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Company Websites . . . are they worth it?

motion guru

Diamond
Joined
Dec 8, 2003
Location
Yacolt, WA
I didn't want to sidetrack David Carlisi's thread . . .

Over the years we have put up at least 4 different website attempts. The first one I did in a weekend with HTML for dummies . . . fast, simple and allowed us to tell our customers that we had a website. Not sure it had much value beyond that.

My next attempt at a website actually resulted in a few sales. I remember getting a call from Boeing one day asking about Motion Platforms - back and forth the questions went and pretty soon I am writing a specification for a platform. Next thing we are getting an RFP for the same platform. We have sold 4 of the platforms so far and so far so good . . . we have also received several inquiries for drive system retrofits that have panned out.

In the last few years we have invested even more effort in the website - but now it seems like it has been at least a year since we have gotten any inquiries from it. Is the lack of response because of the economy? Do we have a lousy website?

I'd be happy to hear any feedback from folks who might have some constructive criticism. . . http://www.appliedmotionsystems.com/

At some point we need to figure out whether we want to continue to put effort into this thing.
 
Yes, they are definitely worth it, and yours is better than most that I've seen.

If you're not getting good response, it's not because your site is lacking. Either your market is somewhat depressed, or you're not getting your prospects to go to the site.
 
Nothing wrong with your website, I'd put the blame on the economy.
Or....blame Bush...seems like he's going to take the fall for everything that's gone awry in our nation.
Oh....excuse me...wrong thread....:D

I even tried live search, and your site was eighth on the list.
Yahoo....I went through three pages, and never saw your link.
Google, 4th down on the list.
Your website is great. I always try a search on peoples websites just to see how high up the list they are. To be on the first page, you must be doing something right. I have always wondered what the secret to being high up the list was.

On edit after Micheals post, I searched keywords "Motion Control"...FYI
 
Ken, I think it is an issue of search keywords.

What does your business do? "cnc retrofit" and "automation retrofit" don't turn up your firm in the first few pages. I suspect that anything on page 4 or lower on Google is largely useless.

There's a concept called "search engine optimization" that some online businesses pay a lot of attention to. If you are counting on random searches on Google to put you on the first page, you've got to structure your website so that happens.

Figure out what terms your prospective customers are going to use to search with, and make sure that your website makes use of those in a way that maximizes the ranking with the search engines.

cheers,
Michael
 
I agree with Michael

Keywords.
When I looked for a supplier, I'm not sure what the keyword exactly is. So I often google for several keywords. If multiple product names appeared on the website, it will be easily found by purchasers.
 
Here are the keywords in the site... There might be too many. There is an upper limit to be effective and I can't remember just what that number is.

Also, the sequence can be important.. I think "automation" should come at or near the beginning.
"PCMC,Perini,servo,systems,integrator,integration,converting,
automation,plc,UL508,cnc,rockwell,UMAC,
motion control,drive system retrofits"
 
I, for one, would not look for "automation, system", they are so broad.

"Motion control, drive, servo, retrofit, convert" are good. Proper limitation is better I think, because I don't want too many useless websites coming out.

"Integration" with another word will be better.

About PLC, purchasers will directly input wellknown brand.

It seems to me that google can get every word on a website. It depends on which word a purchaser input in the search textbox.
 
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The site looks good, not a bunch of flash or images to convey your message. Search engines are quite context sensitive and rank your result based on sites that link to you and the contextual relationship. The short of it is that you need plenty of verbiage in the body of the page to rank highly. Keywords are ignored by most search engines because SEO methods have spammed the keywords with data that's totally irrelevant to the content of the page. Your best bet is to have multiple paragraphs of highly relevant material. I used to work for a web hosting company, and I got to see the industry grow up from 1995 on, and the one constant that has remained is context. My own websites aren't fancy in the slightest, but they rank highly for their valuable content. When you put something of value on your website, people link to your site, which is half the battle. If the search engine companies think the linked to content is valuable, you'll rank highly for that subject matter.
 
I looked at your web site, I think that it is fine. (Appliedmotionsystems, that is.)The economy is off right now because of the upcoming presidential election, like Bluechipper said. I believe that people will become confident after the election regardless of the result. All of the shops in my area are slow right now, including the ones that are never slow. We actually have someone in New York re-doing our web site which is bare bones right now. It will include pictures of the machine shop, and some of our products.
Here is a link to one of my new customers... I like it because it is to the point.

http://www.ripleyair.com/ra/
 
If you put a free Bravenet counter on your site,you can click on it to look at the statistics.Down the left bottom side of the statistics page is a link to referrers.You can click this and see where your visitors have came from,i.e. whether it is direct hits,from a link somewhere else or from a Google search.If you click on the Google search link you will see what keywords they searched for.
Sorry if you already know this.
Mark.
 
I appreciate the comments on keywords and I'll look at those websites. My IT guy created this website and added some tracking java scripts to it, these should help us figure out where people go when they land on the site and where they came from.

