Feed Your Web Site
What's the point of having a site if no one can find it? If you are a manufacturer with a site that promotes your business, this rule takes on greater meaning, because the right people—buyers, specifiers, the companies whose work you covet—must find your site in context.
No matter who you are, it's extraordinarily important to place bread crumbs as a trail to your Web site. What's the point of having a site if no one can find it? If you are a manufacturer with a site that promotes your business, this rule takes on greater meaning, because the right people—buyers, specifiers, the companies whose work you covet—must find your site in context.
Put another way, what difference does it make if your Web site gets 500 visits a week if none of them are interested in you as a supplier or partner?
The key is to get your site listed in areas on the Web that attract the folks you want to meet. To many, that means looking to the larger search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo!, MSN) for establishing premium channels to their sites through keyword ads. Certainly, those models attract a lot of researchers, but their broad appeal means the traffic attained through them is likely to be less focused on manufacturing.
To promote more manufacturing-minded people to your site, approach sites such as the following for a listing of your company's links: GlobalSpec (a search engine for engineers), associations (PMPA, NTMA, etc.), and/or sourcing solutions (MfgQuote, Job Shop Technology, First Index).
Also, don't neglect your site's intrinsic abilities to attract the folks you're looking for. The content and verbiage your site presents, sound coding practices (for example, METAs, titles) and relevant architecture (that is, having a "Micro-machining for Medical" section if you'd like to or do that work) are all required to maximize your online presence.
However your company's Web site is promoted, the goal is to attract quality rather than quantity.