Website builder
Website builder for auto repair shops
The jobs, the prices, the hours and where you are — for people deciding on a phone at the roadside.
A garage's website is checked in a hurry: do they do brakes, are they open, where are they, roughly what will it cost.
Describe the shop and those answers get built into the page in that order, with the certifications underneath and an enquiry form that arrives as an email and a record.
What they came for
What people want from a garage website
Four questions a visitor arrives with. Everything below is what the generated page does about them.
Do you do this job?
Brakes, diagnostics, MOTs, cambelts, air-con — named in a list rather than covered by "all makes and models", which tells a worried driver nothing.
Roughly what will it cost?
The services table takes a price per job and a note where the price depends on the car. A number, even an indicative one, gives a driver something to compare.
Are you open, and where are you?
Hours and the address with a map, on the home page. This is a business people drive to, often the same morning.
Can I trust them with the car?
Certifications, the number of years you've been there, the people in the workshop. The facts you'd say on the phone, said once on the page.
Common problems
What tends to go wrong on garage websites
Three patterns that come up often. None of them is a design problem, and each is a sentence or two of work to fix.
Not one price on the whole site
Routine jobs have a fairly standard price even where others vary with the car. Publishing the routine ones gives a driver something to compare and leaves the rest to a quote.
The specialism is hidden
"All makes and models" does not match a search for a marque or a specific job. Naming what you do most of matches the words a driver uses.
No hours, or hours that are wrong
Drivers check the hours before setting off, often first thing in the morning. Hours that are wrong send somebody to a closed forecourt.
What gets built
What a garage website needs
The sections Sitemo plans for auto repair shops, in the order it puts them on the page.
The opening screen
The first screen: a photograph of the real place, the name, and the one thing you want a visitor to do next.
The facts people decide on
The handful of facts a visitor decides on — walk-ins welcome, open Sundays, free parking, fully insured.
Services
What you sell, with prices. A list when there are many, cards with photographs when there are a few.
Your story
The short version of why the place exists, in your voice rather than a company profile.
Gallery
The work, the room, the finished job. Laid out as a set, so one good photograph isn't carrying the whole page.
The ask
The line that asks for the call, the booking or the visit.
Testimonials
Room for the reviews you already have. Your words from your customers — nothing invented to fill the space.
FAQ
The questions you answer on the phone all day, answered once on the page.
Contact form
An enquiry that reaches you as an email and is kept as a record you can open later.
Not a fixed list. Sitemo decides which of these your site actually needs from what you describe — a garage with four things to sell gets a different page from one with forty.
Underneath the page
And the parts that aren't pages
Most auto repair shops need somewhere to keep this. It comes with the site rather than being a plugin you go and find.
Each one is a table you edit in your dashboard — change a price, add a service, take something off the list — and the published site follows. Enquiries arrive as an email and are kept as records you can search later, so nothing is lost because an inbox was busy.
The words
The same line, written twice
A general version of a line and a specific one, both about the same length. The difference is how much a visitor can do with it.
General
“Your local garage for all your motoring needs.”
Specific
“MOTs, brakes, clutches and diagnostics. Diesel specialists, courtesy car on request.”
A general phrase covers everything and matches few searches.
General
“Call for a quote.”
Specific
“Oil and filter £89. MOT £45. Diagnostics £60, refunded if we do the work.”
A refundable diagnostic fee is a concrete offer rather than an invitation to call.
The prices and areas above are made-up examples; what is being shown is the shape of the sentence. Yours go in the box below, and the site is written from them.
Try it
Describe your garage
This is the same box that's on the home page, filled in with the example above. Change it to yours.
Free to try · No credit card · Your site stays exportable
Questions
Websites for auto repair shops
- Can I show indicative prices?
- Yes — the services table takes a price per job, and a note where the price depends on the vehicle. It is better than making people ring to hear a number.
- Can people book the car in online?
- The enquiry form can take the vehicle, the job and a preferred date, arriving as an email and a record. Where you want a real slot held against capacity, a booking section does that and refuses once the day is full.
- Will the address and hours be on the home page?
- Yes. For a business people physically drive to, the hours-and-location section belongs on the home page rather than behind a contact link, and that is where it goes.
- Can people book the car in for a date?
- The enquiry form takes the vehicle, the job and a preferred date and arrives as an email and a record. Where you want a real slot held against how many cars you can take that day, a booking section does that and refuses once the day is full.
- Can I show my certifications?
- Yes, the ones you hold — trade body membership, manufacturer training, the diagnostic equipment you're approved on. Nothing is invented to fill the section.
- Can I put a price list up that changes?
- Yes. Prices are rows you edit in the dashboard and the page follows on the next publish, so a seasonal offer is an edit rather than a job for somebody else.
Where this isn't the right tool
It won't hold a workshop diary, order parts or issue invoices. Keep your garage management system. Sitemo is the site that gets somebody to drive to you rather than to the franchise dealer, and keeps the booking enquiry where you can find it.