Increase Auto Repair Website Traffic – Part 1

I was doing some research this week on how to get more traffic to your Auto Repair Website. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve found that Auto Repair Shop Owners make is that they go and create their website and then just hope that people find it.

You can easily compare it to your Auto Repair store front. What are the things that you do, day in and day out, to get people to come into your Auto Repair Shop?

It’s likely that you do some advertising, Penny saver or yellow pages, maybe even flyers. You’ll get some “walk-in” traffic, some repeat clients who have re-booked, you might even do some service reminder postcards, maybe even direct mail to your client list.

Now let’s take this ONLINE and list things you should do to get website “traffic” or visitors to your website.

1. Advertising – we might do some PPC (pay-per-click) and run some ads on ad networks like Google Adwords.

2. “Walk-in” traffic – that would be people who found you in the search engines. This is FREE traffic (no cost) that results from good search engine rankings based on keywords eg. “Auto Repair, Rochester NY”. (FREE traffic is the holy grail of the internet)

3. Direct mail – When we’re talking on-line this referrers to email marketing direct to your email list (check out this great resource for profitable Auto Repair Email Marketing)

So using direct response marketing ONLINE is pretty much the same as OFFLINE Repair Shop Marketing.

So why is that too many Auto Repair Shop Owners spend very little time and effort marketing their business website?

I know the answer to that! It’s because many Auto Shop Owners(or any small business owners for that matter) do not understand how to market their Auto Repair Shop period. They simply have no idea where to start!

That’s why I called this article “Increase Auto Repair Website Traffic – Part 1″. Because there are many parts, different strategies, to getting more traffic to your website. Like an old wagon wheel, you need lots of spokes in the wheel to make it work well, and marketing your shop either on-line or off-line takes the same effort (lots of spokes).

Here’s the exciting part! Marketing your shop online, is a whole lot cheaper and the results are lightning quick when you do it ONLINE… the right way!

So right now, I’m going to talk a little about PPC (pay-per-click) strategies… in particular Google Adwords.

If I said to you, that you could DOUBLE the TRAFFIC to your Auto Repair website in 30 minutes or less… would YOU believe me!

I bet you don’t, but stay with me here.

Remember that I told you I had been doing some research on how to get more traffic to your Auto Repair website?  The fact is, I discovered this great resource that explained to me how to use Google Adwords.

Put simply, Google Adwords is a system that allows you to create an Ad, and have that ad appear in front of people who are specifically searching for your services, and you only pay for the Ad when somebody clicks on it and comes to your website. The amount you pay for the “click thru” can vary from as little as a few cents to a dollar or two.

A word of caution though… ( I see this mistake over and over again) make sure your shop’s website is ready for these people to visit, in that when they come to your website page you give them a reason to contact you. If your website is not ready then your visitor will just click somewhere else and you would have paid money for nothing. (Ouch!!) I’ve seen people literally waste thousands of dollars driving people to a website that isn’t designed correctly and won’t sell anyone on their services, what a waste!

Additionally, don’t fall victim to the advertising people that ‘will get you traffic’ for a ‘small monthly fee’. I’m going to write an article about that soon… Let me suffice to say now, don’t spend a dime with them unless you know exactly what you’re doing!

Back to the topic at hand, having a great website is like having a stellar receptionist answer the telephone and get the sale. Your website must be ready to make the sale! If you feel like your website needs a makeover then send me an email and we can make a time to discuss your needs.

Here’s what Google Adwords can do for your Auto Repair shop. It can drive a ton of traffic to your website in a very short span of time. You can create the ad, determine your budget (how much you’re prepared to spend) and your ad can be up and running just a few minutes.

But like anything… you need to have an idea how this stuff works, or you’ll be foolishly wasting money, did you ever notice throwing money at a problem rarely solves it? It’s the right knowledge that solves the problem.

The great resource I found is here “How You Can Overcome The Google Adwords Learning Curve”. If you click on that link you can get a FREE 5 Day course delivered direct to your email inbox.

If I were you, I’d go and grab it NOW… and start getting more TARGETED Traffic to your Auto Shop website. This is where I started, and it’s simply the best resource anywhere, bar none.

I’ll be posting  part 2 of getting more traffic soon.

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