When it comes to auto repair marketing, it only makes sense to start with your website. Your website is the hub of your marketing activities—your social media posts, HomeAdvisor listings, and PPC ads all lead there. Even if you’re not a marketing pro, it’s worth spending some time to make your website look (and perform) its best.
In most cases, your website is the first impression people have of your auto repair shop. Even when a loyal client recommends your business to someone, they’re probably going to browse through your website before trusting you to fix their car. And when it comes to converting leads, you probably already know that content is your most valuable asset.
But good content isn’t enough. Sure, useful, informative, and well-written content is king, but you also need to make sure it’s organized. People are visiting your website because they’re looking for something. It’s your job to make it as easy as possible for them to find what they’re looking for.
Of course, getting your structure just right isn’t easy, especially when you consider how many different people are visiting your auto repair website. Different people have different expectations, so how can you satisfy them all?
Take a step back. Before you start playing with your web design, you need to look at the big picture. The most logical place to start is your information structure.
The truth is, when you take away the colors, fonts, and graphics, good web design is really all about structure. That’s why you need a clear information structure for all of your web content. It might take a few rough drafts before your information structure starts coming together, but it’s worth the effort. And no matter how smart you are or how much experience you have, trust us: You’re going to want to mess around with a few drafts before you put your plan into action.
When drafting your information structure, user experience should be at the top of your mind. At the end of the day, your future website visitors have to decide what content is relevant and what isn’t. More than that, it’s about deciding what content is relevant at what point during their visit.
Once you have a clear structure in mind, it’s time to go deeper and figure out how you’re going to display content on your site. First, identify your most important content. What questions do people have when visiting your website? Brainstorm a list of questions, and then decide how to answer these questions with relevant content.
Remember: When people click onto your website, they’re always going to start at the top of the page. If you’re not taking advantage of your website’s real estate above the fold, what’s stopping you? Use this space to display your most important content. Answer your visitors’ core questions right away—such as your hours, your services, and your locations—or provide clear links to your Services, FAQ, and About Us pages.
Take Rad Air Complete Car Care and Tire Centers’ website as an example: Their above the fold content includes a location finder tool, a call out for careers and job employment information, and links to their automotive repair shops’ locations, services, online scheduler tool, and more. Rad Air’s website serves as the foundation of their digital marketing and automotive technician recruiting efforts.
When organizing your content, think about what your website visitors want to see. If they’re visiting your landing page for auto collision repair, why not add an instructional video on filing an insurance claim—or link to a listicle of the best local towing companies?
Relevant might not always be what you consider relevant. It’s all about providing useful information for your visitors. Depending on your visitors’ specific goal and their approach to solving it, their idea of related content might be completely different from yours.
If you can’t pin down what “relevant” means for your visitors, just ask. Yes, it’s really that simple. Try posting a poll on your Instagram Stories or sending out an SMS survey asking leads what they came to your website for and what they’d like to see more of. Getting your leads involved isn’t just a great way to improve your content structure—it shows them how much you value their opinion.
Once you’ve gathered some answers, you can start grouping content together. Grouped together, relevant content can make life that much easier for your prospects. You’ll save them time by minimizing the search for related content. As a result, navigating your website becomes more intuitive and efficient. And the next time your prospects have a question about hail damage, they’ll know they can find what they’re looking for on your website.
A great example of this is D&S Automotive, a collision repair company in Northeast Ohio. They streamlined their site’s menu to focus on groups of related services and information, pointing users directly to get an estimate, view their collision repair services, or shop accessories.
Only show relevant content to your visitors. Sure, this might seem obvious, but a lot of home services businesses haven’t yet realized the value of keeping it simple—and that can make or break your conversion rate. According to a 2017 marketing report, the leading reason why customers limited engagement with B2B businesses is because marketers provided too much irrelevant content.
To keep prospects from clicking away, you should only include content that is relevant at the time your leads are visiting a specific page of your website. Instead of linking to a blog post about tinted windows when a visitor is reading about hail damage, you want to keep it relevant with an FAQ about paintless dent repair or a guide on different hail repair terms to know.
Your visitors are reading your web content to solve a problem—and you need to pave a clear path for them to find the right solution. Conversion is a long, winding road. No matter what stage your potential buyer is in, you need to provide them with content they need and can use.
