Repair Shop Advice

As an automotive repair shop, you work on vehicles all of the time, but do you actually have a strong relationship with your customers? It’s National Car Care Month, so this is one of the best times to show your appreciation for their business. What can you do to show your customers that you care?

There several ways to demonstrate to your customers that you care, but one of the quickest ways to do this is by updating your website to make it more professional, engaging, and user-friendly.

Here are some updates that can be made to your website to show your customers that you care:

• Your customers are busy and always on-the-go, so you need to make sure that your website is easy to use. You can do this by providing your customers with all of the information that they’re looking for when they visit your site. Such as, making sure all of your information is accurate, all of the appropriate services are listed, and that you list all of your certifications.
• Reaching out to your customers shows that your shop is still in business and ready to assist them. You can express this by adding customer testimonials, coupons and promotions, and by staying active on social media.
• Showing your customers that you are part of the local community can help you form a stronger relationship, and bring repeat business. You can do this by dedicating a page on your website to charity work and other local organizations that you support.

If you need help with any of the updates from above, please contact Repair Shop Websites at 866-666-1605 today!

Last April Google announced that they will make non mobile-friendly websites disappear from the Google search. They warned that it wasn’t a joke and that you will lose business if you don’t get a mobile-friendly website. We wrote about this announcement and you can read more about here.

We aren’t here to warn you about this again, we’re here to talk about what has happened since Google announced their update. Going into this update a lot of people were calling this “Mobilegeddon.” This was because Google was so vocal about this update, scaring a lot of companies. But not us because we were prepared and had already created mobile-friendly websites for our customers. Doing this ensured that our customers would still be able to be found online. What has happened to the companies that didn’t get a mobile-friendly website? Did they lose their ranking?

According to Search Engine Land, one of the leaders in search engine news, “update [Mobilegeddon] impacted mobile SEO visibility, but desktop SEO visibility remained stable.” This means that if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website you dropped in the rankings on mobile devices, but not on the desktop. You might look at this and think, “It’s ok that I don’t have a mobile-friendly website because the update didn’t hurt me on desktop computers.” If so, you’re wrong!

You have to understand that your customers are using their mobile devices at least 50% of the time to look for your services. Having a mobile-optimized website leads to a better user experience, and not having one pretty much guarantees that you won’t make it on the first page on your customer’s device. How can they contact you or find you if they don’t know that you exist?

So, having a mobile-friendly website is a must have in a post-mobilegeddon world if you want  to gain repeat business and to grow your automotive repair shop. To learn more about mobile-friendly websites, please call us at 866-665-1605.

When was the last time you celebrated Earth Day? Is your automotive repair shop involved in any activities that support a “greener” world? Consumers are starting to care even more about the environment. Earth Day is on April 22^nd this year and we recommend that you try to “green up” your shop in 2016. How can you become more environmentally friendly?

Your automotive repair shop can “go green” by learning about your local environmental laws and then adopting some of those for your business, and making them routine business practices. Here are some examples of ways that your shop can “go green”:

• Clean up your spills right away and use dry clean-up practices
• Put recycling containers in your shop
• Don’t use spray cans
• Avoid using paper and instead use online records
• Only purchase lights with low energy use

If your shop chooses to “go green,” make sure you call us at 866-665-1605 and we can work with you to update your website to show that your shop is environmentally friendly.

Spring is almost here and that means it’s time for Spring Cleaning! So why not give your website a nice scrub? As we come into the new season, there are some changes that need to be done with your shop’s online marketing efforts. You need to be thinking about what can be done to help you bring in more customers this coming season. But you are not alone. As a customer of Repair Shop Websites, we do all of the work for you, so you can focus on your customers and your business. But we still need to work together to understand your shop’s marketing strategy this spring. What services are you marketing? Are you running any promotions?

Here are some updates that can be made to your website this spring:

• Gain new customers by updating your coupons to promote spring automotive services.
• Look professional and current with new pictures of your shop.
• Improve your customer service and present a professional image with a new website design.
• Attract the right customers this spring with targeted call-to-actions.

