When we launched the Dealer Inspire platform back in 2013, we made it dead simple for you to create custom inventory pages on your website all on your own ‒ in a matter of minutes.
No need to call or email support for help — you simply fire up the page composer on your Dealer Inspire Website and with just a few keystrokes and a couple of clicks, your custom inventory page can be live on your website.
Don’t believe me? Check out this #DIHOWDOI to see just how fast and easy it is ‒ even if your boss keeps piling on the requests.
WHEN SHOULD YOU CREATE A CUSTOM INVENTORY PAGE?
The idea behind creating custom inventory pages is to land a car shopper on a predetermined selection of your inventory that’s most relevant to their shopping needs, because the more personalized experience you can offer a shopper, the likelier they are to take an action that’s beneficial for you at the dealership (i.e. use your digital retailing tool, call, visit your store, etc).
When you plan on launching any kind of marketing initiative where the main goal is to get car shoppers to look at your vehicles, this is where you want to use custom inventory pages.
#ProTip: DI clients can get step-by-step instructions for creating inventory pages on our Training Portal
Here are just a few examples to give you an idea of how they can be implemented to work across multiple digital marketing channels:
Example 1: Facebook Advertising Campaign
In this example, let’s say you want to run a Facebook Ad campaign targeted to in-market shoppers who are looking for a new or certified pre-owned, 7 or 8 passenger vehicle for their family. Prior to launching the campaign, you could create a custom inventory page on your website that conveniently displays all of your new and certified pre-owned SUVs and Minivans, giving your target audience a shopping experience that’s tailored just for them.
Example 2: Email Marketing Campaign
I’ve never met a dealer who enjoys having aged inventory sitting on their lot, and Sales Managers are usually up for doing just about anything to find these vehicles a new home. Email campaigns can be a great way to let your prospects know that you have some sweet deals and you can create a custom inventory page to land customers on when they click the link in your email.
With the DI inventory shortcode builder, you can quickly put together an inventory page that lists all your pre-owned vehicles 90 days (or however many days you want) and older which will serve as the main landing page for your email campaign. The more eyeballs you can get on your aged units, the faster they’re going to sell.
Example 3: Video Pre-Roll
As you know, video advertising on YouTube and Facebook is a great way to reach a targeted audience with your messaging. Imagine creating a custom inventory page of all your pre-owned inventory that’s priced $15,000 or less and then pushing out a video ad aimed at younger car shoppers. Not only will you be able to deliver a relevant experience for those who engage with the ad, but you’ll also be reaching this audience on the platforms they use most.
DON’T FORGET THE SEO JUICE
In addition to providing your marketing campaigns with highly relevant landing pages, custom inventory pages can also be great for improving your overall presence on search engines (all while offering real value for car shoppers). When you create any new inventory page, make sure you follow these steps to ensure that it’s optimized for people, and search engines alike:
1. Give your new page an SEO friendly heading
When published, the page heading that you enter at the top of the page composer will be the H1, or heading tag. This all-important SEO tag helps tell search engines what a web page is all about.
2. Build your inventory shortcode
For this example we’re building a shortcode containing all used and certified pre-owned vehicles less that $15,000. Our goal here is to create a relevant inventory page that can be discovered via organic search.
If you didn’t know, you can select multiple items within a field by holding down the Command (Mac) or Control (Windows) key on your keyboard. This way you’re able to make multiple selections, and really begin to customize the inventory that will be displayed on your page.
Once you have your selections made, simply scroll to the bottom of the short code builder and click the Insert button, and the inventory shortcode will be placed in your page composer.
At this point you may want to click the Preview button in the page composer so you can see what the page will look like to users once published, and ensure that the correct inventory is being pulled into the page.
3. Add a short paragraph of text above the inventory shortcode
While you don’t want this paragraph to be so long that it pushes the inventory off the screen, it is helpful to shoppers and search engines alike if you dedicate a sentence or two describing what the page is about.
When published, the page heading that you enter at the top of the page composer will be the H1, or heading tag. This all-important SEO tag helps tell search engines what a web page is all about.
4. Add a Title & Meta Description using the Yoast SEO plugin
All Dealer Inspire websites come loaded with the Yoast SEO plugin. This handy plugin allows you to easily enter custom page titles and meta descriptions for your webpages. The Title element has a direct SEO benefit, so you want to make sure you take advantage of this space. In many cases it will closely match the heading you entered at the top of the page.
While the Meta Description tag isn’t taken into consideration by search engines for SEO purposes, this is the snippet of text that you’re suggesting search engines display when they list your page as a result. Think of this section as ad copy to place a concise and enticing message that users can’t resist clicking or tapping on.
And all that’s left to do at this point in time is publish your new page!
UNLIMITED POWER
In my opinion, the capability to create inventory pages all on your own is one of the most powerful tools on the Dealer Inspire platform. You have the control, and you can build these pages in a matter of minutes. There’s really no shortage of opportunities to create custom inventory pages. Your marketing campaigns, your user experience and your search engine presence will all improve as a result, so what are you waiting for? Start building some custom inventory pages for your dealership today!
