How mechanics can grow their business with a cutting edge website

At GO Creative, we make it a priority to stay at the top of our game. In Brisbane, web development is a very competitive industry and we know that our clients expect a website which will deliver a strong return on their investment.

We work with many local small businesses, and today we’re going to take a look at the process of designing websites for mechanics. First, we will look at some of the features mechanics need in their websites. Then, we’ll share two examples of mechanics who have recently used our web design services and have noticed significant increases in new customers and repeat business.

Vital features for mechanic websites

1. Automations

One of the features that mechanics find very useful on their website are automations, such as:

  • taking online bookings
  • taking online payments
  • automatic booking reminders
  • automatic service reminders for customers
  • online forms for customers to submit their vehicle details.

Saving a few minutes here and there really adds up over time, especially for mobile mechanics who might not have a full time receptionist to handle those bits and pieces.

As you can imagine, a mechanic doesn’t have much time for paperwork. This is why we research the most innovative and time saving automations and include these in our web design services in Brisbane. Individualised web development is one way that mechanics can differentiate themselves and make their websites stand out among the competition.

2. Social proof

One way to build trust in potential customers, and in turn increase sales, is using social proof. This can be done by displaying customer testimonials on the website:

  • from social media feeds
  • from Google
  • from third party review platforms
  • directly using the website software.

To encourage more reviews, one option is to create a page which highlights the social media sites used by the mechanic. Then include some simple steps for customers, explaining how they can leave a review on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. This can help build trust on those platforms, as well as your website (if you’re displaying them on the site), and can even help with your ranking in search engines such as Google.

Mechanics who have used our web design services

Below are just a couple of websites we’ve created for mechanics in Brisbane. They both needed contemporary designs to showcase their businesses, and with some of the additional features we’ve set up, their businesses are running more efficiently than ever before.

Premium Mechanical Services: This website is a good example of automated forms, as it has online forms for reviews, online payments, testimonials, a downloadable maintenance guide, and a contact form that includes space for a vehicle’s details. Dean is a mobile mechanic in Brisbane and doesn’t have time for paperwork, as he is on the road all day, so these automated forms have not only reduced his admin workload, but have also increased his efficiency. This is a good example of how our our business offers — whether for tradespeople or corporate — web design services that can truly improve a business. It’s certainly made Dean’s life as a mobile mechanic a lot easier!

Steve Sorensen Mechanical: This mechanic’s old website was very outdated and didn’t adequately showcase their wide service offerings. We had built their past site, but that was way back in 2012 and a lot has changed since then, both in terms of technology and also expectations of website visitors (design, navigation, mobile-friendliness, etc). Using our specialised web design services, Steve Sorensen Mechanical now has a modern and easily navigable website that clearly highlights their services, showcases recent reviews, and encourages customers to leave reviews on Google and other social media platforms. With an online booking facility, customers can easily contact the workshop, discuss their problems and book their vehicles in for a repair or service.

If you’re a mechanic and would like to discuss how our corporate web design services can help increase your profits and free up your time, why not chat with us today? It’s free and there are no obligations.

How much does it cost to hire a web designer in Brisbane?

The cost of hiring a web designer in Brisbane to design a new business website for your company can vary widely, with quotes ranging from $750 to $15k. The problem is knowing which website designer is offering you the best value package, and giving you a website that includes all of the features you need.

For example, it’s fair to say that if a website consultant offers to design a professional business site for $750, it’s going to be very low quality with poor coding and won’t include all of the features you need. Even for a good quality, but ‘bare bones’ professional website you can expect to pay at the very least $1000, and probably closer to $2000.

In general, for a quality website that needs to represent your brand, you are looking at $2000 to $5000, depending on the features. Of course, this is just a general guide. You may have a lot of extra requirements (online stores, payments, bookings, integrations with other software) or you may need custom development work. The price would obviously be much higher in these cases, but for a standard website package you would have to question the price if a web designer in Brisbane quoted $15,000, for example.

Why do prices vary so greatly?

