ENGINEERING COMPANY WEBSITE DESIGN USING WORDPRESS
In December 2020 I helped create an engineering company website for George who was the owner of Pro Steel Engineering and Fabrication. We had been in the industry for many years & operated mainly via word of mouth together with his social media profiles. Although George felt the need to expand and reach new customers and create an online platform that he could build on and show off his work.
I was contracted to create a new website with basic SEO implementation, set up his Google My Business profile with basic optimisation & organise a range of online citations to get his online profile started. This marMy marketing execution delivered measurable results in a very short space of time and left them with a solid platform to build on.
WHAT WAS THE MARKETING BRIEF?
A fresh start with a new website.
George realised that he needed to be found online by more people if he wanted to grow and expand his business. He had social media profiles on Instagram and Facebook which was helping to generate word of mouth referrals but he wanted to to really branch out beyond that and find new clients. This is a pretty common scenario where a business owner will start their new venture and get super busy they spend so much time working in their business, they don’t have much time to work on it.
In some situations a business owner will resort to building a website using a free website builder but read my article about why site builders aren’t a good idea. In other situations a business might contract someone to build a cheap website, but that typically just acts like an online business card that nobody gets to see as it won’t have the right copywriting or SEO set up put in place.
WHAT WAS MY SCOPE OF WORK?
The available marketing budget for this project was fairly limited so I had to focus on the most important elements while creating a platform that could be added to and built on later. Some of the scope of work included setting up things like Google My Business to help with local SEO and of course putting in place data tracking so George could see how things were performing.
- Creation of a new website using WordPress together with Elementor Page Builder.
- Copywriting for the website using the wording provided by the business owner.
- Creating a catalogue of photos to turn them into images that could be used on the website.
- Editing, resizing and renaming each photo to help contribute towards SEO results.
- Basic competitor research to understand popular phrases and words being used for similar businesses.
- Set up a new profile on Google My Business.
- Create a shortcut link to George can generate reviews.
- Submit the completed website to Google Search Console to check for site indexing & any potential errors
- Source stock imagery to compliment the photos provided from the business to help bring the site to life.
- Conduct an audit 8 weeks after implementation to create a baseline for further website development during the year.
WHAT MARKETING RESULTS WERE ACHIEVED?
Very quickly the work was completed for this engineering company website design project returned some promising initial results.. The data from Google Search Console and Google My Business provided some early indications that the new website and online citation building was working well. The website that was created included a Home, About, Services, Contact & Gallery page which is a fairly standard set up. It would need ongoing content development to really dominate local search results & make inroads against competitors that have been established for many years.
LOCAL FIRST PAGE KEYWORD RANKING
For any local business the first goal is to be found in the suburbs you service. As demonstrated in the example above this has begun to happen even after a few weeks of implementation. Local search is helped by using Google My Business but also a combination of website set up, on page SEO optimisation and other techniques to make sure Google understands where the business is located.
7%+ average click rate from organic search
Even though the overall search volumes have been small, the click rate has been very high at nearly 10% of people clicking from links showing up in search. This is achieved by having strong meta descriptions set up but also the right content on the site to show up for relevant search terms that potential clients feel comfortable clicking on to find out more.
30+ ONLINE CITATIONS
Citation building is a technique that is used to help establish the brand's name, address and phone number across the internet on credible sites. This aids SEO efforts, especially for local search results. Google uses online citations as part of its scoring when it comes to website authority.
CLEAR, CONCISE PRESENTATION & NAVIGATION
Everything on the site was kept simple, clean and precise, much like an engineering project. The idea was to present the brand a little differently to competitors with a simple design that was especially easy to use on mobile phones.
a new website that was optimised for use on mobile devices
Google now ranks websites based on their mobile presentation and performance. This makes sense considering the majority of Australians use their mobile phone to find products and services. Although, many business owners have no idea if their site works well on mobile phone screens. Using the Elementor Page Builder I was able to ensure everything worked well, was responsive and performed well on the Google PageSpeed Insights Test with a 79/100 score.
a NEW GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILE
Using the content created from the website I set up and optimised a Google My Business profile which began to demonstrate results within the first few weeks for relevant search queries. All the photos were also optimised with keyword enhanced file names to help with search.
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE WEBSITE DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS?
There are lots of little details that go into designing a website that can make the difference to SEO results and converting visitors into enquiries / sales or leads. These elements have to work together to help generate traffic but once a person has arrived you have to have the right information to convince them to buy or enquire.
strong visuals that are relevant & credible
I used a mixture of stock photography & photos that were provided by the business owner to strike a balance between professional small business photography and actual examples of work that had been completed. Quite often this is a missed opportunity as many businesses either don't take great photos or don't take any at all. It is the only way people can really get an idea of who they might be buying from and the quality of what they offer, it can also be a great way to communicate your point of difference or unique selling propositions.
PRACTICAL CONTENT
Sometimes it is easy for business owners to get too caught up explaining what they do rather than showing people what it might mean for them. It is important to always put the potential consumer first and make it very obvious what you can create or the problem you can solve for them. Placing definitions about your service isn't that helpful sometimes. So for this engineering company website I wanted to make sure there were some relatable items showcased. This also helps with SEO performance as people will be looking for these types of products or services.
SEO OPTIMISED PAGES
A simple thing that many business owners don't realise is that you can (to some extent) take ownership over what Google displays in a search result. This is called the meta description where you can use it to entice people to click your link, a bit like a headline advertisement. Leaving this blank or not writing it to fit the space restrictions will lead to poor click through rates. Evidence of this is the 7%+ click through rate achieved so far.
WHAT AREAS REDUCED THE POTENTIAL RESULTS?
For every project there are always areas that can be improved on or that I recommend a business owner should undertake to maximise results. This engineering company website design had a focus on getting things started. So it is important to keep in perspective that a 6 x page website will have little chance of competing with other sites with hundreds of pages that have been around for many years.
REGULAR CONTENT CREATION
One of the first steps for this business owner would be to consider creating individual project pages for every finished job to showcase the before, during and after stages so that potential clients can see the quality of work produced. This can also create SEO opportunities to rank for certain key word phrases or topics.
CLIENT REVIEWS
Having reviews from previous clients is a very powerful way to build trust quickly. So if reviews are combined with more detailed information about previous projects this can help convert visitors into leads.
STAFF PHOTOS
George decided he didn't want to put himself on the website which is fine, there are many businesses that don't do this. Although for some businesses it can be beneficial so that potential clients can see the person they might be dealing with, but also to showcase credibility and professional history.
WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO ACHIEVE BETTER RESULTS?
Creating a website is just the first step to getting found online. From that point the depth and breadth of content has to be developed to turn it into a credible source of information to win keyword ranking positions.
MORE CONTENT
Engineering has millions of websites online covering various topics including things like University Courses. So it becomes critical to have good content depth so that Google understands exactly what your website is about, no matter what sector or industry you are in. For this business to be found by more people there has to be content streams set up that targets different areas or niches related to the areas it will specialise in.
Putting a heading and a paragraph of text about a service isn't enough for you to win keyword positions from competitors.
REVIEW GENERATION
Getting reviews onto a Google My Business profile can not only help convince potential clients to choose your brand but Google uses it as a ranking factor. So imagine 3 similar businesses but one has 100 reviews - obviously that level of positive re-enforcement means it is potentially a credible business, therefore it gets preference in search results.
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS POSTS
Since the site was built, this brand had completed various projects which were posted on social media. This is great to see but what is more important is getting those examples onto Google My Business posts, including relevant search keywords, so that it can contribute to organic search results. Think about it, when is the last time you looked for something on Google and got a Facebook post as a search result?