This is the screen shot from the program this morning - hits from Practical Machinists have flooded the site . . . I didn't realize how much detail was actually delivered by the tracking software. Kinda makes me wonder what people gather about me when I am surfing :skep:



click on the picture to see if you see your visit

I'll take a look at our meta tags and keywords and see how we might tighten things up. I can see how this would be a full time job for someone to analyze the data . . . :rolleyes5:
 
Do we have a lousy website?
Heck it looks real nice.
Better than a lot of them!

Yours is a tough business to be in.
People expect free engineering and custom plug and play solutions at 'staples' or 'best buys' pricing.
Not sure if the market will bear the justified cost of your capabilities at the scale you've grown to.
40 employees?? That's a LOT of automation projects in 12 months.
Impressive numbers.
 
it's pretty good...

I think you're on target content wise - although you do have a lot of it. I'll bet nobody but you looks at all of those pages.

Really look through those usage stats - be sure eliminate all hits from within your company, you at home, anyone linking to you from this thread, etc. My guess is that you've spent a ton of time and $ developing pages that only you look at. Not sure about Woopra but most stat tools can give you 'user paths' through your site. Click by click - what they look at. See if folks are looking at what you think is important, more importantly see what they think is interesting.

I agree with the other comments re: keywords - you could use some tweaks:

Think key-phrases, most of what you have is way to vague and are words that thousands of others use. CNC, Servo, automation - that's not what you'd type into google if you were looking for you.

Looking through your site quickly - consider things like:
'Motion Platforms', 'Gob Distributors', 'Digital metered winding', 'Control Systems', 'Siemens Motion', 'manufacturing systems integration', 'Paper Converting Operations'

Consider putting a few of your advertising dollars in some Google AdWords and check out Google Analytics. You can start out cheap and invest more if it's getting you results. Consider getting outside help if internet marketing is not part of your core skillset.

That said I would also warn you about the growing Search Engine Optomization industry. Consultants pushing these services are the snake oil salesmen of the internet. Everyone wants to be first in a Google search - it's just not going to happen. Google is constantly adjusting their algorithm to filter out 'SEO tricks'.
The big thing that gets you higher in search rankings is being recognized as an authority on a subject. Other sites linking TO YOU will do more than any tweaking of meta tags. Perry and others are right - Content is King.

Couple other thing's I'd suggest:

1) remove redundant navigation - having the same basic navigation on the top and down the left is not good usability wise. The one on the left that expands to show sub-sections is more useful so I'd ditch the one at the top. Since the side nav also highlights the currently selected section I think you could remove the breadcrumb/wayfinding from the top red bar.

2) put you phone number at the top(and again in the footer) where the redundant navigation is. The primary reason your site exists(for new customers) is to get them to call you. You present great information that let's people know you are competent, professional, qualified, etc. After they reach that conclusion you want them on the phone - don't make them click around.

The other big job of a site like yours(for new customers) is to help validate interest in your company 'up the food chain' - as I said, I think the information you present does that very well.

Also for existing customers - having the phone number up top makes it easier for them to call. I know I will check a website for a phone number before I go digging through my desk drawer of business cards. Having it up top saves me time.

My final point will probably piss off someone on you end...
As you grow and want to look more professional - get help with your logo and brand. What you have now looks like a startup that didn't have budget for a 'real' designer. I think having the redundant AMS over the wave/signal forms along with the full name of the company is too much. They both have their place depending on usage, a design pro could help tighten that up. I'd also change the blue banner at the top to a solid blue - the 'hot spots' don't add anything, they compete with the main element. In graphic design simple is almost always better. Everything for a reason. Ask any designer why they made a choice one way or another - they should have a reason. The systems you design don't have extra parts that are there just because someone thinks they 'look cool' - everything has a purpose.

That said - having an odd logo or header isn't the reason you aren't getting leads off the web. If I were in your shoes I'd work on the keywords, analyze your usage info and add your phone number to the footer. Everything else on a To-Do list. If you can't get traffic from the types of customers you need nothing else matters.

-paul
 
Guru:

While I haven't followed the last many posts, I guess I doo want to reply to one part of your original post:

but now it seems like it has been at least a year since we have gotten any inquiries from it.


I wouldn't expect the website to realy generate calls all on it's own. However it very well could be one of those things that after someone hears of you - they may want to go look see what you offer (generally) w/o having to deal with git'n the right person on the horn, and then the repercussions of dealing with a salesman over and aggin from someone that you don't want to deal with.

If they go to check you out - and you don't have a site - then that may throw up a flag. (Especially someone in the "computor" business such as yourself.) It can be just one of those things that helps to secure someone that you are not some fly by night / hare to day - gone tomorree business.

With that said - I don't have a site - other than the nice quick page that MFGQuote.come sets up for all their suckers. Heck - that page may even still be out there? I used to be near the top of the first page of a search if you typed in production machining Ohio. I DID git a cpl of calls from that. However - always for something that I couldn't really help them with - of course! That was one unsung benefits of MFGQuote was their high placement ads in the web.


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