Using a For Sale By Owner section on your website to attract more web visitors
By In 2006 we started thinking outside the box and were looking for ways to increase web traffic for an automotive group in Utah. The idea was to install a “For Sale by Owner” section amongst their new and used inventories.
We could think of a few reasons why most people, if anyone, hadn’t tried it before… but the reasons to try it, in our minds, outweighed the reasons for not trying it. The biggest benefits that we identified were increased content; which, in return, gives you more web traffic plus, it was a clever way to overcome vehicle trade in objections. So lets break these items down…
1) Additional Relevant Content = More Website Traffic
By adding a “For Sale By Owner” section we were basically adding more inventory on the site. This inventory has the phrases “for sale” along with geographic keywords such as “cities” and the state of “Utah” in each page. It also added brand keywords from the makes and models of the vehicles that were on the site. The website started picking up steam and within a year the FSBO content was bringing in more than 1,000 additional visitors to the site each month. When the visitors were looking at the vehicles sold by private sellers they were also shown similar vehicles in the dealers’ new and used inventories. A large percentage of the visitors would also look at the dealer owned inventories, resulting in deals.
If you have spent any money in pay per click, you will know that it costs about $3 to $6 per click. Those 1,000 visitors would cost you a whopping $3,000 to $6,000 dollars a month… wow!
2) Overcoming the “not enough money for my trade in”
Anyone in the automotive business knows this is a common objection when trying to put a deal together. Having a ‘For Sale By Owner” section on your dealer website allows you to offer a way to overcome that objection. It’s really quite simple; you quote a trade value, if the customer feels they can sell their vehicle for more, you offer to help them. Basically, tell them some of the tricks you use to sell your vehicles, offer to take the photos of their vehicle and post their new listing on your site. You allow them “x” amount of days and “x” miles that they would need to stay within to get your original buy back quote. If you weren’t able to put the deal together then, at least you now know when their vehicle is sold; and up until that point they are receiving automated email messages giving them tips and whispering in their ear to trade in their vehicle to you.
How do I get a For Sale By Owner section on my website??
Recently, I was interviewed by Automotive News about our successes and motivation on this idea. Since that article, we have had a series of calls from interested dealers. That has inspired us to create a new product called FSBO plug. Named after its’ function – a plugin FSBO section that can be added to any website domain. It won’t interfere with your existing website, even if you change to another web company. Your FSBO section will stay with you.
Sincerely,
Darren Farnsworth
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