Manufacturing Website

Manufacturing Trend: Blogs are for Manufacturers, too

By Jack Burnett

For years, manufacturers have been marketing their products with sales representatives, trade show booths and product catalogs.  More recently a strong web presence and social media sites are being added to the mix.  The blog is an online marketing tool that can tie it all together, giving manufacturers an efficient way to tell the marketplace about their company and products.

For a manufacturer's web presence, I advocate a lean web methodology that focuses on three important functions:

1. Adding value to customers
2. Providing a rewarding online experience for target audiences
3. Presenting your company as a professional organization and an industry leader

The company blog is the one component of a manufacture's website that helps provide all three.  The blog is where customers can learn about product updates, new product announcements, and company initiatives.  Over time the blog becomes the manufacturer's knowledge base for customers, with a treasure trove of information all in one place.

Many times, manufacturers have valuable information just sitting there, but cannot get it out to customers efficiently.  The blog is an effective, lean solution to this problem.  It is also a great communication tool for manufacturers to take all the topics of conversations each sales and customer service representative has with individual customers, and immediately make all customers aware of them at the same time.

The manufacturer's web portal is the place where customers login to find specific information such as their pricing, order history, spare parts, warranties, RMAs, etc.  The blog, however, is the place for all customers to find common information such as troubleshooting advice, demonstration videos, and answers to frequent questions about products.  Manufacturers can address these once and have the information immediately available to all customers to find any time of the day.

Manufacturers are adding social media by creating Facebook and Twitter accounts, urging customers to "like" or "follow" their company.  Followers gather on the social media sites, which is nice; but, there is not much value for the customer until there are important, timely updates about the products, the manufacturer and the industry to discover.

Twitter and Facebook become valuable tools for a manufacturer, when they lead customers to the most recent news and updates found in the manufacturer's blog.  Customers have another way to interact with the manufacturer and provide feedback.  The conversations on the social media sites center on the manufacturer, the products and benefits for customers - all topics that help attract new customers.

Of course, adding value to customers and selling more products is always a business goal.  The most successful blogs, however, are those viewed as collections of information that benefit everyone in the industry; not a blog just perceived to be run by a company trying to sell products.  This is taking the blog to another level that demonstrates the manufacturers' thought leadership and innovation, distinguishing the manufacturer above the competition.

The blog not only informs customers about products, it is viewed as a forum for ideas, trends and the exchange of information that benefits the manufacturer's industry.  Customers visit the manufacturer's website blog on a regular basis to find product information and to learn about their industry, not just when they need to find out how to solve a problem.  The manufacturer is seen as a trusted, integral partner for customers and suppliers, and as an industry leader.

Website Peformance and Browsers

By Jack Burnett

I recently saw the results of an independent study conducted by Equation Research for Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware Corporation, showing the importance of website performance for consumers.  The study found:

• 67% find a slow website a few times a week or more
• 84% are only willing to try a slow website a few times before giving up
• Over a third say they are less likely to return to a slow site

These are consumers that are used to sites like MSN, Google and Yahoo!  Of course not all of us have the resources available to those guys.  What makes it even more difficult these days is the variability of browsers on the market.  The latest IE browser used to dominate, but I read on Website Magazine that  IE 8 has almost a quarter of the market now, and earlier versions of IE plus the other browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome account for over three quarters of the people.

So what can you can you do?  Problems can occur anywhere in the web delivery chain: from the hosting datacenter to the third-party services used by the website to the ISPs to the browsers themselves.  If you can afford it, testing networks offer a fast and easy way to test and monitor your website performance for your visitors, and determine where all the problems are and if you need to optimize for the browser.

Browsers have evolved from just rendering web pages to now being responsible for well over half of the overall processing time of websites.  There is probably room for improvement at the browser. For those of us with limited means, this means that we need to look at what front-end improvements to make for the most popular browser(s) that will yield the biggest return for your web visitors.  Only concentrate on those that the majority of your visitors use and focus on the areas of your website that are important to you and your users.

Web Analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, tell you what browsers visitors are using and what type of internet connection they use.  They also tell you what pages are viewed the most.  You know what pages you want viewers to view the most. For tips on design and performance optimization of your website, I suggest looking at 2 tools that integrate with the Firefox browser:

• Page Speed - Page Speed performs several tests on a site's server configuration and front-end code. You get a set of scores for each page and suggestions on how to improve performance.
• YSlow - YSlow analyzes web page performance by examining all the components on the page, including components dynamically created by using JavaScript. It measures the page's performance and offers suggestions for improvement.

One suggestion, don't get wrapped up and spend a lot of time and resources trying to get good scores on these tools without yielding significant improvements for your users.  There is a lot of information online to research and plan your improvements.  A good place to get best practices for speeding up your website is: http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html.

Lean Manufacturing Website

By Jack Burnett

A lean manufacturing website is based on core lean manufacturing principals-defining value for your customer and eliminating waste. A corporate manufacturing web presence should be a central part of the sales strategy, serving as a 24/7 sales person, 365 days per year; generating leads and helping manufacturers more efficiently and effectively support dealer networks with on demand product information.

