What a used car yard website needs to sell cars (and what it doesn't)

By Francis Valente, Navaro Systems · Updated 17 October 2026

Short answer: A used car yard website has one job: get a buyer who has already seen your cars on a marketplace to trust you enough to ring or drive out. That takes your current stock with real photos and drive-away prices, your dealer licence and business details, your address and hours, clear information on finance, trade-ins and warranty, and a phone number that works with one tap. Stock should be easy to keep current, ideally from the same routine you already use to load cars.

Key points

Many buyers find the car on a marketplace, then look up the yard before they visit. Your site is that check.
Live stock with real photos and drive-away prices is the core. Out-of-date stock costs more trust than no stock.
Show your dealer licence number. In Victoria your LMCT number has to appear in your advertising anyway.
Make stock updates part of the routine you already have, not a second job.
Skip what doesn't sell cars: sliders, stock photography and long About pages.

How buyers actually shop for a used car

Many used car buyers start on marketplaces such as Carsales, Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree. They find a car, then look up the yard before they ring or drive out. They're checking whether you're real, local, licensed and reasonable to deal with.

A yard with only a directory listing, or a Facebook page whose last post was months ago, loses some of those buyers to the yard down the road that looks established. Your own site is where you control that first impression.

The essentials

Current stock: every car with real photos (outside, inside, the odometer and any marks), the drive-away price, kilometres, year, transmission, and its registration and roadworthy or safety certificate status.
A phone number buyers can tap, and your hours, including Saturdays.
Your address with a map, and a landmark if you're hard to find.
Your dealer licence number and business name. It's one of the first things a careful buyer checks.
Finance and trade-ins: say whether you offer them and how a buyer gets started. If you refer finance to a broker, say so.
Warranty: which statutory warranty applies (it depends on your state and the car's age and kilometres) and any extended warranty you offer.

Keep stock current without double handling

The biggest risk for a yard website is stale stock: a buyer rings about a car that sold three weeks ago, and you've lost them. The fix is to make the website part of the routine you already have. Depending on how you load cars now, that can mean a stock feed from your dealer management system or marketplace account, a simple form on the site that whoever photographs the cars fills in, or a spreadsheet the site reads.

Ask any web builder exactly how a car gets onto the site and off it again, who does it, and how long it takes. If the answer is send us the details and we'll add it, that's a bottleneck you'll pay for every week.

What builds trust

Real photos of the yard and the people. Buyers want to know who they'll be dealing with.
Reviews, ideally from your Google Business Profile, with a link to read them all.
How long you've been trading.
Plain answers to what people ring about: do you take trade-ins, can I get finance, is there a warranty, can I bring a mechanic or book a pre-purchase inspection.

What to skip

Image sliders on the homepage. Put the stock and the phone number there instead.
Stock photography of cars you don't have.
Long histories. One paragraph and a photo of the team does the job.
Anything that makes the site slow on a phone, which is where most visitors are.

Getting found

Set up your Google Business Profile with the same name, phone number and hours as the site, and ask buyers for a review when they pick up the car. Name your suburb and the areas you sell to in the site's text. If you advertise on Google, send clicks to the matching car or category page, not the homepage.

How Navaro builds yard websites

Navaro builds independent yards their own website for a fixed price with no monthly fee, set up so whoever loads your stock now keeps doing it the same way. Affordable Cars Gympie had 35 cars and no website. Now it runs its own, stock and all.

Questions people ask

Do I need a website if I'm on Carsales?

Carsales brings you buyers for a specific car. Your own site is where they check you out, see the rest of your stock and find your number without a marketplace in between. They do different jobs.

How much does a car yard website cost?

How stock gets onto the site drives the price more than anything else. Ask for a fixed price that includes how stock is handled, and compare the three-year total rather than the build price alone.

What should each car listing include?

Real photos, the drive-away price, year, make, model and variant, kilometres, transmission, fuel type, registration and roadworthy or safety certificate status, and a one-tap way to call or enquire about that exact car.

Free 60-second website read at navaro.com.au, no sign-up. Or ring Francis Valente on 0426 951 399.