Web Design in Motorsports: The Business Value, Purpose, and Capabilities it Brings
In this blog, we’re diving into the value on tap when designing websites within motorsports (and the world of business in general). We’ll cover all the benefits of a website when done correctly, how its intended use makes all the difference, and how we utilize these principles on our own website, grandprixstudio.com.
Design and Development Come Second to Business Strategy
A website with nothing on it looks like a blank canvas, literally. And until there’s a plan of action that’s guided by the business’s goals, it should stay blank. Creative execution and development are downstream of business planning. And at the end of the day, we’re in the business of solving other business’s problems. By working backwards and setting up desired outcomes first, you’re far more likely to make wiser decisions on how to attack any project.
As it pertains to web design though, that means figuring out what you’re looking to achieve by simply having a website in the first place, let alone determining what’s on it yet.
Are you trying to attract new drivers to your team? Are you trying to sell luxury condos along your private club track? Are you trying to increase the entry list for your racing series?
Addition questions as you dive deeper into your business plan for the web might include things such as;
Given our target outcomes on the web, what does that user journey look like? How are we going to frame this? Is there a story worth telling? How are we representing our brand here? What user actions are we optimizing for? How do we make a great first impression?
These and more pointed questions should help you produce a clear list of exactly what your website in the motorsports domain should accomplish. Your site should not just be a digital pamphlet of sorts, it should be a tool designed from the ground up to do a few specific tasks very efficiently. In going through this initial process, you may even find that a website might not be the most effective route, and that other mediums would be more deserving of your time and energy given your intended goals. Consider the aforementioned to be “Step One” in a web design project.
Don’t be Afraid to Dream
Web design within motorsports is far more than just a visual digital canvas. It’s a sandbox where you can pretty much do anything nowadays (and I do mean anything). We’re long past the days of static info pages. The rate of development and the barrier to entry on previously extremely complex systems is getting cheaper, easier, and faster. What used to require a developer, a UX/UI designer, and a marketing manager is now being done at scale by individuals with deep industry domain expertise vs wide technical expertise. If there’s a business case for it, it can probably be created within a budget that aligns with your intended upside.
As an example, modern (2023) web systems and integrations allow for everything from e-commerce, to publications, to membership hosting, to marketing hubs/blogs, to two-sided marketplaces, to creating and hosting gated content, and much, much more. So don’t be afraid to dream.
Securing Your Domains
Regardless of whether you decide even having a website is worth your time, we do recommend purchasing and maintaining your own domain(s) so that you always have the option to create a site without worrying about whether someone else might claim or use your preferred domains. A DNS provider I personally prefer (Domain Name Systems) is Google Domains. I’m already pretty ingrained into the Google ecosystem but as far as simplicity, price, and user experiences goes, it’s a great platform to purchase domains from.
Unlocking the Value of Motorsports Web Design
Let’s assume though that you’ve got a clear set of a goals, and its determined that a website is high value route to achieve these goals. What can a modern website offer to those in motorsports that other mediums can’t? Short answer – there’s little a modern site can’t achieve, but let’s look at some of the more high-value aspects.
First Impressions and brand perception matters in motorsports
Speaking as designers, your website is the only truly tailored and branded piece of content on the internet you can have; A place where you’re not constrained by the format, algorithm, or style of something like a social media platform or a public blog. Thus, the quality of your website will be seen by your target audience as a reflection of the quality of the business itself, to varying degrees. However, unlike social media profiles, the barrier to entry with your own website is much higher, and it forces you to show your work. It’s also typically the first place a prospect or customer will interact with the brand, and first impressions matter.
When I come across a poorly put together website, a bad user experience, broken links, and poor design, I can’t help but ask if this experience reflects the quality of this individual, team, circuit, series, business, etc. This is especially true for new customers or web visitors who have no prior knowledge of your business.
