How does one differentiate their job shop from others on the web? Well lets first start with admitting your first goal is to be recognized by Google. Google is the largest search engine by far with over 92% of all searches online happening on Google.
Unlike many other companies with websites, machine shops are not selling tangible products, they are selling a service so you cannot increase your rankings through ecommerce hits. For example, McMaster Carr has tremendous traffic on their site because 1) they sell thousands of items, all manufacturing related in one place and 2) everything listed has a detailed description that takes you right to the item you want to buy. A machine shop must define their services and differentiate them from every other machine shop in order to be found before the thousands of similar machine shops out there.
Google’s goal is to help the users find what they are looking for quickly, so you as a business owner need to help them understand what it is that differentiates your company from other machine shops. Bringing users to your site is only part of it. Google judges how long people stay on your site, and how many pages they navigate through, so you need to keep the user interested enough to read your content. It is all about good content. Google has web crawlers that are looking for keywords, phrases, tagged photos and in addition to rating you on how many hits you get and how long a person stays on your site, they are judging your content to make sure you match up with the person’s search criteria. What’s most important to the search engine is the quality of information and the relevance to the user. Quantity only matters if each bit of information helps the user answer a question or complete an objective.
As an aluminum supplier, we sell to many 10-man machine shops. Most of them don’t have the marketing budget to have an elaborate website created, but they are missing the boat if they don’t recognize what a powerful sales tool a website can be. I decided to write this blog for two reasons. 1) It took me years to understand what is important on a website, and if I can help my customers grow, we will all grow. 2) I love manufacturing and want to see it thrive in the U.S. I believe a country needs to make things to compete on a global basis and here in the U.S. the job shop is part of our manufacturing supply chain.
So here is my list of key components you should have on your website and by the way you should not give this list to your teenage kids and tell them to make it right. Nobody knows your business like you do as an owner. When writing blogs, write them with the love of your business in mind.
- You need a page dedicated to your equipment list. Not an attached downloadable file and not a picture of your list from a brochure you hand out. It needs to be written into the web page. Include make, model, and year of the machine as well as any upgrades like live tooling or robotics that are not standard to that model. This is important because if an OEM is making a part in house, and is looking to offload some work, they will search on those machine specifications trying to find equipment that matches what they are currently running their parts on. It’s also important to make sure this equipment list is unique to you. Do not simply copy and paste from a competitor’s site. This is called duplicate content and will trigger search engines to not want to rank your page.
- Have a frequently asked questions page and answer them in detail. It is important that potential customers see your manufacturing processes, business ethics, quality commitment match up with theirs. The buyers we deal with are getting younger and not as apt to pick up the phone. Instead, they feel they can find everything they need on a website. Make it easy to find everything they need on your site so you are not discounted too quickly. Many OEMS require ISO and other quality certifications so make sure that is clearly on your home page and easy to find. FAQs also are hugely valuable to search engines because of the ever-growing population who use voice search. Want to have Siri, Alexa or Google mention your site? FAQs is a great place to start.
- Write Blogs on your website that not only educates your customers but makes them look to you as a resource of information. Weirdly, less promotion equals a better chance to rank in Google. You want your blogs to give away valuable information for free. Then, because the user will have liked what they read, that visitor should navigate the rest of your site and if you are a resource they need, they are much more likely to contact you now that you opened as a resourceful company versus overly salesy.
- Lastly social media is all the hype these days, but currently is does not make that much of a difference in the eyes of google if you have a Facebook page or Twitter account. The fact is people of our breed in manufacturing are going to go to the web to find a machining partner. Certainly, posting your blogs on LinkedIn manufacturing groups may bring new eyes to your site and company, but it is far more important that your website tells your story.
Traffic is good, but ultimately, we want the customer to call us and make a connection. Think of your website as the salesman that never sleeps or a cold call waiting to happen. You just never know where your next big customer is going to come from. Hoping mine comes from here.
