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A round of applause to the Ford UK website designers for providing a stunning web design without cluttering the website and for bringing Ford to the online customer in such a stylish manner! The Ford UK website provides a pleasant showroom environment for finding your vehicle of choice, learn about CO2 emissions, the latest technology employed in the Ford vehicles, and much more.

The Ford Motor Company Limited UK has been a vehicle market leader for 28 years in a row. Three of their vehicle models were in the top 10 seller list in 2004. The same dedication to be a winner is also evident in their web design which provides a corporate feel, but without the formal look normally associated with corporate sites.

On entering their website you are struck by the neat outlay and effective usage of multimedia without overdoing it. The first page has flash, but fortunately for those who cannot see parts of the website because they have Java disabled or don’t allow active content to run, there are text versions.

The main colours of the site are blue and white. Consistency is evident throughout the website and obtained through the cascading style sheet menu. The main categories are:

  • Vehicles
  • Finance & Services
  • Company.

Once the user holds the cursor over a category, the drop-down menu appears for the specific category. What is also commendable is the fact the Home link is present on any page, making it easy to get back to the main page. It also includes the following text links on top of the page which are visible throughout navigation:

  • Search
  • Sitemap
  • Test drive request
  • Configure your Ford.

At the bottom of the page you will find the contact button which leads to a page filled with answers on FAQ and the relevant contact details. Terms and Conditions are available and a Privacy statement is included. Apart from the search facility and menu navigation, the user can also locate a dealer by entering the postal code. If you require a brochure simply click on the link at the bottom of the page. Other features of the site are that of the E-zine and subscription to their newsletter. The E-zine doesn’t keep to the overall look of the Ford UK website, but that is understandable as it is highly interactive with videos and contests.

In terms of Internet Marketing the Ford UK website also focuses on a pleasant experience at the website. It includes a virtual assistant to tell you more about Bluetooth now available for their vehicles. This provides that personal touch required from an online showroom.

The Ford logo is visible and the sponsors of the website clearly identifiable. It is a pity though that the copyright notice is not displayed on all the pages. The site is not cluttered with adverts and all the images compliment the content. The quality of the images is excellent and the ALT tags are descriptive of the images. The title displays in the blue title bar on top of your screen and the site supports several browsers. From a website analysis perspective the web design succeeds in providing ease of navigation while the user also has the opportunity to get all the information required. The simplicity of navigation is excellent while the usage of flash, videos, and audio shows that they stay current with new developments in Internet Marketing. Interactivity is provided at the Ezine, but a forum or blog would increase user participation on the Ford UK website.

In terms of search engine optimisation or SEO the website analysis shows a Page Rank of 6/10 and Alexa Traffic Rank of 47 769 (May 2, 2008). The Ford UK website has 557 incoming links from Google, 74 097 links from Yahoo, and 516 incoming links from Alexa. No outgoing links were found. Users appreciate a few well-selected links to relevant sites such as Industry News and this is something that can be added. The information is current, although there is no indication of when the website was last updated.

The website competes for keywords such as car finance uk, ford, ford car dealers, ford credit, and more. No meta description or keywords were found. The website will perform even better if a description and keywords are provided. A Robots file has been found. From an Internet Marketing perspective keywords are important also in the meta tags. One plus is the fact that the main keyword Ford also appears in the domain name and title of the website.

In conclusion of the Ford UK website analysis this a clean cut corporate showroom website design that is easy to navigate and which provides the user ample opportunity to learn everything about his vehicle of choice, find a dealer, calculate payments, and obtain finance.