Web design for car dealerships
Buyers arrive from a portal already suspicious.
They have seen your car on a classifieds site alongside forty others and they are now looking you up to work out whether you are a proper business or a man with a phone and a forecourt. That is the only question your website has to answer, and it is answered by how the stock is presented, how the part-exchange and finance questions are handled, and whether anything reads as evasive. We build it for that, host it and look after it, with a £0 upfront website design fee.
- Per month: £49.99
- Upfront website design fee: £0
Illustration: a car dealerships pictogram beside an example website built for that trade.
The stock
Thirty photographs of one car beats one photograph of thirty.
A buyer looking at a five-thousand-pound car wants to see the wheels, the seat bolsters, the boot floor and the service book. Dealers who photograph properly get fewer time-wasting calls and better prices, because the people who turn up have already decided.
- Photograph the things people worry about
Kerbed alloys, the driver's seat bolster, the boot floor, the service book open at the last stamp. Showing the imperfections builds more trust than hiding them.
- Write what you actually know about the car
Previous owners, where it came from, what you did in preparation. Two honest sentences outperform a list of factory options copied from a spec sheet.
- Keep it current
Nothing damages a dealer faster than a buyer driving forty minutes for a car that sold last week. A short accurate list beats a long stale one.
The conversion
The aim is a test drive, not an email exchange.
Nobody buys a car from a web form, and a long enquiry form just starts a conversation that goes cold. What converts is booking a specific car at a specific time, which turns a browser into somebody with an appointment in their calendar.
- Ask about the part exchange up front
It is the biggest variable in the deal and the thing most buyers are nervous about raising. Putting it on the form makes it normal and lets you prepare a figure.
- Let them ask a question
"Has it had the cambelt done?" is the real reason they filled the form in. Answering it well is often the whole sale.
- Say what to bring
Licence, V5, service history. It sounds trivial and it turns a look round into a completed deal on the same visit.
If you would rather people rang, your number stays the biggest thing on every page. The form is for the ones who never will.
Credentials
Everybody has heard a used car story.
You are competing against a stereotype before you have said anything. The counter to it is specificity: what you do to prepare a car, what warranty comes with it, what happens if something goes wrong in the first month, and what you are regulated to do.
We display exactly what you hold and nothing beyond it: no borrowed badges, no invented ratings, no claims about how long you have been trading.
Things we'll display if you hold them
- Your preparation standard: what every car gets before it is advertised
- The warranty you supply, and what it covers
- Trade body or approved dealer scheme membership
- Your regulatory permissions for arranging finance, where you hold them
- Whether cars are HPI checked, and what that means
- Your returns or goodwill position, stated honestly
- Reviews wherever they already live: Google, AutoTrader, Trustpilot
Scheme names here are illustrative. Arranging consumer finance is a regulated activity in the UK, so we describe your permissions exactly as you give them to us and include whatever regulatory wording your compliance requires.
The three awkward questions
Part exchange, finance and warranty, answered before they ask.
These are the questions every buyer has and almost none will raise on the phone. A dealer who answers them plainly on the website removes the friction that sends people to a bigger competitor.
- 01
How part exchange actually works
What you look at, what affects the figure, and the fact that you will value it while they drive. Most buyers assume they will be lowballed and would rather understand the process than be surprised by it.
- 02
What finance means in practice
The types you arrange, what deposit and term do to a monthly figure, and that a check can be done without affecting a credit file where that is true. Kept factual and within your permissions.
- 03
What the warranty covers
Length, what is included, what is not, and whether it can be extended. Vague warranty wording is the single biggest source of disputes in used car sales.
- 04
How the car was prepared
Service, MOT, brakes, tyres, valet, and what your minimum standard is. This is the paragraph that separates a proper dealer from a trader.
- 05
What happens if something goes wrong
Buyers have rights when buying from a trader, and being straight about how you handle a problem in the first weeks reads as confidence rather than exposure.
- 06
Whether you deliver
Increasingly expected, and it widens your catchment enormously. Worth saying near the top if you do it.
Finance and consumer rights wording must fit your own permissions and compliance requirements. We present what you and your compliance adviser give us, and we do not draft regulated wording for you.
Where the buyers come from
The portal introduces the car. You have to introduce the business.
A buyer finds the vehicle on a classifieds site, likes the price, and then does the thing every dealer forgets to plan for: they search your name. What they find in the next thirty seconds decides whether they ring. A website with real stock photographs, a preparation standard and a proper address reads as a business with something to lose; an empty page or nothing at all reads as a risk.
It is also why the local searches matter. Somebody who has decided to buy within driving distance will look for dealers in their own town, and a well-made site in Ipswich or Colchester competes there perfectly well even though it could never outrank a national portal on a model name.
Your site plan
Five pages, and three of them exist to remove doubt.
The stock brings people in from the portals. The other pages are what turn a suspicious browser into somebody who drives over on Saturday.
Home
Who you are, how you prepare cars, a few current vehicles and a route to a test drive.
- Preparation
- Stock
- Test drive
Our stock
Current vehicles photographed properly, with honest descriptions and what you know about each car.
- Photos
- History
- Current
Part exchange
How the valuation works, what affects it, and what to bring. The page that removes the awkwardness.
- Valuation
- What affects it
- Bring
Finance
What you can arrange, how it works in practice, and the regulatory wording your compliance requires.
- Options
- How it works
- Regulated
About & visit us
Preparation standard, warranty, where you are, opening hours and delivery if you offer it.
- Warranty
- Where
- Delivery
Generally up to five pages on Website, planned around how your customers choose.
Need something extra later? No problem. PrimeStart customers can order additional services such as extra pages, branding and one-off optimisation through their client dashboard whenever they need them.
Your Client Platform
Take a sold car down from the forecourt.
