A car dealership’s website should provide information about the dealer’s inventory, prices, pictures, financing, trade-in value, service scheduling and location before the shopper has to contact the dealer. Good automotive web design does more than look nice. It has to help people find what they need and take the next step.
John Jones Auto Group, October’s winner of our Designerly Award for Outstanding Automotive Dealer Website Design, makes a large, multi-location dealership group feel approachable. Visitors can shop online for new and used vehicles, commercial vehicles, parts, service, financing, reviews and directions without feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary information or cluttered design.
In This Article
Why John Jones Auto Group Has Won the Designerly Website Design Award
Car shopping has changed. Dealerships have set up virtual vehicle showrooms, and shoppers are typically looking for one answer on a dealer website:
- Is it available?
- What is my trade worth?
- Can I schedule an appointment?
- Which location is closest?
According to Cox Automotive’s 2025 Car Buyer Journey Study, 66% of vehicle buyers considered both new and used vehicles during the car-buying journey, and 71% began the journey open-minded, with no idea what vehicle they would buy.
Shoppers at John Jones Auto Group now have options for how they want to start their shopping experience. New inventory, used inventory, commercial vehicles, electric vehicles, vehicles under $20,000, financing tools, service scheduling and trade-in value are available at the top of the page without forcing every visitor down a single path. That matters when shoppers use car-buying websites to quickly compare options.
John Jones Auto Group
John Jones Auto Group is a family-run group of car dealerships in Salem, Corydon, Scottsburg and Greenville, Indiana, as well as Louisville, Kentucky. The group sells Chevrolet, Cadillac, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and FIAT car brands, in addition to used cars, work trucks, commercial fleet vehicles and police pursuit vehicles.
Additional information such as service and parts, financing, collision center, customer testimonials and directions to its several locations is also shown on the website. Instead of the official website referring to John Jones as one dealership on one lot, it identifies the brand as a regional car dealership group.
The About page notes local roots, explaining that John Jones Auto Group opened its original location in Salem, Indiana and has served the area for more than 40 years from its single-dealership start.
What Sets John Jones Auto Group’s Website Apart
The strongest part of the site is how it organizes a lot of dealership information without burying the shopper. Auto dealer sites are known for being visually cluttered. Add in manufacturer promotions, finance details, vehicle cards, a chat tool, search filters and specials, and now you have an obstacle course of a page.
John Jones Auto Group avoids that problem by building the homepage around the paths people take anyway, then putting a big top navigation bar front and center to reflect that. New Vehicles, Used Vehicles, Commercial Vehicles, Trade/Sell, Finance, Service & Parts, Collision Center and About are all exactly where you would expect to find them.
Strong Utility for Different Shopper Types
The website’s model works because not all visitors to a dealership website are there to buy a vehicle. Some are looking for vehicles by make, others are looking for an affordable used car, and others want to make a service appointment, calculate payments or appraise a trade-in.
John Jones Auto Group directs traffic on its website to inventory categories that include the entirety of its searchable inventory. These categories include Chevrolet, Cadillac, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, FIAT, certified pre-owned inventory, used trucks, used SUVs, used vehicles under $15,000 and used vehicles under $20,000.
Location Information Is Easy to Find
Because a multi-location dealer’s website can be confusing, John Jones Auto Group keeps “Find a Location” at the top of the page and provides directions to each of its stores. Car shoppers may drive to another town for the right car, but service shoppers want the least inconvenience.
Service Gets Real Homepage Space
Service is often an afterthought on dealership websites, but it provides active contact with customers. John Jones Auto Group puts its certified service in one section of its homepage, with copy explaining details of the work done, including oil changes, brake work, engine diagnostics and major repairs performed by the service department.
Additionally, it makes scheduling easy to find. Instead of hiding service deep in a menu list, “Schedule Service” buttons can be found in navigation, homepage CTAs and mobile sticky buttons.
Trust Signals Support the Design
For example, including the latest reviews on the homepage can help balance the transactional side of an auto website’s inventory or financing tools, and act as social proof when a customer is deciding whether to call, visit or continue browsing.
More Reasons John Jones Auto Group Earned a Designerly Award
A distinguishing feature of the site is its organization, with inventory, services, financing, specials and dealership features arranged on the homepage. In addition to the main navigation, each screen repeats the main routes lower down the page as a second chance to take a particular route.
The car lineup is well done, with logos and links to categories that enable fast scanning, especially when comparing models on several tabs.
What We Would Do Different
The one area we would improve is simplification, because the navigation is a little big. Some top-level categories are repeated on the desktop site and on the corresponding mobile site, and at times there are many paths, which can be confusing to users with a simple task.
On the homepage, consider creating a “Start Here” shopping widget toward the top of the page with four large buttons to “buy new,” “buy used,” “schedule service” or “value a trade.” While shoppers can currently find these paths readily, creating a more visual decision tree would help them take that first step.
John Jones serves multiple Southern Indiana communities, and location is an integral part of their path to purchase. To make location selection more prominent, we would implement a map-style module or a dealership card grid on the homepage to help customers select the most relevant store.
A Website Built for Real Automotive Decisions
The John Jones Auto Group website is good because it matches the way people actually shop for vehicles, with some visitors comparing new and used options and others wanting service. Others may ask about financing, whether a trade-in is accepted or which dealership is closest.
The site should act as a clear, usable guide, sharing the history of the business and its local roots.
John Jones Auto Group earns this Designerly Award because its site distills a complex network of car dealerships into a usable online experience that helps shoppers move from curiosity to action.
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