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“Follow the plan outlined here and you can create your own website from scratch without writing any code for less than $300.”
I think you’re going to be surprised.
You can make a really professional car dealer website without writing a line of code.
Here’s a quick look at what your site will look like:
The images, colors, and text – that’s all completely customizable, but the screenshot above should give you a good idea of what the design will look like.
With the tools outlined in this post, you’ll be able to create a beautiful website that looks great on both laptops and mobile devices.
You’ll also be able to update the site whenever you want since it doesn’t writing writing code.
I’m sure you’re excited to get started, so let’s move on to step #1.
How to create a site for a car dealership
To create the site, you’ll start by getting a basic WordPress site online, and then add a WordPress theme to customize it.
Here’s an overview of the steps to create a car dealer website:
- Get a domain name
- Signup for hosting
- Get familiar with WordPress
- Install a WordPress theme
- Customize your site
Before you even look into learning WordPress, the very first thing you need is a domain name.
Get a domain name
Every website has a domain name. Ideally, it will be your brand followed by .com.
If you can’t get your brand as a domain name, then try adding an extra term afterward. For example, add “dealer” or “cars” after the name of your business.
This guide on finding domains will give you further instruction:
How to Find a Great Available Domain Name →
Once you’ve found an available domain, you’re ready to get hosting.
Get web hosting
Your website needs hosting to load and function.
When you signup for hosting, you’re essentially renting space on a server. This will be the main expense of your website, but there are some really affordable options available.
Nexcess is an awesome choice for anyone creating their first WordPress website.
They have hosting plans made specifically for WordPress, which comes with a few advantages.
First, they automatically create a website for you. All you have to do is create an account, and you’ll have a site prepared.
Second, they can offer you much better performance than hosts that don’t specialize in WordPress because their hosting environment is specially configured to run quickly with WP.
And lastly, you get a handful of site management bonuses. For instance, they automatically update WordPress and your plugins for you, and they backup your site automatically every day.
Learn how to use WordPress
Once you sign up with Nexcess, they’re going to automatically create a WordPress site for you.
In other words, once you complete these first two steps, you’ll already have a live WordPress site hosted at your domain.
The next step is to get familiar with your new website.
WordPress can be confusing, but it doesn’t have to be.
Most people start using themes and plugins right away and never really learn the interface, and that’s why they get so confused.
I recommend watching this video from my 17-part video course on creating your first WP website.
It’s not the most exciting topic in the world, but that video will give you a full walkthrough of the features included in WordPress.
Once you feel like you know what you’re doing, it’s time to install a WordPress theme.
Install a WordPress theme
The WordPress theme you choose will completely transform the design of your site.
Normally, I would recommend creating your content first, but you’ll need the theme to really visualize the layouts and how the car listings will work.
To create a car dealer site, I recommend the Motors theme.
Before you read much more, you should visit this page to access the demo sites:
See more demos of the Motors theme →
There are a whopping 16 demo sites, so I don’t want you to see that one screenshot I posted above and think that’s exactly what your site has to look like.
Motors will let you publish cars as inventory on the site and every car’s page will include info like the:
- Make & model
- Mileage
- Engine
- Transmission
- Interior & Exterior colors
- Fuel economy
- and more
You can add multiple photographs and videos for each car, as well as a short write-up.
Motors even includes a comparison tool so visitors can compare multiple cars at once on the site. And on the car listing page, there are filters visitors can apply to narrow down the search results.
To be honest, it’s pretty overwhelming! But in this case, that’s a good thing. You won’t need any features this theme doesn’t already provide.
While Motors is awesome, I do have a few other recommendations for you in my collection of the best car dealer WordPress themes.
Take a look through that collection to see if there’s a template you’d prefer over Motors.
Once you’ve selected a theme, you can continue by customizing your site.
Customize your site
While it’s fun to get straight into the fonts and colors, I would recommend putting off a lot of that stuff at first.
You should begin by adding some of your inventory and creating essential pages like your contact page and about page.
This guide can walk you through those first steps:
Beginner Site Customization with WordPress →
Once you have a lot of your content added, it will be easier to find out what your site will look like when finished. You’ll get through the customization work faster this way.
You should find all the customization options you need in your theme, but you can follow this customization guide if you want more ideas.
Start tracking site visitors
Before you launch, you’ll want to track your visitors so you know how many people have seen your site.
Independent Analytics is an excellent (and free) plugin for adding visitor tracking to WordPress.
Once installed, you’ll find a full analytics dashboard added to your site with data on your page views, visitors, and referrers. This way, you can tell if your launch was a success and find out which sites sent you the most visitors.
Launch your car dealership site
While a finished website might seem like a far-off dream, I think you’ll be surprised just how fast you can get a decent website online.
Just by following the first two steps in this guide, you’ll get a live WordPress website.
Now that WordPress has been around for nearly 17 years, there are themes for every kind of site you can imagine. The functionality included is insane, and you get it all for an extremely low price. Thousands of times cheaper than hiring developers to create the same functionality.
I hope this guide was eye-opening and helped you to create your car dealer website. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it before you go.
