What are the benefits of a well-designed website?
Every business has a website, but does it work? As CVW reports, a well-designed site can be the key to strategic change.
For many businesses, a website is often an afterthought—a digital poster that’s set up and then forgotten. But Court Autos, a family-run Bosch garage in Shropshire, has used its website to re-focus its business and its whole approach with the help of Garage Services Online, the Harrogate-based digital agency.
Harry Alford, along with his brother and sister, are the third generation of the Alford family to lead Court Autos since their grandfather opened the garage nearly 40 years ago. Like many family businesses, they were committed to upholding the legacy of hard work and dedication. But this commitment often meant starting their day at 4:00 am and working late into the evening to ensure they didn’t let any customers down.
As Harry explains, there was little or no marketing and the family was working for the business. “To continue grandad’s legacy, I knew we had to really push the business forward,” he says. “Marketing was something we’d never invested in, apart from an old website years ago. It looked okay on the surface but might as well have been in another world; nobody could find it.”
This all changed when Harry connected with Garage Services Online. “That one phone call about a new website sparked a change that not only reduced the number of hours we work but changed our whole way of thinking,” Harry adds.
The new website, tailored specifically to attract the types of jobs Court Autos wanted, has allowed the Alford family to regain control of its business. “Now, we have a clever website that attracts the work we specifically want. By changing the profile of jobs coming in, we’re running the business; it is not running us.”
While Court Autos offers a wide range of services, including servicing, repairs, accident recovery, and vehicle sales, Harry had a particular focus on growing the bodyshop side of the business. He tasked the Garage Services Online team with creating a website that would drive growth in this area while also attracting the most profitable everyday jobs.
The results were immediate and significant. “It wasn’t long before the website caught us the biggest fish: a £12k repair job for a motorhome that had been in a collision. We’d never had a job that big,” Harry remarks.
The growth has not stopped there. Recently, the company secured ongoing servicing and repair work for a local company’s van fleet—a client it was unlikely to have attracted without a professional, strategically designed website.
One of the major advantages of a website is that its impact is measurable, says Jim Lang, managing director at Garage Services Online.
“Court Autos’ website has seen a 63% increase in organic appearances on Google in the last six months alone,” he points out. “That has led to an 89% increase in organic click-throughs.”
The site is continuing to evolve, as the agency adapts the website to reflect Court Autos’ investment in new tools and to attract jobs that offer a quick return on investment.
Court Autos’ experience shows that a well-crafted website is more than just a digital presence: It is a strategic asset that drives business growth and transformation.
