With social distancing in effect and travel cut down, more and more people are turning online to find what they need. That includes manufacturing customers. If you have a website, you may not have had many visitors to it before, but that has likely changed. Your shop’s website can be a way to convince people to contact your shop. It’s available 24/7 and it can answer any preliminary questions to convince them your shop is worth talking to or sending an RFQ to. However, you have to have a good website if it’s going to convince people to contact you. Below are the top five components of a strong job shop website.
Logo
People identify pictures more quickly than they do words. That’s why pictures are such an important part of the internet and why having a great logo for your shop’s website is important. You don’t necessarily have to get a new logo created for your shop. All you need is a good, clear image of your shop’s logo. If your logo looks pixelated or blurry, it makes your shop look bad. Fairly or not, people will judge your shop based on the logo. Once you have a clear image of your logo, put it on every page of your website in the header. That way, website visitors will never forget which site they’re on and they’ll remember your shop better.
Contact Us Page
The contact us page is critical for potential customers to be able to talk to you. If you have a page dedicated to your shop’s information, then potential customers won’t have to search your website for it. On the contact us page, it’s helpful to have a few different methods of contact. Most websites have an address, phone number, and a general email address, like [email protected] That way, potential customers can choose how they’d like to communicate, which makes them more likely to reach out.
Having a contact us page also helps Google better understand your website, which helps it show up higher in search results. For example, if someone is searching for a job shop in Cincinnati, OH and Google knows that your job shop is in Cincinnati, OH; your website is more likely to show up in the search results and maybe rank high enough that a searcher clicks on it.
About Us Page
An about us page is the place for your shop to tell its story and to brag about what you can do. This is a great place for a picture of when your shop first opened, or a timeline of major events in your shop’s history. You can also list any certifications you’ve earned or awards you’ve won on this page. If you have any quotes from customers about how great your shop is, this could be a good place for one or a few of those as well. Make sure to mention what sets you apart from other local shops. Maybe none of them do the kind of work that you do, or you get your work sent out on-time more often than others. You might not want to put other shops down, but talk about what makes your shop stand out.
Shop Information
While some people choose to list information about their shop on the about us page, others choose to have a separate page for it. If you have quite a bit to say, then you may want to consider a separate page for your shop’s information. This information could include things like what work you do, the machines you have, dimensions or tolerances, job volume, and industries served. This page is for you to list some of the technical specifications that your shop has for customer work. Listing this information on your website helps people decide if your shop can do their job, and it helps Google decide how high to rank your website in search results.
Layout
You want to make it as easy as possible for customers to find the information they need on your website, and you want them to enjoy doing it. If your website is 30 years old, customers will notice, and they might not think your shop keeps up with the times. Now may be the time to update it. If website visitors have trouble using your website, or if it looks out of date, they’ll leave and find a different job shop’s website. Are people leaving shortly after getting on your website? Google will notice and put your website lower in search results, which makes it harder for people to find.
All of the points above will not only help people like your website more, but Google will also like it more as well. There are a lot of strategies and theories about how to make your job shop website rank well on Google, but the overarching theme is that if people like to visit your website and they can find what they need, then Google will rank it higher and show it to more people. Your shop’s website is a piece of digital real estate that you control. Make sure that people want to visit, and you’ll be more likely to get more customers from it.
