A legacy for someone will be left by the time they take to care about a project not the number of dollars they rake in from profit. This is what some of the big boys in the automotive web solutions field simply just aren’t getting. They think because they have such a giant lock on the market and have such huge capital that they can create websites for dealers that simply look like they don’t care.

It is mind boggling to think that the American automotive manufactures have stuck their franchise dealerships with this crap, they call a website provider. If I were in charge I would be extremely disappointed at the manner in which the automotive web companies handle their customer base. They remind me of a certain company from Redmond. They don’t want to play nice and they don’t want to play at all.

It is unfortunate for the dealerships that have to live with these cookie cutter web solutions that don’t meet today’s needs. If only Ford, GM & Chrysler would wake up and not force their franchise dealerships to be stuck on these corporate websites that produce less than stellar results.

I came across this statement on a competitors website recently “Tricked out websites that are not optimized for the search engines are worthless…. and they cost you a fortune” and I couldn’t help but notice the poor design work they publish. While they sort of got their statement right, they are missing the fact the poor design will cost you in the end. A professional website should reflect just that, professional. These website solutions for dealers that are cookie cutter nothing more than a newspaper ad plugged in, need to stop. I want it, your customers want it and and in the end you know you want it because it will cost you leads.

“Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.”

See the full article &raquo

One thing that was itching at me the whole time I was reading these books was the importance of transparency and how it relates to your website.

When you compare automotive web solutions companies look at what the company has to offer and how transparent are they with providing you raw data (analytics or web traffic). We review the information with our clients so they can make informed decisions. We even educate them on the importance of any data they may not be familiar with.

After speaking with a few client and discussing how some vendors just won’t open up and discuss numbers I began to wonder why. The truth is either the person on the other end doesn’t completely understand the numbers or the vendor has something to hide. This shows little attention to some of the most important details as well as a lazy attitude of care toward your client.

Fresh Input will be transparent with you and discuss with you the importance of such numbers as bounce rate, pageviews, pages per visit & time on website. We are recently delighted to see yet another one of our clients double the amount of visitors to the website, increase their pageviews by 190% as well as increase the time of their visitors from a 3 minute avg. to a nearly 5 minute avg.

You want to know something even better. We can track that campaign with cold hard numbers with lots of pretty graphs too. What newspaper does that for you? As online communities grow in ever-increasing numbers, are you a part of the conversation or standing on the sidelines? Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter allow you to engage your customers outside the dealership and develop relationships that drive repeat and referral business.

Plain and simple, social media isn’t just a fad for todays kids. Older generations are now flocking to these social media sites. Heck I recently got my 50 year old uncle to sign up on Facebook and now I hear him talking about it all the time.

If you don’t believe me check out this video for some mind blowing facts!