New Collision Repair Website

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:06 am
Hi all!
We are almost finished with our body shop's website. Was hoping I could get a few pointers from anyone who is familiar with web design and programming.
-How do we get higher on Search Results?
-How do we get more local hits?
-How can we come before other shops with a similar name / agenda?
-What sort of additional information (if any) should be added to the site?

Thanks so much.

Here is our website.
http://www.mlautocenter.com/

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 5:48 pm
Congratulations on your new site.

With a local business like that all you are interested in is getting local traffic. I'm going to tell you four things that will put you ahead of your competition (unless they read this too ;-) )

1. Craigslist. Put an ad out there and renew it every week, keep it very simple otherwise CL will ghost you -- and have a link to your website in there.

2. Yelp. If you are not represented in Yelp so a mobile phone user can see you...then you don't exist.

3. Facebook. I can't stand FB myself but it's the 1200 pound gorilla you need to be represented there with a business FB page and your local information all set up.

4. Research and make sure you understand Google Local Search. You need to be represented in Google Maps. You need to have a local business presence within Google. Read articles like this one: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/one-dead-sim ... ogle-local

With some of this stuff it is worth getting some help with SEO, especially at the local level. The advice you get for typical Google placement (e.g. links to your site, meta-data, etc.) do not necessarily apply at the local level.

Regarding your site, a couple of things appeared to me immediately. First, either change that picture on the front page or re-take it with a higher quality camera. It yells "cheap". Don't mean to be tough on you but all your friends and family are going to tell you your site is wonderful. Second, get rid of the "@yahoo.com" email account. Your email needs to be @mlautocenter.com -- or don't use email at all. I'm not kidding, that is the #1 giveaway that someone is not serious about their website.

I would get rid of the photo gallery. People don't like seeing photos of the guys who work on their cars, nor do they like to see photos of cars that have been wrecked or in the process of being fixed. People don't want to know how sausage is made, trust me on this. Everyone knows that a car goes in broken and comes out fixed, it's not new news. Instead, think about getting some photos of your thrilled, happy customers standing next to their showroom-detailed car after you fixed it -- and a written testimonial below the photo. Even only 4 or 5 of those is worth a thousand gallery pictures of guys holding a spray gun or putting tape on a car. This is the same reason doctor websites have patient testimonials, and not a picture of the doctor hunched over someone's open skull.

Finally, if your website is not mobile ready then get it there, quickly.

Good luck, and let us know how you do.



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PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:21 pm
chris wrote:Congratulations on your new site.

With a local business like that all you are interested in is getting local traffic. I'm going to tell you four things that will put you ahead of your competition (unless they read this too ;-) )
...


Thanks a lot, chris!



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PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 7:03 am
I may have something to share about your website a bit since my company has spent many years constructing the auto repair website.

For your website, you need the followings,

1. Meta keywords (nothing now)
2. Meta Description (Too short)
3. XML site map (this is good for SEO thing for google crawling)
4. may add a bit text on the website since the HTML text ratio is low

My website is www.tsmotor.co.th which has many project references like when people search for some keywords like

"mercedes body repair garage" " car paint bangkok thailand" "car painting garage bangkok" (For my local search) and people can find it easily.
If you can narrow down keywords that you think most match for your place, you will get high conversion rate from the website. I think the way to get high hits do not matter for you if people dont actually visit your place. They just click and leave with no benefits.

Hope this can help

:)

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