Notes
What a collision shop website actually needs.
Written from inside a body shop rather than from a template library. The customer landing on your site is not shopping. Something has already happened to them.
The standard advice for a body shop website is a homepage, an about page, a services page, a contact page and a gallery. That list is not wrong. It is just organised around the shop, and the person arriving is not thinking about the shop.
They had an accident this morning. Their car is either undrivable or drivable and wrong. They have an insurance company involved, or they are deciding whether to involve one, which is a genuinely stressful decision because they do not know what it will cost them. They are on a phone, possibly in a parking lot, and they are going to spend under a minute on your site before calling someone.
Everything below follows from that. It is written from operating a collision shop rather than from reading other collision shop websites.
The four things that have to be answerable in under a minute
- Do you work with my insurance, and do I have to use the shop they named? This is the question underneath most first phone calls, and almost no shop website answers it plainly.
- How do I get you the car, and what if it is not drivable? Towing is the practical blocker. If the answer is not on the page, they call the shop that put it there.
- How long, and how much? Not a fixed number, which nobody can honestly give before teardown. A description of how the estimate works and what happens after it.
- Have you done my kind of car before? A German sedan, a lifted truck and an exotic are three different shops as far as the customer is concerned, and they are right.
A site that answers those four before it says anything about the company’s history will out-convert a prettier one that does not. None of the four is a design problem.
The pages worth having
| Page | What it is for | The mistake to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Route to the right next page in one tap, and carry the phone number | Opening with a company history and a stock photo of a wrench |
| Estimate request | The only conversion that matters, built for a phone with photos attached | A generic contact form with a message box and nothing else |
| Insurance and claims | Answer the "do I have to use their shop" question and explain the process | Omitting it because it feels like a legal topic |
| One page per repair type | Collision, paint and refinish, dent and hail, frame, glass, calibration | One services page listing all of them in a bullet list |
| Vehicle specialisms | Say which marques and types you actually do a lot of | Claiming everything, which reads as nothing |
| Work, with real photographs | Proof, from your own bays, dated | Stock imagery, which is recognisable and quietly disqualifying |
| Towing and drop-off | What to do right now with an undrivable car | Burying it in a paragraph on the contact page |
| About and the people | Certifications, equipment, how long, who you are | Putting it first, before anything the customer needed |
The one to build first is the estimate request, and the reason is measurable: it is the page every other page exists to deliver someone to. A shop site that ranks and does not convert is an expensive brochure.
What the estimate form has to do
The default contact form asks for name, email and a message. For collision work that throws away the two things that make the enquiry useful, which are photographs and the vehicle.
- Photograph upload, from a phone camera, several at once. A written description of damage is worth very little; four photographs are worth a preliminary conversation.
- Year, make and model, because parts availability and labour differ enough to change the answer.
- Whether it is drivable. This single field routes the enquiry, since an undrivable car is a towing conversation today rather than a scheduling conversation next week.
- Whether insurance is involved, and the carrier if they know it.
- A phone number, and a promise about when someone will call, which is then kept.
The local part, which is most of it
For a collision shop, the business profile is often worth more than the website, because the map result appears above the search results and carries the reviews. The website’s job in local search is to be consistent with it and to support it, not to compete with it.
- The name, address and phone number on the site match the business profile exactly, character for character. Suite numbers and abbreviations count.
- The profile is owned by the business, not by a marketing supplier. Reviews live there and cannot be moved if the relationship ends.
- Hours are correct, including the ones around holidays, because a wrong hour is a customer who drove to a closed shop and will say so publicly.
- Photographs are yours, taken in your bays, and are added regularly rather than once at launch.
What to cut
Most shop sites carry weight that costs load time and attention and returns nothing. A rotating banner nobody reads past the first slide. A stock photograph of a mechanic who does not work there. A blog last updated three years ago, which dates the whole site. Certifications listed as text with no logo and no verification. A chat widget nobody staffs, which is worse than no chat widget, because an unanswered chat is a customer who watched you not answer.
Replace all of it with photographs of actual repairs, a phone number that is always visible, and an estimate form that takes pictures. That is close to the whole job, and it is a much cheaper site to build than the one with the rotating banner.
Questions
How many pages does a collision shop website need?
Fewer than most vendors sell and more specific than most shops have. One page per repair type rather than a single services page, an estimate request built for a phone, an insurance and claims page, a towing and drop-off page, real work photographs, and an about page. Roughly eight to twelve pages of substance beats thirty thin ones.
What is the most important page?
The estimate request, because every other page exists to deliver someone to it. It should accept photographs from a phone, capture year, make and model, ask whether the car is drivable and whether insurance is involved, and promise a callback time that is then kept.
Should the site say which insurers we work with?
It should address the question customers are actually asking, which is whether they are obliged to use the shop their insurer named. Shops often leave this off because it feels like a legal topic, and it is the single most common question on a first phone call. Answering it plainly on the page removes a barrier before the call.
Do we need a blog?
Only if it will be maintained. A blog with three-year-old posts dates the entire site and suggests the business may not still be running. If you will publish from real repairs and real insurance situations, it is genuinely valuable. If not, remove it rather than let it age in public.
Is the website or the Google Business Profile more important?
For most collision shops, the business profile, because the map result sits above the organic results and carries the reviews. The website supports it by being consistent with it. Make sure the profile is owned by the business rather than by a marketing supplier, since reviews cannot be transferred.