An example is the King American Trailers website, which markets all of King American Trailers' cargo trailers, but also functions as a virtual "salesperson," working 24/7, 365 days a year. Dealers have a resource to see photos of each product and review standard features and options. With the lean website, employees support dealers online in a more efficient and effective manner, and eliminated the need to schedule phone calls and for expensive faxes and brochure mailings.

TwinEngines built the manufacturing website on an open-source content management system (CMS) which enables the trailer manufacturer to update photos and product specifications directly without the need for a third-party vendor. This means no bottlenecks for updating product information.  The CMS also lets the company easily manage the organic SEO information for each web page, and web analytics employed on the site provide the metrics required for continual improvement initiatives.

A lean manufacturing website also converts visitors into customers and generates sales leads.  There are two call-to-action steps on the website to generate sales, "Find a Dealer" for consumers and "Become a Dealer" for dealers.

Is your website generating leads, providing value to your customers and presenting your manufacturing company in a professional manner?  If not, follow TwinEngines' lean web approach for a manufacturing web presence.

Manufacturing Website Page Speed

By Jack Burnett

Google recently announced a new tool called Page Speed. Page Speed measures the speed at which a web page loads in your browser. It analyzes the webpage and makes a bunch of recommendations like number of images, CSS, javascript files, minimizing round trip times, minimizing request size, optimizing your caching semantics and a dozen other best practices that Google has identified and used in their own website.

Page speed is a tool should be used by web developers to optimize their pages for faster load times. Page speed captures all the best practices developed by Google in an easy to use tool.  Our TwinEngines developers use the tool when building manufacturing websites and eCommerce websites.

Page Speed is an extension to a Firefox plugin called Firebug, which makes it a plugin of a plugin. To use it you need the following:

1. Firefox 3.0+
2. Firebug
3. Page Speed

5 Best Practices when Upgrading your Manufacturing Website

By Jack Burnett

Re-designing your manufacturing website or upgrading your company's web presence?  Remember the key lean web principle - continually add value for your customers.  Here are 5 best practices that a lot of small and mid-market companies participating in the manufacturing value chain forget that hurt their customers experience on their website:

Site Map and Sitemap - Create an html Site Map page in your website to help people navigate your website (it may help the search engines too).  Typically the Site Map link is in the footer of the website so it is available on each page.  For a lot of links in your site map, you can organize the links into sections to make it easy to read for people.  See our site map page at www.twinengines.com/sitemap.  Also create an xml sitemap file and upload to the web server to specifically help the search robots.

301 Redirects - When you launch the new website, the web page names may change (eg. from www.yourdomain.com/oldpage.php to www.yourdomain.com/newpage.aspx).  This confuses search engines spiders and bots, and can temporarily cause lower rankings and lost visitors. To avoid any confusion, set up a 301 redirect for each old page of your website to a new page.

Custom 404 Page - A 404 error page is an 'ugly' error page that visitors see when they go to a non-existent web page or enter an incorrect url. Create a custom 404 page that provides an easy way for all those lost visitors to get back into your website.  At TwinEngines, we use our Site Map page as our custom 404 page so people can see an organized listing of all the links to information in our website.

Web Analytics - Make sure you have your web analytics software setup in the master template and all other templates so it is on every page created in your content management system.  We recommend Google Analytics for small and mid-market companies participating in the manufacturing value chain, since it is free and easy to use. Configure Google Analytics goal funnels to monitor your website conversions (eCommerce checkout, Request Quote, etc).

Google Webmaster Tools -  Google shows how it views your website and alerts you to any problems, so this is a great way to troubleshoot issues in your website. Once your site is registered with Webmaster Tools, leave a comment on Sidewiki

These 5 tips are important features of your manufacturing website that will keep you from losing visitors just because you upgraded your web presence.  They also give you free web analytics and reporting to help you create a lean web presence that adds value to your customers.

Manufacturing Website Design Process

By Jack Burnett

You have decided to create a new website for your manufacturing business or re-design an out-dated website, and you don't know where to start.  Don't worry; there is a process that you can follow to make sure your website adds value to your customers, and represents your manufacturing business accurately and in a professional manner.

The analogy of building a house describes this process well.  You plan the architecture and the design of the house - down to each room - before the builder starts construction.  You review illustrations and drawings and look at other houses.  It is critical that you and the builder are on the same page to make sure you get the house of your dreams.

So it is with constructing a website. The key is making sure that you and the web designer understand the needs of your customers, your company and its value proposition, and the design and archicture of the website - down to each page.