The way website packages are quoted can be vastly different from one developer to the next. Some charge by the hour, some bundle it together. Some work from template designs while others design from scratch. The features in each package will also vary considerably, such as the number of design revisions, security features, training, support, and dozens of other items. Some developers will also only offer corporate website packages, while others may be geared towards smaller businesses and therefore only include the absolute essentials in many of their packages.

If you’re in the market for a professional business website and are faced with a variety of different quotes, here is our biggest tip on sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

Break down the costs of each website designer’s quote

There’s no easy way to do this, other than picking one website consultant and asking them to make these comparisons for you. After all, if you have five different quotes with huge price differentials, it makes sense to ask the website designer with the highest quote to justify their costs.

What you want is a detailed breakdown of all the costs in all of the quotes you have received, so that you can compare them side by side and can tick off which web designer in Brisbane covers everything on your list.

When you ask a website consultant to justify their costs, this is where you will really see what you are getting for your money. They should be able to explain each feature and how it benefits you. This will help you understand the process… but don’t go crazy here. No one likes having to justify their prices, so you should just seek a simple explanation.

At GO Creative, we always give you a detailed quote and we are quite happy to help you compare our packages with those from other website designers.

Why colour selection in websites is vital to conversions

As a web design company in Brisbane, one of our top priorities for our clients’ websites is selecting appropriate colour combinations. You might think that our priority should be to make sure that all of the code is perfect, and of course this is one of our main priorities, but the aesthetics of a website can be just as important for conversions as the code, speed, and so on.

Corporate web design services are an important part of the GO Creative offerings and we do our very best to ensure that all of our clients are happy with their websites. This is why we pay so much attention to colour selection, because if we select the wrong colour combinations, the websites may not generate as many enquiries or sales as they should.

Why is colour so important?

Research has shown that people respond differently to different colours, and we are so susceptible to colours that as far as websites are concerned, we can click away very quickly if we don’t like the colours. We can all appreciate that colours affect the way we feel, giving us a positive or a negative feeling and as a web design company, we are very conscious of the effect that colour can have on the success or failure of a website.

How do you select the best colours for your website?

Since our subconscious plays such a big part in whether we like a certain colour or not, it can sometimes be difficult to select the right colours for a website. As part of our corporate web design services, we often use split testing, as this can help our clients decide which colours increase their conversions.

Apart from split testing, there are a number of ways you can decide which colours to use on your website. For example, for environmentally friendly products you might use green, rather than bright red. On the other hand, red might be great for a website that sells kid’s toys or bikes.

Orange is better for websites selling or promoting food products, yellow is often used for sites that promote leisure activities as it gives us a positive and happy feeling, black is often used for creative sites such as those used to promote art or photography, and blue is suitable for web development companies or sites selling high-tech products, because it promotes trust.

For professional help with web development in Brisbane, why not get an instant quote online?

Is a ‘friend of a friend’ really your best choice for designing your website?

If you’re thinking about asking your friend, cousin or nephew to design your website, the first thing to ask yourself is: do they work for a web design company? In Brisbane, we see far too many business owners who have used a friend or relative to design their website, either to help out their friend, or to save themselves some money.

Eventually, most of these businesses will turn to a professional web development team in Brisbane to help fix the problems with their website, or start over. You wouldn’t ask your friend for medical advice or to help you fill out your tax return unless they’re qualified in those fields, would you? So why go to someone who isn’t a professional developer to design your website or help you with online marketing?

If we’re all honest about it, anyone who is really good at what they do will run a business full time and charge industry rates for their work, not just work as a side project in a field completely unrelated to their normal employment. But if you’re not still convinced that experienced, professional website developers in Brisbane will do a better job than someone who is not in the industry, here are three reasons that might change your mind.

1. Search engine optimisation (SEO)

It’s very unlikely that someone who “tinkers with websites” will know how to optimise your new website for search engines, or write content appropriately. Even more importantly, the theme and design you select can impact heavily on your SEO, and a non-professional might not know which themes are better for SEO than others. This can result in your website not ranking very well in search engines, and ultimately, you’ll spend more money to have your website redesigned by a professional web development team in Brisbane.

