Industry News & Trends

DealerRefresh 3.0 – it’s finally here!

Jeff Kershner
Posted onOct 27, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Updated onUpdated on Oct 29, 2008 at 5:45 PM

The all new DealerRefresh 3.0 is live!!

I want to THANK EVERYONE for making DealerRefresh what it is and what it has become over the last 3 years. When I started DealerRefresh, I had no idea what I was getting into; I merely wanted a place to voice my thoughts and hopefully gain a little feedback from other Internet Sales Managers. Since then, this has grown into one awesome community that has given me the privilege to meet and become friends with some truly fantastic people in this industry.

So what’s new with DealerRefresh?

As you can see, the look and layout is different BUT not extreme. I wanted to keep the overall feel the same, though you will quickly notice a few key additions like:

  • Search Feature in the upper right corner (works very nice if I might say, give it a go!)
  • Popular Posts right under the ad space; keeping some of your favorite articles only 1 click away.
  • Better Ad Placement – I figured that would make the sponsors happy 🙂
  • Added a few NEW Categories to make it easier to find what you are looking for.
  • See what everyone is talking about with additional and a cleaner layout to Recent Comments.
  • The addition of Alex’s mug shot. Alex has been a tremendous addition and it was time.

The biggest improvement to DealerRefresh (though not visible) is the move over to WordPress. I absolutely LOVE Typepad and would recommend to anyone that wants a personal blog but as DealerRefresh has evolved, WordPress was the obvious choice due to its flexibility.  Big thanks to Ethan and the rest of the Groove Commerce crew for a seamless transition and superior redesign.

So what do you guys think? I would love to get your feedback!

While you’re here and reading this, don’t forget there’s several way of keeping yourself updated with what’s happening on DealerRefresh.

  1. Subscribe to the Newsletter
  2. Get the RSS feed
  3. Follow DealerRefresh on Twitter


Thanks again for everyone’s support over the last 3 years and farewell to the old DealerRefresh!

Jeff Kershner
Founder of DealerRefresh - 20+ Years of dealership Sales, Management, Training, Marketing and Leadership.
M
  • M
    Mike
  • October 27, 2008
seriously good work to you and Groove!
G
  • G
    Gerald
  • October 27, 2008
Holy Schmoley- it’s real! I am sure most of us won’t ever know how much work you did to get this sucker up, but KUDOS to. Looks great bro.
A
  • A
    Andy Wright
  • October 27, 2008
Jeff:

Congrats on the new blog. Looks great. I really like the Wordpress theme.

Andy
E
Jeff -

Nice job with the new site style; new & fresh while still holding on to the strong elements that make DS work.

To quote one of your fav's: "Keep making a ruckus"

Eric
R
Love your new look Jeff. Keep up the good work!
C
  • C
    Chip
  • October 27, 2008
Looks great Jeff, I like having the search very much.

Make sure you sign up for Google webmaster central if you haven't already. It will alert you if your Wordpress installation is susceptible to hacking.

Chip-
Jeff Kershner
@Chip, yup..already on board with that and Google Analytics.

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback so far.
C
  • C
    CS
  • October 27, 2008
nice to see you finally took the plunge and got yourself on wordpress. you're just in time, too, i just released my first plugin for it. by the looks of your source code, you might be able to use it ; )
M
  • M
    Marko Gale
  • October 28, 2008
Hey Jeff,

Props on your new site!

Just tell them to fix the line spacing on your headlines. Should take them about 30 seconds.

Good luck to you. Great job!
M
  • M
    Marko Gale
  • October 28, 2008
By the way, I don't know about other guys, but I would love to know your traffic.

Alexa puts you at about 275k or so, which is awesome, but you have some nice sponsors.

Can you share for those of us who are building our own site about how much you earn from this site?

Is that too close to the vest? Thanks.
A
Yo great job with the new blog. Youve FINALLY gone to Wordpress. If you need any plugin recommendations, hit me up.

-B-Man
J
Congrats on the move to WordPress - I've been using it for years on nearly a dozen sites. Nice crisp, clean layout. Looking forward to more quality DR content - keep up the great work.
A
  • A
    Audrey Knoth
  • October 28, 2008
The new DealerRefresh is gorgeous. Congratulations!
B
  • B
    Bill Playford
  • October 28, 2008
Everything looks great. So glad to see a search function. Keep up the good work!
J
oooo... my 1st post. I feel all kind of anxious.