Every PrimeStart customer gets their own Client Platform. It is where the project lives while it is being built, and where you ask for changes once it is live.
- Follow the build stage by stage, without emailing to ask
- Send vehicle photographs straight from your phone
- Message PrimeStart directly, with the whole thread in one place
- Preview the draft on a phone before anybody else sees it
- Approve the website before it goes live
- Ask for changes afterwards, and order services when you need them
- See your SEO report, tracked searches and recommendations each month (Website + SEO)
There is nothing technical to learn and no WordPress to open. One login, and the rest is us.
Illustration of the Client Platform for a fictional car dealerships business. SEO reporting is included with Website + SEO.
SEO
The portals own the car searches. You can own the dealer search.
Website + SEO is optional monthly work on how easily local customers find you, aimed at three searches agreed with you. There is no point competing with a national classifieds site on a model name. There is a great deal of point in being the obvious local dealer.
- £349.99/monthTotal. The website is included: the £49.99 Website is not added on top.
- 3 searchesAgreed with you at the start. Additional agreed search targets are £50/month each.
- Monthly workSearch and competitor research, website improvements, Google Business Profile work, local listings, technical monitoring and a clear monthly report in your Client Platform.
- 6-month minimumAfter the SEO minimum you can continue, or stop the SEO work and keep the Website for the rest of its 18-month term. Every month of it counts towards both.
This is an illustration of a results page, not a promise of a position. Nobody can guarantee where a website appears on Google, and we do not.
Three example searches
- used car dealer Ipswich
- used cars Ipswich
- sell my car Ipswich
"Sell my car" is often the most valuable of the three, because a dealer who buys well has stock nobody else has. We research your area first, recommend three that make commercial sense, explain why, and agree them with you before any work starts. Additional agreed searches are +£50 a month each.
Already have a website you are happy with? Ongoing SEO is only available with the managed website, as Website + SEO — PrimeStart does not run SEO on a site it does not host. If you would rather keep your current site, talk to us first and we will tell you honestly whether moving it across is worth it.
The plans
The same dealership website, with or without the monthly SEO work.
The Website is the whole thing: designed, built, hosted, managed and kept current, with your domain name included. Website + SEO adds monthly work on how easily local customers find it. Clear pricing. Straightforward terms. No surprises.
A dealership website that answers the three awkward questions and turns a portal browser into a Saturday appointment.
Designers usually charge for the build before the website exists. We absorb that cost and recover it through the monthly service, which is why the plan carries a minimum term, and why there is nothing to pay up front beyond the first month.
Complete the term and the website is yours: stay with us on a rolling basis with no new minimum, or move it to hosting of your own.
Want PrimeStart working on how customers find you? Website + SEO is £349.99 a month in total, with the same website included. The same managed website, plus monthly work on three agreed local searches, aimed at the dealer and sell-my-car searches rather than competing with the portals. How SEO works
£49.99per month
- Upfront website design fee
- £0
- What you pay to start
- Your first £49.99, at signup
- Minimum term
- 18 months
- Over the minimum term
- 18 × £49.99 = £899.82
- After month 18
- The website is yours
- If you stay
- £49.99 a month, rolling, no new minimum
What the plan includes
- Stock presented properlyPhotographed and described the way a careful buyer wants to see it
- Part exchange explainedThe awkward question, made normal before anybody has to ask it
- Finance handled compliantlyYour permissions and your compliance wording, presented exactly as given
- Preparation and warranty statedThe paragraph that separates a dealer from a trader
- A test drive bookingA specific car at a specific time, rather than an email exchange
- A professionally designed, custom-built WordPress websiteGenerally up to five pages, planned around how car dealerships are chosen
- Hosting, your domain name and SSLIncluded and managed by PrimeStart
- Security, backups and updatesKept current, backed up regularly, WordPress and plugins updated by us
- Enquiry forms and basic Google foundationsForms that reach you; structure, titles and descriptions search engines read
- Support, small changes and your Client PlatformReasonable small changes subject to fair use, and one place to follow, message and approve
How it works
Your part takes one evening.
Choose a plan, tell us how you prepare and warrant cars, then tell us what to change on the draft. We do the rest.
- 1
Choose your plan
Website, or Website + SEO. The upfront website design fee is £0 and your first monthly payment is taken at signup.
- 2
Tell us how you sell
A short onboarding in your Client Platform: your preparation standard, your warranty, your finance permissions and compliance wording, your opening hours, and where enquiries should land.
- 3
Ready to Build
We check we have what we need. If a warranty term or a piece of regulated wording needs a decision, we say exactly which, and get on with the rest.
- 4
First draft
A working draft on a phone and a laptop: the stock, the three awkward questions, and the test drive booking.
- 5
Approve and launch
Reasonable in-scope changes, then you approve it. Nothing is published until you say so.
We aim to have your first website draft ready within 5 working days once PrimeStart has everything needed and confirms your project is Ready to Build. Payment alone doesn’t start the clock; missing details, revisions or domain delays can extend it.
You review the draft and request reasonable in-scope changes. If there’s a genuine problem we can’t put right within scope after reasonable attempts, we can cancel the agreement and refund Website subscription payments made, subject to any disclosed non-recoverable third-party costs.
Questions car dealers ask us
How much does a website for a car dealership cost?
What happens at the end of the 18 months?
Is the domain name included?
Can my stock feed in automatically from my dealer management system?
Can you write our finance wording?
Should we publish prices for every car?
How quickly will I see a first draft?
What is SEO, and do I need it to start?
You prepare the cars. We'll prepare the website.
Web design for car dealerships at £49.99 a month with a £0 upfront website design fee: stock presented properly, the awkward questions answered, and test drives booked before Saturday.
Prefer to call? +44 7446 265140 or email contact@primestart.co.uk