The 6 most critical things you need for an effective manufacturing website can be determined by looking at what performs. In other words, what is needed to get the sales, leads, or other conversion needed?
1. Search Engine Visibility or Source of Traffic
The first and most important element is having a source of website visitors. Most people start with Search Engine Visibility. The whole SEO (Search Engine Optimization) movement is tied to getting people to search and find your website. Here are some sources of traffic:
- Search engine visibility
- Pay per click advertising
- Links pointing to your website (inbound links)
- OFFLINE advertising such as business cards, signs, gifts, and other items that have your website prominently displayed.
2. User Experience
If the user is not happy, they won’t stay. They want information relevant to their needs and they want to find it quickly and easily.
3. Good Content
I know of several companies that spend large amounts of money on pay per click advertising and have essentially no text and few pictures on their website. A better use of their money would be to just mail their contact information by business card. Good writing and valuable information is what makes the internet work.
4. Good Navigation
Ever heard of “mystery meat navigation”? It is when there are pretty graphics without text. You have to hover your mouse over each graphic to find out what it is. Horrible! Another bad one to avoid is using vague or non-standard wording for navigation.
5. Easy Interactions
When a visitor decides to make the next step toward buying or initiating a relationship with your company, you want to make it as easy as possible. This means getting rid of the obstacles. One big obstacle is using e-mail links that start up their e-mail program without any guidance on what to enter. Other obstacles include hidden contact information, overly long Contact Us forms, and when all fields are required on a form for submission.
6. Sales Techniques
Have you ever gone to a car lot to shop for cars and the salesman keeps handing you more and more information without interacting with you? No, probably not. When somebody visits your website, you should initiate calls to action that advance the sales process.
I have worked with some companies that have spent over $50K on their website and there is not a single call to action. For one company,I used one free recommendation that really made their manufacturing sales leads jump. I am going to share it with you: Add a call to action that says “Call us to get a Free Quote.” Yeah, that’s all it took. Amazing.
Here are some other Calls to Action to test out. Do You Have Any That Work Well? – leave a comment and tell us about it.
- Request a Free Quote (linked to short easy form)
- Sign-up for E-mail Updates (forms based on text that says “Why your information is safe”)
- Request a ‘no strings attached’ Brochure (forms based)
- Download Our Price List
- Download Our Free Product List
- Print This Free Coupon for 10% Off Your Next Purchase (make sure to have an expiration date)
I hope that you spend some time discovering which of these critical elements help your website the most.