Remember that changes to your website are already included in your package!  If you have questions about updating your website or marketing this spring, contact us at 866-665-1605.

The promise of spring’s arrival is enough to get anyone through the bitter winter. Well winter is on its way out and March came in like a lion. You’ve been stuck inside all winter and now you can finally go outdoors. But you have to spend most of your time running your automotive repair shop. Well here at Repair Shop Websites we understand that your time is important, and that you don’t have much of it. So we can help you embrace spring by handling your website and marketing activities.

As a customer of Repair Shop Websites, you can rely on us to manage and host your shop’s web presence. Our customer service department provides exceptional support, and has years of experience working with automotive shops to help them build a strong presence online.

The best part about us doing all of the work for you is that you actually have time to enjoy spring’s warm weather. Most of your customers are able to get away from the office and enjoy the outdoors with their family and friends, and you deserve the same.  Let us take care of your web presence while you go outside!

If you need any website changes made, or if you have any questions about your website, please contact us at 866-665-1605!

How do you feel when someone says, “I love you”? You are probably overwhelmed with joy because it feels good to know that someone cares that much about you. But you can’t really go around saying “I love you” in the business world without getting a weird look.

Repair Shop Websites has been taking care of automotive repair shops for over a decade. We’ve done this through our personalized and professionally designed websites, and the services that we have provided for them. Because it’s February it’s the best month to talk about love, so we have decided to put together a list of the top 5 ways we show love to our customers.

What are the top 5 ways we show some love to our customers?

1. We care about your shop’s growth. Our websites are optimized for great search results so it will help attract ideal local customers to your automotive repair shop.
2. We are available when you need us! Our customer support team is made up of real people who are only a phone call or email away.
3. We do all of the work for you! We save you time because we manage your website and this allows you to focus on your shop.
4. We offer our customers professional and friendly advice. Our customer support team has over a decade of experience working with automotive repair shops and understands what you need to succeed.
5. We keep our websites effective and up-to-date. Our websites and features show that your shop is current, and committed to your customers.

As you can tell we care a lot about our customers because we are invested in getting great results for them. If you are feeling loved by Repair Shop Websites this February, why not share the love with another automotive repair shop? If you have questions about our customer referral program please contact us at 866-665-1605.

As a shop owner, you want to put together a winning team so you can provide your customers with the best automotive service in town. But it’s not always easy for you to reach the right technicians to create a strong team. What if you had help connecting with the right job applicants?

Repair Shop Websites can help your shop reach the right people online with our brand-new job description pages. All of our job descriptions are professionally written and include all of the applicant requirements. The descriptions are also optimized for all of the major search engines so they will be able to find your shop, and contact you through your website. We just need to know what positions you have available so we can add them to your website.

To learn more about our brand-new job description pages, please contact us today at 866-665-1605.

How many likes does your Facebook Business page currently have?  Facebook is the most popular way to attract social media users to independent shops – according to SearchAutoParts.com, 73% of the independent shops using social media feel that Facebook yields the best results.  The more likes your shop has, the more likely it is to show up in front of your customers using Facebook!

Here is a list of ways to get more likes for your Facebook Business Page:

1. Include the Facebook like box on your website – A lot of our customers already have this on their website. Please let us know if this needs to be added.
2. Invite your employees and friends to like your page – Go to your Facebook page and on the left side you will see “Invite friends to like this Page.” Click on the link and ask your friends to like your page.
3. Add a Facebook link to your email signature.
4. Add Facebook to your business cards.
5. Put up flyers around the shop promoting your page.
6. Create coupons or promotions centered on Facebook, such as a coupon for your website that offers a discount for liking your page.

If you need help with any of this , please contact our friendly customer service representatives at 866-665-1605.

Some marketing techniques are quick.  For example, if you’ve got a postcard design, you can have them in mailboxes next week.  If you want to show up in the advertising section of Google, your site can be there in a matter of hours.

