2:37 pm, November 13, 2010
Winner: Hillsford.co.uk
Produced by: GForces
Highly commended: audinorthwest.co.uk
Highly commended: alandayvw.co.uk
Talk about a photo finish! This category was the closest of any we’ve judged in the three years we’ve been running the Ewards with just a point between first, second and third places!
This category is aimed at franchised car dealers that represent just one brand – and edging into first place was Blue Oval dealer Hills Ford. With sites in Malvern and Kidderminster, the dealer scooped top spot with an impressive, bold and easy-to-use site.
Judges were impressed with the clear layout, eye-catching offers and the level of detail in the car listings – both new and used. Of particular interest was the integration of Twitter and Facebook links which allowed visitors to share cars they’d found on the social media websites.
Richard Hill, joint managing director, said: ‘We are extremely proud to have been voted the winner of the franchised dealer website category in this year’s Ewards. As a relatively young business we wanted to ensure we had an easy-to-use and uncluttered website that promotes our business and our key offerings while being user friendly and informative.
‘We felt it extremely important to have our contact telephone numbers prominent as I’ve always been amazed at how many sites have a fantastic homepage but don’t make it easy for the user to talk to someone. In addition it was a priority to have the ability to handle a number of photos for each used vehicle along with finance and product information.
‘Our web partner GForces has done a great job in meeting our needs and providing a website package that’s flexible and has some great functionality. Thanks to the judges – it’s a real honour to win this award.’
Autotorq.com talk:
WE really liked the used car search functionality on this website which
also provides customers with the option of lifestyle search which is not common.
Some other wins on this site include a good, clean, unfussy presentation with ease of navigation and clear imagery – key factors for a well-performing website. And there’s a clever proposition of using stock updates for data capture too.
