Leveling the Internet Playing Field

Industrial S for SEO

Duped by all the media hype saying that the internet levels your playing field?

Do you recall when it was widely published that the internet levels the playing field for small businesses? Media raved about how small business could not only one up their direct competition but also compete against big companies, which sparked a lot of small businesses to get on the website bandwagon. If you were one of these businesses but have yet to see the promised positive results, you might be feeling duped by all the media hype.

Well, the good news is that it wasn’t just media hype – they were right. However, the bad news is they forgot to tell you that there’s a process that must be followed to gain internet success. Just like developing new products or implementing new processes, if steps are missing, the results are poor performance or outright failure.

So what was the process I should have followed?

Outpacing your competition on the internet is a complicated process, but when broken down into manageable steps, the result is a website that meets company goals and expectations. The three critical steps: goal setting, navigation, messaging, and content, and monthly data monitoring are detailed below. But don’t despair if you didn’t implement these steps when first launching the site; it’s never too late to start.

Step 1: Goal Setting

Asking the simple question, “what do we want our website to do for us (the goal)?” The answer to this question helps drive navigation, content and call-to-action decisions.

Here are some goals that might apply to your business:

  • Grow my business by $900k within 6 months.
  • Establish creditability as one of the best sources for the unique value we offer.
  • Offer our market a one-stop source for equipment and repairs.
  • Acquire viable leads and avoid requests for products/services that don’t fit our business model.
  • Discover new markets for current products.
  • Provide easy to find technical data for my current customers.

Once goals are defined, you can move on to step two.

Step Two: Navigation, Content, and Messaging

Once you have your goals clearly defined, take a critical look at your site and ask, “how well does the site’s navigation, content and messaging help us meet our goals?” If you answered that it doesn’t meet 100% of your goals, then it’s time to get to work and decide what is lacking or missing and then assemble a web team to fix the problem. Depending on your needs, typical web team roles can include:

  • Someone who understands marketing; specifically messaging, brand building, and website optimization.
  • A content expert; someone with a strong understanding of your products and services to help develop a strong story and on-point messaging.
  • A graphics designer to elevate the look and feel of your site.
  • A programmer to implement necessary code that supports website parameters for appearance, functionality and marketing tactics.
  • Sales and service personnel that have direct customer interaction and know what customers expect.

In a small company, this team is often comprised of one or two internal people. Almost always, outside resources are required to fill any lacking skill sets. Your internal team should interview outside resources to confirm qualifications and fit with the team.

With your team in place, it’s time to create a clear project plan outlines activities needed to ensure the site meets its goals, and timelines and assigned resources to execute the activities. A project plan helps the team stay focused, so the project is completed on time and within budget.

Once the project is complete, now it’s time to protect your investment.

Step Three: Data Monitoring

With the goals set in step one, and the activities complete in step two, metrics can now be established that help you know if the site is meeting its goals, and defining the tools needed to track the metrics.

Monthly data monitoring is a must to stay focused on the results. Monitoring also helps to track trends and tackle any site issues proactively.

Examples of essential measurements are:

  • Customer search behavior – how do they find the site.
  • What do visitors do on site and how much time do they spend.
  • Your site’s keyword rankings.
  • Competitor rankings for your relevant and prioritized keywords and phrases.
  • Traffic trends and volume from your market’s region
  • Mentions in published articles.

The internet offers a level playing field, but the devil is in the details. Now you have a better grasp of to achieve website success.

As always, if you need help navigating search optimization best practices or redesigning your website so it meets its goal, give us a call, 1-360-834-2780.

Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes

Industrial Factory

Pump Marketing Solutions LLC (PMSLLC) is excited to announce a new strategic partnership with Energy Efficiency in Industrial Processes (EEIP). EEIP is a European organization whose sole purpose is to provide a platform for small to mid-sized companies and energy policy makers to share and distribute energy efficiency and sustainable manufacturing information. EEIP’s goal is to help improve the functioning of firms that differentiate themselves via energy efficient products/services.

Information Sharing & Internet Marketing — the Perfect Partnership

There is a huge demand to cut energy operating costs and power consumption resources. Many companies offer ways to optimize energy consumption for their products. Smaller firms with innovative products struggle to get noticed. Now North American small to mid-sized companies who provide energy solutions will benefit from the synergy of this strategic relationship. Both companies understand the challenges of small businesses and know what it takes to implement cost-effective technologies aligning customers with products/services that feature efficiency benefits.

 

“Partnering with PMSLLC not only enables us to expand our industry network to North America, but we are now able to offer our customers’ access to Internet marketing technologies tailored specifically to the pump industry, which is one of the largest industrial consumers of energy. PMSLLC is focused on providing Internet Marketing Solutions to small and mid-sized industrial pump, motor and compressor firms. This means they can help our customers perfect their websites to effectively market their products and services,” stated Juergen Ritzek, Business Director at EEIP.

Juergen Ritzek
Keith Gagnier

PMSLLC’s President, Keith Gagnier, expresses the same partnership enthusiasm. “Pumps account for more than 10% of the world’s electricity consumption. Partnering with EEIP offers our markets an endless resource of information on efficiency improvements. Our joint effort is twofold; one, to share information and two, to extend client marketing reach for products/services that add value to the world by using less power”.

Learn More Today

Join the EEIP network at or contact PMSLLC to learn how this partnership will help your business.

About EEIP: EEIP uses communications, engagement, and best practices exchange to enable industry and policy to achieve higher energy efficiency and sustainable manufacturing while at the same time, enhancing industry competitiveness. In other words, they are improving the functioning of energy efficiency markets. The key to EEIPs success is their neutrality and innovative Go-Where-People-Are approach. As a decentralized platform, everybody can connect to EEIP wherever and however they want, from websites to social media, from newsletter to magazines, and from conferences to webinars. Currently, EEIP has surpassed 125, 000 network members.

About PMSLLC: Pump Marketing Solutions is an Internet marketing solutions provider dedicated to improving the findability and usability of industrial manufacturers and distributor websites to help them grow their businesses. PMSLLC uses data-driven processes that adhere to industry best practices, which allows them to provide marketing solutions that address each company’s specific goals. PMSLLC’s key to success is simple; they take their combined 35+ years of industrial sales and marketing knowledge and experience to develop in-depth marketing plans and tactics tailored specifically to industrial markets. Take the first step in improving your site and marketing campaigns – give PMSLLC a call today, 360.834.2780.