aussieautos.com

Please be advised that you should never give out your personal or bank account details over the internet, especially to interested parties from overseas. They are simply out to scam you. Over the past few months I have received lots of emails regarding scammers who were in contact with our sellers. Luckily, most of you seem to be informed enough to identify these emails as scams.

To retaliate in full against scammers I have removed the ‘Email Seller’ feature from Aussie Autos.

Aussie Autos has also been in contact with the Australian Federal Police and investigations have been made in the past to eliminate scammers.

I hope that we can put this behind us and move forward with a scam-free service.

If you are interested in advertising your auto business on the website in the form of a banner please get in touch with me. Also, If you are interested in adding your business to the Aussie Autos Business Directory (under construction) please write to me via the contact page.

As you would of noticed the new design has been up for some time now. It’s looking empty for the time being but when i have more time to update the site i’ll fill it up with useful information for buyers and sellers. I also want to introduce featured cars for the homepage. I’ll put a advertising banner up too but don’t worry It won’t clutter the page or anything.

I’ve approved 30 or more cars in the last couple of weeks. People seem to be finding the website ok now so thats good. Unfortunately I’ve gone down in Google Pagerank (I have no idea why) but I will look into it all when i have the time. Working and studying and music takes up a lot of my time at the moment.

So yeah, I’m still here. I’ll put some money into advertising when i complete my diploma and begin full time work. If i mysteriously disappear before then and never return you can tip Car Sales off to the authorities.   Thanks for everyones listings and don’t forget to tell ya mates.

If you enjoy reading this blog let me know. You start to feel crazy after a while when no one writes back.

Aussie Autos has now been online for a year and to celebrate I’ve been working hard on a complete website redesign. The overall design is complete so now for my favourite part… codeing it! *sigh* 

Teaser:

I have a fair bit of work to do but hopefully the design will be up in a week or so. 

For a small fee, Aussie Autos will now be available to car dealers. Payments from dealers will be invested into Google AdWords and other advertising campaigns to increase traffic to Aussie Autos - making it more worth while for private sellers to create a free listing.

Advertising for dealers start at a low cost of 5 ads for $50, advertise until sold.

I updated the look of the navigation menu today. It’s nothing special but It’s an improvement on the old navigation thats for sure. I’d like to completely redesign the website but I should really focus my time and energy on promoting the website itself. I spent most of my time today link exchanging and submitting Aussie Autos to website directories. I have to redesign the logo because the old one didn’t look too nice against a white background. I should have one up soon.

I decided to put the Sponsors box on the homepage to good use and replace it with links to popular charities in Australia. I think It’s a really good Idea, especially considering my website is relatively new and many people will be unsure about using it. Hopefully this will help to put out a good vibe to visitors. As far as I know I have not heard of other competitors doing this. I know Google do something similar whenever there is a time In need and I hope to adopt some of Google’s good ethics for my website.

Name of your website?

Aussie Autos

Your name?

Luke

Your Location (city, etc)

Brisbane and Gold Coast

Please give us a short summary of your website?

Aussie Autos is a classifieds website for private sellers to advertise their cars. It’s really easy to use and only takes a few minutes to create a listing for the aussie ‘bloke’.

What inspired you to launch your own website?

To be able to call a ‘big site’ my own. It’s not very big yet though, but I do own it!

When did you launch your first website, and what was it?

My first website was a website for people who practice a sport called ‘Martial Arts Tricking’ or ‘XMA’. The website was based on a small community.

How did you decide on a name for your website?

I was surprised to see such a great domain name not registered. I believe it might have expired because there were other extensions registered, however not developed. Since I registered the domain name i have always wanted to persue in developing it.

What makes it different from other, similar offerings?

The service is free to Australians and isn’t owned and operated by a big business for profit. I’m a 19 year old student who has a dream of owning a website that alot of Australians use and are thankful for.

What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)

To keep it for as long as i can. If revenue is generated from advertising i would like to invest it back into external advertising of the website and , if possible, to upgrade by own car. With interest rates rising, perhaps the website will contribute to paying off a mortgage. That would be nice too.

How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?

At the end of the day i can call it my own and thats what i love.

If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?

I would spend it on a brand new layout and on advertising.

If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?

Yes, the website is custom programmed to cater for a large amount of traffic and i have an extremely large amount of bandwidth allowance to go with that, so bring it on Australia!

What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?

The prgramming and the issues associated with errors. Unfortunatly the website had to be revised several times to make it perfect, but in the end we got there and now its ready to go.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Designing the logo myself and finding a font I liked.

What method has been most successful for promoting your website?

Links from other websites and communities that I’m very thankful for.

How has running your website differed from your expectations?

Considering the low amount of advertising I’ve done for it, It’s not doing too bad. I’ve approved more than 100 cars since the website was first launched. I havn’t been able to put any money into external advertising yet, as soon as I can afford to I predict the site will grow alot faster.

How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don’t enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?

I plan to run the website for as long as i can breath, this won’t become a website that I started and gave up on. I’m actually going to put everything I can into this and see where it takes me.

What do you feel you need most for your site to succeed?

The kindness of others to help promote the site through word of mouth and by networking with business owners and webmasters in Australia.

What is your website address?

www.aussieautos.com

Here’s where it all happens. My office also serves as a bedroom and dining table.