- Lack of posting schedule. If you update the information on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter accounts, people will regularly follow you and check your posts. Don’t underestimate the importance of social networks for your car dealership website. You need to be always in touch with the customers.
- No relevant content on the home page. The website homepage is the face of the company. Tell your customers how you started, present the business goals, vision, and plans. It is the place where you show your unique side as a reliable car dealer. “We treat our customers like family” doesn’t impress website visitors. You need to come up with the defining customer’s needs and offer the solutions.
Top 5 Car Dealer Website Designs
Cars.com
Cars.com is the marketplace that connects car shoppers and sellers. The website’s design is predominantly purple and white color. The interface colors create an atmosphere of calmness, so people can search without being disturbed.
There are 3 types of data filtering available on the website:
- Search by make;
- Search by body style;
- Advanced search.
Users can create a personal profile to save favorite cars and searches. The website has easy-to-find information, clear CTA buttons, and simple navigation.
mobile.de
Mobile.de has a well-structured and intuitive design. There are eye-catchy buttons for choosing the car type, simple filtering system.
The website has several dashboards:
- Buy (for customers);
- Sell (for dealers);
- Finance (it is a demo version available only in German).
mobile.de implements a simple menu where a visitor can access the personal domain and car park.
AutoScout24
AutoScout24 is another excellent car dealership website that you should check out. It has a bright color palette (yellow and white) and readable fonts. A hero page consists of five search options: cars, motorbikes, trucks, buses, and trailers.
Notably, the website has 19 language versions that makes it accessible for many European countries. Sometimes, website versions diversify not only by the language but also by functionality. Its adaptation has a positive impact on users from particular countries.
The filtering system is clear, CTA buttons are striking.
The website presents different types of motorbikes, trucks, both new and used cars. This website provides a great display of the car’s exterior, interior, mileage, vehicle ID, etc. Additionally, there are useful tools such as pricing and finance calculators.
Carmax
Carmax is a Fortune 500 car dealership company. The automotive dealer website is pretty accurate with all the essential features, CTA buttons, images, and brand-specific blue, yellow, and white colors.
Notably, Carmax has useful information services, delivery, offers research articles.
A visitor can search through your site, access useful information about the company and its vehicles through the dropdown menu. Local specials, feedback bar, search inventory make the usage simple. There are Instagram photos with the hashtag #ShowYourBow, showing satisfied clients with their cars.
AutoTrader
Many businesses want to build a car dealer website like AutoTrader. This company is one of the biggest in the car dealership market. Along with cars, vans, bikes, caravans, trucks, people can buy farms and plant machinery of different types. Its website is specially designed to suit dealerships of any size and scale.
For quick and seamless navigation, the website embraces the multifunctional menu and the essential contact details on the header. The footer contains useful information for visitors.
In this manner, potential customers can easily connect with the business. Other auto dealer website features are FAQs, social media links, accessibility, a dropdown menu, and more.
Cost to Make a Car Dealership Website
To create a car selling website, you’ll need a team of experts. The must-have roles are:
- UI/UX designer;
- Project manager;
- Frontend developer;
- Backend developer;
- Quality assurance (QA) specialist.
Developing and testing a fully working prototype of a used car dealer website with a team usually takes up to six months. In terms of the cost, it can be $50,000 or more.
The cost depends on the design complexity, the number of features, etc. Besides, technical work is required after the release. Another big part of your investment makes marketing. A car dealership is a very competitive business. That’s why you have to be ready to invest a lot in marketing.
If you need assistance in the calculation, schedule a call with our managers. We will make an estimation based on your project requirements and answer all your questions.
Final Words
When you have an outstanding customized automotive dealer website design, your business becomes visible to your customers. Since everyone checks on Google before making a purchase and investments, having a custom car dealership website design not only makes your business noticeable but also helps you get to the top in search rates.
Done right, custom UI/UX design helps your car dealership business keep your competitors at bay and create interactive communication with your existing and potential customers. As a result, you get a significant increase in sales.
With an upscale design, you show your authority and professionalism in the automotive industry. And that’s the background of customer loyalty.
The future of the car dealership market is entirely digital, so the more you invest in your website and its design right now, the more profitable it will be. Cadabra Studio is a team of experienced designers and developers who can provide you with everything you need for a noticeable automotive dealer website. Reach us out, let’s boost your business together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Many people talk about doing market research before starting to develop a used car dealer website. We recommend that you immediately contact a company that has experience in auto dealership web design.
It is unlikely that you will be able to create an auto dealer website alone. However, you can independently carry out those stages that do not require deep technical knowledge in website development.
As a rule, it takes 3 months to create an automotive dealership website. It all depends on the complexity of the project – the more features the website contains, the more time it will take to develop.
