If you've read this blog often, you know that we at Web-Est encourage auto body shops to move online to bring in more business.  Its the most effective way to get new business at the lowest possible cost.  Nowadays pretty much everything is happening online. Anyone owning a business will need to learn how to market themselves over the internet. Gone are the days when business cards, posters and fliers would do the trick. Those tools can still be helpful, but most people now just boot up, log on, and search to find what they are looking for.  So if a business is going to move its marketing efforts online, you need a website...plain and simple.  None of it can be done with out one.  Here are some general rules to live by when building your website.

Your web site must look very professional. A clean web site works best. You don't want to clutter up your web site with so much junk, colors, and graphics that your customers don't know how to find their way around. At the same time, you don't want your web site to look empty either. No one will go into a house that looks abandoned. So be sure to think of how your web site will look while you are designing it. It really is a balancing act to make sure that it doesn't look too cluttered or to amateurish.

You want your auto body web site to say that your company is professional. If you have sloppy graphics, dancing graphics, or misspelled words, your auto body web site will give the impression that you are not a professional and customers may not want to do business with you. White colored websites, with a off-colored back frame work best (notice web-est.com).  It makes the text more distinguishable and provides the appearance of better organization.  Sometimes people use solid black web sites, which can work if done right.  If you use black web sites, you can use yellow and blue, or red and green for fonts. The drawback to that, however, is that it can become hazy to those with bad vision, which makes a difference in terms of user experience.  

When it comes to graphics, less is really more for a web site. Cartoons can look silly but sometimes they can work if they are well-drawn and of images the customers will recognize. A better idea is to put photos on your web site. Photos of you, your business, the neighborhood, and especially your product will be tremendously effective. The more photos you can get of your product, the better for you and your business and your customer. People want to know what they are getting themselves into when they buy something, and photos of the auto body supplies and parts that you sell will help them feel more at ease.