There are three major phases to the planning and design, before construction starts:

1. Web Work Plan
2. Site Map
3. Information Architecture

The steps to plan and design your manufacturing website are:

1. Conduct a SWOT review of your manufacturing business and its web presence
2. Create a web work plan that outlines the following information:
   • Company Goals
   • Website Goals
   • Customers Profiles
   • Company and/or Products Benefits
   • List of Competitors and their websites
     • Also a list of websites you like
   • SEO and Technical Requirements
   • Creative Requirements
   • Marketing Collateral
   • Copy
3. Create a Site map showing each page
4. Create the information architecture of the home page
   
   • Navigation
   • Marketing Imagery and Copy
   • Calls-to-Action
5. Gather digital collateral including vector image of logo
6. Create 2 to 3 different home page compositions
   • Based on the Information Architecture
   • Showis color scheme, graphic treatments, and design elements
7. Select your favorite design composition
8. Create  the information architecture of an interior page
9. Create the interior page design composition
10. Review plans and designs.  Set the production budget and schedule.

By planning and designing your manufacturing website following these steps, you know what the website is going to look like and how customers interact on the website - before construction begins.  You also know the budget and schedule. Just like building a house, once construction starts, changes are costly.

Top 5 Things to Make your Manufacturing Website Lean

By Jack Burnett

Web Value Stream Management

TwinEngines specializes in helping manufacturers and businesses with manufacturing value chains operate more efficiently and increase profits.  When it comes to a manufacturing web presence for marketing and selling online, we extend lean principles and value stream management to 5 key areas in manufacturing websites.

1. Website Value Proposition - Visitor Conversion

• Purchase managers, engineers and your prospects easily find your website
• Your website makes a good first impression conveying a professional, trustworthy company
• Visitors to your website take the action that you want them to take

2. Content Management System

• Eliminate waste inherent when your web/hosting supplier has to update your content
• Respond quickly to the marketplace and competition
• Simplify website management duties

3. CRM Integration

• Streamline your sales, service and support operations by connecting your website to CRM systems such as SalesLogix, Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics
• Consolidate website leads and get them to your sales team efficiently
• Measure customer conversions and campaigns for continual improvement

4. Product Catalog

• Seamlessly integrate your product catalog and generate leads for your internal sales team
• Make it is easy for buyers and engineers to find what they need and contact you
• Consolidate CAD drawings, how-to videos and specification sheets

5. eCommerce Integration

• Centralize order processing by integrating your secure shopping cart to your financial and ERP systems such as MAS, Visual, QuickBooks and Microsoft Navision and GP
• Provide shipping costs and real-time inventory when customers place orders, simplifying fulfillment and warehouse management tasks
• Manage product/sku information in one place eliminating duplicate data entry

Whether your manufacturing website targets dealers, distributors and wholesalers or your website allows consumers to purchase your products, TwinEngines can help to simplify, consolidate and eliminate waste for an effective web presence.  Your website should work smoothly for your customers, and it should work efficiently for you, too.

TwinEngines offers a complimentary website consulting service tailored to finding efficiencies, identifying solutions and creating a roadmap for continual improvement.

Manufacturing Website Tips

By Jack Burnett

All businesses participating in a manufacturing value chain should have a manufacturing website to market their products and services.  The manufacturing website usually targets business to business communications and collaboration between suppliers, wholesalers, dealers and other enterprises in the supply chain.  A manufacturing website may also be a B2C eCommerce website, where the business is selling its products directory to consumers, in addition to other sales channels.

I discuss tips about eCommerce websites in other discussions. Here, I focus on the B2B manufacturing website.  As a manufacturing eBusiness consultant I start with the business goals and objectives of the company. A website can be a valuable asset to manufacturers, but the organization has to define the goals and measure success against those goals for an effective web presence.  At TwinEngines, we work with many manufacturers to achieve their web marketing goals, utilizing web analytics and CRM to measure and monitor activity.

With goals and objectives defined, here are some tips for a manufacturing website to be successful:

1. Know the people visiting your website.  For manufacturers, purchasing agents and engineers visit to find your products and quickly determine how your specifications and figures compare to their needs.  If they have a rewarding experience on your website and find their information quickly, then chances are you will achieve your web presence goals.
2. Straight-forward design without flash that makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for.  Straight-forward does not mean cheap looking, it means a proefessional look with consistent content elements and navigation across each page of the website.  Your visitor does not need a flash advertisement or fancy graphics.
3. Prominently display a call-to-action on the home page and key landing pages in the website.  The call-to-action may be to complete a request for quote/information form; to enter their contact information and receive your newsletter, catalog or whitepaper; or to simply call your phone number to talk to a sales engineer.
4. Optimize each page for search engines.  Studies show that over two-thirds of companies trying to find new products and services use a search engine, most likely Google.  Use your industry words and terminology for people to read on the web page, plus for the search engines to find in the meta information.
5. Display your product catalog and list of services.  Remember your audience, and show the key facts, images and videos that will lead them to engage with your company. A web content management system is ideal to keep product information up to date.

These are just five tips for the manufacturing or industrial business working with dealers, wholesalers and other manufacturers in the supply chain.  I welcome the opportunity to discuss more tips and your website here, through our Contact Us email or by phone at 404-522-4262.