As a manufacturer of engineered products or a provider of technical services, your website plays a critical role in attracting prospects and converting them to customers. Engineers and Industrial Engineering Process Improvement industrial buyers expect suppliers to have an extensive online presence with a website that provides relevant content in different formats. And the site content must be searchable.
Every aspect of your website must match the needs of the prospect’s buying process. Is your current site ready for this challenge or do you need a website redesign? How do you engage engineers and technical buyers on your website in order to build stronger relationships and gain higher conversion rates?
Here are the five rules of engagement:
Rule #1: Search engine optimization (SEO)
In the research phase of the industrial buying cycle, engineers and industrial buyers tend to use broad keywords and phrases that describe their current problem. Unless your website shows up in the initial phases, you are probably not going to be considered in the next step, which is the comparison stage.
It shouldn’t be an afterthought because retrofitting SEO after the redesign is typically not very effective and usually costs more.
Is SEO a DiY (do-it-yourself) job? It takes extensive knowledge, expertise, experience and a lot of detailed work in order for your website to be ranked high for specific keywords and phrases in Google and other major search engines. And yes, it does cost money.
To complicate matters even more, it is a moving target since search engines are constantly changing their algorithms and most of it is not public knowledge.
Rule #2: Content comes before redesigning your website
Avoid the site redesign cycle of frustration by first developing a clear game plan for creating or repurposing existing content for the new site. The key here is to serve up relevant content that matches the prospect’s state or stage on the decision making process.
One-size-fits-all site content will not help you engage. Build a library of various content assets. Video testimonials are far more credible and impactful than plain text. The same holds true for video white papers.
Your site visitors are typically coming from general search engines and/or industry verticals. Try to reinforce or continue the same experience by helping engineers search your content by part number, specifications and keywords.
The more detailed and specific information you can provide with the least number of search queries or clicks, the better will be the user experience. This will lead to your visitors bookmarking your site for future reference and becoming a valuable resource.
Rule #3: Create interaction and shareability
Nothing happens until your site visitor takes some sort of action. Passive reading of your content will not move the prospect any closer to his/her decision to buy from you. To improve engagement, build interaction into your site.
Add a slideshow of screen shots for those visitors who prefer a more visual experience. Even the simple action of clicking on “Next” to move from one slide to …
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CAD Sustainable Design Fundamentals For Engineers, Architects And Manufacturing Professionals
New regulations and greater environmental awareness are advancing the need for green initiatives and sustainable design. More and more government and private contracts require sustainable solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy What Is Tertiary Industry efficiency, and reduce environmental impact. New legislation and existing agencies, such as the LEED certification program, are being used as benchmarks for what defines sustainable design for industrial products and building projects.
For professionals today, digital design is an integral part of incorporating green techniques into existing projects. Engineers, architects, and manufacturing professionals can all benefit from digital design and the utility of CAD drawings. Whether a recent graduate or an experienced engineer, digital design helps promote the fundamentals of sustainable solutions.
Defining The Impact Of Sustainable Design
Every improvement in production, from industrial products to entire buildings, requires a metric to quantify the benefits of innovation. Many agencies and legislators are turning towards carbon footprint as an accessible metric for evaluating green proposals. Carbon footprint is defined as the total greenhouse gases emitted as a result of the manufacture of industrial products, constructing and maintaining structures, or any other industrial activity.
Carbon footprint takes into account all uses of energy and materials for a given process and equates that into an amount of emitted greenhouse gases. Every stage of design and manufacturing is taken into account. For example, the energy and cost required to harvest natural resources, process them into building materials, and transport them to a construction site are all components of a carbon footprint. Operational costs are also included, such as electricity or fuel spent for operating equipment, heating or cooling a building, along with water and sewage needs. In this way, every improvement to a project can be quantified, as materials and energy are conserved.
Understanding carbon footprint gives professionals a focal point for their designs. Integrating these points with digital design and CAD drawings is the most effective way to satisfy sustainable initiatives.
CAD Drawings And Digital Design
Software and digital resources are perfectly tailored for integrating new manufacturing and building techniques with environmental concerns. CAD drawings provide a virtual environment for experimentation and analysis while creating a foundation for eventual fabrication and construction. Sustainability centers on the key concepts of material optimization, material selection, and energy efficiency.
Material optimization is a technique for reducing material needs in industrial products and architectural projects. For example, injection molding simulations can be performed to optimize mold parts in order Technology Industry History to reduce the total amount of material needed without compromising function. Industrial products that can be made with less material have a huge impact on carbon footprint, saving both materials and energy.
The choice of materials to use is also an important element when considering green initiatives. CAD drawings allow for comprehensive simulations in a virtual environment to choose alternate materials that still meet specifications. In this way, less energy intensive or locally available materials can be used for environmentally conscious production.
There are a number of modules …