Welp, here goes, I am not a virgin any more!

Very sexy layout, very high class.
NICE JOB BRO!
Joe
E
YAY! Congratulations. I love the job board idea. Look forward to all the insights from the all-new Dealer Refresh!
B
CHANGE IS WHAT WE NEED!
Just in time for the Election!
A
  • A
    Amanda Myers
  • October 28, 2008
Looks terrific! Congratulations on your redesign!
Jeff Kershner
@Marko Gale - DR is such a niche blog, I've never expected to see huge numbers but I can't complain. It's holds it's own and when I compare the traffic stats up against the other sites (even the magazine sites) geared towards this industry, DR usually comes out on top (obviously not sites like Wards Dealer and Automotive News).

As for the money made for advertising; I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever have ad space on a blog, but after being asked several times by vendors wanting to advertise, I eventually said yes. I was really against it in the beginning (ask Alex). I surely don't make much from it and just about every penny so far has went back into the new site. I've kept a little for myself, thrown a little Alex's way for all of his help and I also donate to the Believe in Tomorrow Children’s Foundation.

I never got into this for money and if all the advertisers went away..I'd keep on writing. Thanks for asking though.
B
Jeff,
Anyway to see the links in folks names before you click on them? Maybe I have to adjust something or is it something on your end?
Jeff Kershner
Brian, I think you are referring to the Snap http://www.snap.com/ program I was using on the old site. It gave you the ability to open the link into a small preview window.

I'm still deciding whether or not I want to bring that over to the new site. It was a little on the heavy side...I'll give it some more thought.

Until then, be sure you have your "Status Bar" checked ON. You can find this option in your browsers "View" tab. When you waive your mouse over a link you will see the forward link in the lower left corner; your status bar.
T
WOW! What a change! It is just Awesome! You have I'm sure but more time into this that you had planned to do, but let me tell you it was well worth it. Congrats to you and Alex.
T
Sorry for the typos!
B
yep you hit the nail on the head! I like the preview/snapshot of the site so you can check for changes at a quick glance. No big deal but I used it quite often on the old site.
J
NOT TO SHABBY!!
I love it!
R
Congratulations Guys. I am encouraged by your switch to WP. It's all we use for us and our dealers and the WP community is vast.

Curious to see where all this goes.
R
  • R
    Ryan
  • October 30, 2008
Jeff,

It looks great! I only had two complaints with the old format and you've improved both. The first was the search functionality which you have fixed entirely. Now what are you going to do about that autotrader.com logo that moved to the bottom of the page? It looks better there mind you, but I still think it's mucking up an otherwise beautiful design. Congrats!

Ryan
J
  • J
    Jeff Kershner
  • October 30, 2008
Ryan, I'm glad you like. That bottom bar with the logo's was supposed to NOT be there, but somehow it made it into the release. I have several more additions and changes I will be making over the next several months and that will most likely be one of them.

I really want to get the "Follow this thread via email" feature plugged in AND allow readers to get the full comment in your email rather than forcing you revisit the site to read the comment. That drives me nuts!!

:)
J
  • J
    Jeff Kershner
  • October 30, 2008
No more banner graphic at the bottom! How's that for service? Props to John over at Groove for reading the comment and removing.
R
  • R
    Ryan
  • October 30, 2008
You don't necessarily need to remove the Autotrader logo, just put a great big cars.com one over the top of it!

Definitely like the ability to read the full comment, that would be very bb friendly.

Thanks again for taking the time to make the improvements. It says a lot about you. You had a great thing going here. You had a strong enough base you could have very well rested on your laurels and never done anything to improve the appearance or performance of your site. People might have kept coming, your sponsors might have kept paying...Where is Lightnup anyway?

Cheers!
E
  • E
    Eric P
  • October 31, 2008
Jeff,

The site looks great and the search is definately helpful. Also thank you for the insight you and alex shed on our industry w/o any sugar coating.
M
New site looks nice
A
Woohoo! The new site looks even better live than it did on the testing site.

Glad it is up and running. Give me a little time to get through all these unanswered emails, advertising updates, and office moves before I get back into the swing of things.

Can't wait though!
S
  • S
    Stan Sher
  • November 15, 2008
Jeff,

This is an amazing creation...
R
  • R
    Ryan
  • June 21, 2010
awesome looking site.
R