For the cost of a magazine subscription your company can have a presence on the web. Yet that’s not enough. You can’t be just listed as another vendor, or only as a directory listing on a free website. The Internet provides a robust platform to garner an audience, declare what makes your company unique and bring new business leads right to your inbox. That’s a real return on investment. Here are three tips on what NOT to do with your website:
Don’t make me come looking for you.
List yourself with a paid indexing site or two that makes sense. The National Association of Manufacturers [http://www.nam.org] is a good example. Place backlinks to these sites on your site. That’s where you put their webpage URL on yours as a link to theirs. What if you joined the Chamber of Commerce for a city where you do a lot of business? You could provide a back link to them, and you might get listed in their directory.
Provide a clear method of contacting you for each type of inquiry. If I want to buy your product, let me contact sales. If I want to sell you raw materials, let me contact procurement. If I am looking for a job, let me at least send an email to saying I’m looking. You never know who might find their way to your website.
Don’t hide your product from me.
Show me your product and sell me on it. It’s easy enough to shoot a quick two-minute video of the highlights of your product and upload to YouTube.com. Then you can embed that video on your website.
Let me download a product catalog or product cut sheet. Where appropriate, tell me about customization, short lots, or other variations on the standard order.
Why can’t I buy it tonight?
Websites operate 24 hours a day, and some night owls do their best procurement searching the web in the wee hours. Do you have a shopping cart for your product? Or is there some way I can place an order if I really urgently need to? If Company Z’s key machine is down, and they need to get a part in fast to repair it, wouldn’t it be great to be able to order it online at 2:30 a.m. and have it ship out that morning when your plant opens up? You would look like a hero.