In contrast, we want to design a website with an end goal in mind that clearly guides the user to a specific task, presents relevant information, makes for a pleasing user experience, builds brand trust, helps turn visitors into customers, subscribers, inquiries, or whatever the intended user task is.
Let the user experience be your competitive advantage
The moment a user gets even mildly irritated by a website, either through a poor user interface, slow load times, dead links, etc., the chances of them actually performing the task you’re hoping for drops exponentially. This is why the user experience alone is one of the most important factors in web design. You can check out an entirely separate blog we have on just the user interface and user experience aspect of the web and why it’s such an important element to consider.
SEO, Market Differentiation, and AI
Nearly all social media posts are exempt from being cataloged by search engines. On the other hand, nearly every piece of content hosted on a website can be cataloged by a search engine and ranked. Building a website properly by conforming to basic SEO practices can be a huge factor in how easily your ideal clients and future connections find you on Google, Bing, DDG, etc.
A major contributing factor in SEO is developing copy for a website to distinguish yourself from the competition, display a specific expertise, and rank higher for exactly what your audience is looking for. Side note, and we’ll see how well this ages, but at the moment, I would not recommend using ChatGPT or any AI software to write web copy as search engines are seeking authentic high value content and can easily detect AI content (which it does not prefer to rank).
Real World Examples of Motorsports Websites
One motorsports specific use case for a website is to act as a racing team’s digital brand experience where they can build serious interest from prospective drivers, publish official race recaps, share all of their team media, and allow users to learn all about their team. A great example of this would be the website we built and maintain for LA Honda World Racing.
Another example; sometimes a website exists namely as a place to communicate essential information and guide users to take a very specific action. An example of this might be a pro racing series, where growing each race entry list and providing time sensitive dynamic information takes priority over all else. You can find another real world example from us in our design of the Formula Race Promotions Series website.
Grand Prix Studio’s own business strategy and website
To wrap this up, let’s dissect how Grand Prix Studio’s website has been built to meet our own needs as an example. As a digital agency, a website is 100% necessary for us given that web design is one of the most common services we end up providing. But so far as the site’s goals are concerned, grandprixstudio.com has four main pillars it stands on.
Our brand identity matters
The first pillar is brand identity. Our site acts to communicate and expand upon our brand ethos. Our teal gradient, florescent teal block color, rounded san-serif font (Graphie), and other brand assets all live and play here. Our visual brand identity, which was created for web first, cascades throughout our social media posts, emails, and print as well, such that you’ll recognize us across multiple mediums.
Our website acts as a content hub
Our site acts as a content hub for blogs, PR, and free resources. We’re also very deliberate in writing content that speaks to a very narrow section of the motorsports industry, namely those in business development and marketing. We then distribute the links generated from our content across social media to drive traffic back to the site itself so users can learn more about whatever topic we’re writing about in more detail. This creates a positive feedback loop that expands our brand’s public awareness, provides free value to users, boosts SEO, and ultimately leads to new clients and connections longer term.
We believe in showing our work
Claiming we’re capable of something is one thing, but we prefer to show our work when possible. Our site acts as an online portfolio piece for a curated set of projects we occasionally update / revolve. Every business has their accomplishments or information they wish to showcase for the purpose of establishing domain expertise, and we’re no exception.
Adding value to motorsports
The final pillar is purely marketing. Our Just for Racers page and our educational style blogs are all marketing assets that we use to generate content, provide value, and grow our fan base. We wanted the website to not only be a place that prospective clients could go to view our capabilities, but also a place that racers and teams could utilize at no cost to extract value for their own operations. Our long-term goal associated with this side of the website and business is to build a small fan base, rather than a client base. Clients will always come and go as projects require, but fans of the brand are for life.
Conclusion
We hope the example used in our own site will spark some ideas as to how you might improve your or begin planning your own website. For more info on services we offer, or to see all of our capabilities, check out our Core Services page. If you’d like to reach out to see if we might be a good fit for a web related project you have, feel free to reach out.