Unfortunately, SEO isn’t one of them.  SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, determines where your site ranks in Google.  And while it’s the goal of every business to show up in the first page of results in Google for their preferred search terms, it takes time to get there.  In fact, if someone promises they can have you in the first page of Google in a couple of weeks’ time, and they aren’t talking about paying hundreds of dollars a week for advertisements, you should hang up the phone because you’re being swindled.  Here are a few reasons that it takes two to three months to climb the ranks of Google:

#1: Indexing – One of the ways that Google determines how to rank your site is to look at your connections – that is, links coming to or from your site from other sites.  And while Google has a tremendous amount of computing power, it still takes Google over a month to crawl every page on the internet.  That means it could be up to a month before Google understands how ‘connected’ your site is. As an aside, this is why it’s valuable to list all of your associations, such as banner programs, associations, and parts carried on your websites.  Each of these links helps your SEO.

#2:  Visits: – One sign a restaurant is probably a good one is if the parking lot is full around mealtime.  Google feels the same way about websites – the more people that visit a website, the more valuable Google thinks that site is.  And if people visit multiple times and spend time on multiple pages, it makes your site look even more valuable.  But it can take time before enough people stop by your site to convince Google to push it up the rankings.

While it certainly helps to use social media, business cards, invoices, or even verbal requests to encourage people to visit your site (which they’re happy to do if coupons are available on the site), it takes time to build up the reputation as a valuable source of information that Google is hoping to see.

#3: Time: – Things can happen quickly on the internet – but they rarely happen quickly on Google.  This is intentional – if Google’s results varied wildly from day to day, people would trust Google less.

Sites that climb the rankings very quickly raise a red flag, because Google has intentionally designed their ranking system to move sites slowly over time.  If a site manages to get ranked very highly almost immediately after launching, it’s probably because they’re using tricks to manipulate their search results.  For instance, a site owner might have paid thousands of other sites to link to theirs, to trick Google into thinking their site is very valuable.  If Google determines that a site has used these tricks, they will manually drop that site many pages down the search results – or remove it from the index entirely.  If Google does this to your site, it can be very difficult to get it reversed.

So, while it might be frustrating to wait for your site to climb the rankings, be patient – this process is the most cost-effective marketing you’ll ever perform.  And there’s a bright side to this process as well: once your site is ranked highly, it is very unlikely that it will drop any more rapidly than it rose.  That’s why you’ll be getting results from your website years after those quick marketing tactics – the expensive postcards and Google advertising – have stopped delivering results.

Another year is over. When you look back at 2015, was there something that you missed out on that would have made your automotive repair shop more profitable? Did your shop adapt to any of the new online marketing changes that took place in 2015?

The year of 2015 was all about mobile and content marketing. This happened because consumers have rapidly shifted towards surfing the internet primarily from their mobile devices. Google’s major update making non-mobile websites disappear from mobile device search results was further evidence of this. Content marketing is key when it comes to attracting and retaining your customers, because it provides them with relevant and valuable information. If you struggled to gain new business in 2015 for these reasons, we can help you get a leg up on the competition with these marketing opportunities.

What are some online marketing opportunities for 2016?

• Must Go Mobile – 2015 was the biggest year yet for mobile. Google announced that mobile traffic for their search engine exceeded desktop traffic in the United States. So if your shop has a mobile-responsive website, you already have a leg up on the competition.
• Pay Attention To Social Media Search – Social media continues to be one of the best ways to connect with your customers and grow your shop’s brand online. It seems that search will be expanding beyond the major search engines and becoming more important in social networks such as Facebook. Your customers will best be able to find your shop in Facebook if your page is filled out correctly and you are staying active.
• Customer Reviews Are Important – If you didn’t make a push for customer testimonials in 2015, you need to add it to your marketing strategy for 2016. The new consumer goes online to research customer reviews before contacting your shop. Do you have any 5 star reviews on Google?

Do you need help with your online marketing strategy for 2016? Do you need help with your website? If you have any questions, please contact us at 866-665-1605.