In the beginning, you need to show them you’re an authority in the auto repair industry. Later on, you want to highlight your value proposition and show them why you’re the best choice. Stick to the content that will help drive your prospect to the next stage of the buyer’s journey.
Different people are visiting your website for different reasons. One visitor might want to learn more about installing a rear-view camera, while the next might be researching local collision repair companies because they need to hire someone on the spot.
Here, you’ll want to take some time to really understand your different target audiences. Create user scenarios to get a better idea of who your visitors are and how they’re navigating your website. Then, figure out whether some users are more important than others. Start with the most relevant user and work your way down the list, making sure you’ve thought your content structure through for each type of user.
Now that you’ve defined different users, you can offer a few different entry points to your website. Your customers aren’t thinking in terms of marketing funnels or channels. They’re thinking about how to learn about new services, make better purchasing decisions, and connect on a deeper level with brands that “get” them.
When you take a responsive approach and tailor your strategy to different groups, you can align your content structure around where prospects actually derive value: meaningful points of engagement.
So, how can you adopt a more customer-centric approach to content organization? Again, it’s all about figuring out what different people are interested in. You might make a clear distinction between returning visitors and first-time visitors, or between people searching for different auto repair services. If you can distinguish specific groups with different expectations, you can create separate entry points (i.e., personalized landing pages) for a seamless user experience.
Your content should be organized in a practical, logical way. But if you’re too busy spending time in the shop to research every user scenario, you can keep your structure more flexible with a customizable experience. Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds.
With programs like Adobe Creative Suite, website visitors can conveniently open and hide windows according to their personal preferences and the relevance of each piece of content. Instead of standing in their way, you can get your visitors involved by allowing them to decide what’s important and what’s not.
Congratulations! You’ve crafted a strategic, well-defined content structure. We know how excited you are to publish your results, but your hard work isn’t over just yet. Before implementing your shiny new content structure, you need to conduct some good old-fashioned A/B testing.
If there’s anything you’ve learned here, it’s that you shouldn’t rely on your own expectations when structuring content. Instead, you need to pinpoint what your prospects want. They’re the ones that will visit your website and search for information. No matter how you feel about your content organization, it needs to meet their expectations.
Now that you’ve crafted a well-defined content structure, it’s time to start structuring your brand message. Tweaking your message to make sure it resonates with your customers and brand can help drive even more conversions and give you more qualified leads—all without spending a single dollar on advertising.
There are two reasons why visitors are clicking away from your Home page. Either they don’t understand your value proposition right off the bat or they don’t trust your business enough to keep scrolling.
So, how can you create Home page content that’s clear and compelling—all while inspiring prospects to trust your business?
Your About Us page is usually the second most popular page among your prospects, so you need to pay careful attention to how your brand comes across. When done right, an About us page helps to:
No matter how you decide to structure this page, there are a few steps you shouldn’t skip:
Whether you specialize in hybrid vehicle services or you’re selling a few different services, your landing pages need to be compelling enough for your prospects to take action. Countless home services companies use poor, bland landing pages that merely state what they offer without going any deeper into why prospects should choose their company.
In reality, most people make purchasing decisions with their emotions. You need to show your prospects what’s in it for them and how their lives will change after choosing your shop. Once you’ve addressed your customer’s pain points and the key benefits of your service, you need to top it off with an actionable CTA.
Your CTA is the natural extension of your landing page. Your prospects are reading your landing page, searching for a quick solution to their problem. Your CTA should tell them exactly how taking action will bring them one step closer to that solution.
Still struggling to write the perfect landing page? Check out our guide to writing irresistible landing pages to hit the ground running.
While engaging visuals and informative content are key ingredients for any successful auto repair marketing plan, it’s a conversion-based content structure that wins the day and converts your website visitors into paying customers.
By structuring your content in a way that helps users connect with your business and easily find the information they’re looking for, you’ll showcase your expertise in a digestible way while building trust and maximizing conversions.
Of course, before you start organizing your content, you need two things: content, and a target audience. You need to know who you’re talking to, and then you need to deliver relevant content that answers their questions and shows them you’re the best auto repair shop for the job.
Struggling to pin down your user scenarios? Can’t find the time to write content for your auto repair website? No matter what stage of content marketing you’re at, we’re here to help. Contact us today to take your auto repair shop’s website to the next level and start turning clicks into leads.