2. Branding

Your website needs to be designed around your branding, with the right layout, colours, fonts, and logo. Getting this right is vital to the success of your business and it’s unlikely that a non-professional will have the skills and the experience to ensure that your branding is a priority and that your website reflects your brand. If your branding is done correctly, and applied consistently across all of your materials, it will go a long way towards building brand recognition.

3. Lost time

At the moment you realise that your new website isn’t working for your business, that’s the time you look back and see all of the time you’ve wasted. At GO Creative, just because we are website developers, we still can’t create a perfect website overnight, but we can create very high quality websites in a reasonable amount of time.

For assistance with web development in Brisbane, why not get an instant quote online?

Are business cards obsolete?

As specialists in ecommerce website design and graphic designers, we are often asked about business cards and whether or not they are obsolete. Whilst there are arguments both for and against using business cards, it’s fair to say that most people who go to network events just throw them into a drawer somewhere and never look at them again.

Three reasons why business cards are still relevant

Ignoring business cards is mainly due to the fact that we tend to use Skype, Messenger, text messages and emails to contact people today, rather than hunting around for a business card. And sure, a lot of the time we simply don’t need the hassle of finding business cards, with so much information at our fingertips.

On the other hand, at our web development company, in Brisbane we meet up with many clients and business owners. We do find that business cards can be very useful if you want to build relationships with people, for example by adding them on LinkedIn, making an appointment on the spot, calling them after an agreed interval of time, etc.

  1. Follow ups are easier: At GO Creative, when we have met someone at a networking event or we are chatting to someone in a coffee shop and they are interested in web design in Brisbane, it’s easy to give them our business card. Since we have our web address on our business card, they can easily check out our website and give us a call to follow up on our conversation about helping them with web development in Brisbane.
  2. Referrals are a breeze: We often share our business cards with our clients or people we meet at networking events and find that in turn, they share our business cards with other interested people. For example, we have had a number of clients who were interested in ecommerce website design tell us that they received our contact details from someone else who had given them our business card.
  3. It looks professional: You don’t have to take hundreds of business cards around with you to every networking event, but if you have made a business connection that you want to pursue, it looks professional to hand them your card.

Handing a business card to someone who is genuinely interested in your work comes across as professional, handing out hundreds of cards indiscriminately does not. There is a certain amount of etiquette involved in using business cards, and whilst they may become obsolete one day, at the moment they still have their uses.

For professional ecommerce or website design in Brisbane, why not get an instant quote online?

Why are search engine results different from one person to the next?

Brisbane website developers are well aware that two people can have different search results using the same keywords. This can also happen when you perform the same search on a PC and a smart phone and whilst it can be annoying to some people, if your website is on page 1 on a PC and on page 3 on a smartphone, suddenly it becomes much more than simply annoying.

As a web design company in Brisbane, it’s this incongruity between search results that often concerns our clients, as they don’t understand why their website can show up on different pages of the serps (search result pages), between different devices and searchers.

Understanding how search engines search for information

The problem is that Google wants to deliver the most relevant search results to users, and as fast as possible. So it has developed deep neural networks that are designed to think like a human brain (or at least to try and think like a human brain), and these are used all over the internet to improve the user experience; this approach is called ‘deep learning’.

So when you search for ‘Brisbane web development’, your results are based not only on your keywords, but also on your search history, as well as what other people are searching for online and which sites have content that closely resembles what the search engine ‘thinks’ you want.

Google can also change the order of the results it shows you, depending on the device you are using. So for example, if you are using a smartphone and one of the websites that matches your keyword query for ‘Brisbane web development’ isn’t mobile friendly, it will downgrade that result with a lower ranking and show you more mobile friendly results. On your PC, this won’t be a problem, so this is one reason why you might see different results on different devices.

Another reason that you might see different results in the serps is due to your location and whether or not you are logged into your Google accounts. Google preferentially presents search results based on your location and also uses data from your various Google accounts to refine the results it presents to you.

A trick that website developers often use in Brisbane to overcome these problems is to use a browser’s ‘private’ searching mode, use a different browser, clear the browsing history and cookies from your cache, log out of your Google account and turn off your location data.

If you need help from a web development company in Brisbane, why not get an instant quote online?