Ideas, insights and inspirations.

Website projects are huge undertakings. What ultimately matters is not the effort you put into them but the return-on-investment you derive from it. Making a business case for investing in a comprehensive website redesign to bottom-line-driven, quant-minded manufacturers requires hard-nosed, disciplined thinking. Remember that what you invest in a new website design will determine the returns you can expect from it. Assuming you have baked all the best practices into a redesign project, you can and should expect solid returns. Here are five ROI metrics that we have used to justify the investment in a comprehensive website redesign: 1. Increase in Inquiries and RFQ’s: Website projects should always result in quantifiable increase in inquiries and RFQs. For clients who have been re-packaged as solutions providers, the thickness of their RFP’s should grow in size. All clients should expect to see an increase in PDF downloads and event signups. By elevating your brand during a website redesign, the increases should not just … Continue reading

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Today, more than any other touch point, a website is the digital soul of an organization. As one of Pittsburgh’s longest standing manufacturing website development agencies, Elliance has been delivering prosperity to regional and national industrial companies for the past 30 years. Our arsenal of website development best practices includes: 1. Start With a Smart Strategy and Plan Revenue Strategy, Communication Strategy and Search Engine Ranking Strategy are the three pillars of a smart manufacturing website development strategy. Bake each of them into every stage of website development. A good website development project begins with a thoughtful plan. Map out and outline all of these facets up-front: Ambitious goals and objectives – for inquiries, revenue, communications and search engine Target audiences – buyers, influencers, specifiers and talent of all ages you plan to recruit Requirements and needs – for users (stated and unstated), business, content administrators Content strategy – in service of delighting each target audience Specifications – for user … Continue reading

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As a leading social media agency for manufacturers and industrial companies, we are frequently asked to share our best practices. This is part of a series of posts to explain how social media audit can serve their interests. A social media audit involves a comprehensive review of a industrial company’s primary social media channels, profiles, activities, and performance. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of the current strategy and identify areas for improvement. After gaining access to a manufacturer’s social media management software or accounts, we conduct a twelve-point social media audit to assess the following: 1. Profile Information AuditWe assess all official social media profiles to ensure accurate and consistent information is presented, including logos and colors, profile pictures, cover photos, about information, and contact details. 2. Platform Presence AuditWe identify all social media platforms where the manufacturer has a presence. This includes major platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, etc. 3. Content AuditWe … Continue reading

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In the age of Google and AI, a manufacturing and industrial marketing strategy is incomplete without a blogging strategy. We will first share several good reasons why manufacturers must include blogging in their marketing mix. Why manufacturers should blog? While a blog does require some time and effort, it is well worthwhile for these five reasons: 1. Provides the fresh content that Google and Bing rewards with page one rankings. 2. Significantly cheaper than annually paying third parties for links. 3. Conveys subject matter expertise, which buyers reward. 4. Builds topic authority, which Google and Bing reward with higher rankings. 5. Expands website real estate which grows your brand impressions and reach in the age of Google, Bing and AI. Best practices in industrial blogging Next, we’ll share eleven best practices we’ve seen work for many industrial companies. 1. Goals: Could be a combination of communicating subject matter expertise, reputation building or humanizing your company. 2. Name: A good blog name … Continue reading

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A breed of automated website builder platforms have recently emerged in the market. At first glance, they are attractive because content marketers without any coding and programming knowledge can build a website quickly. However, the websites they generate are cookie-cutter, bloated, not SEO friendly, and not ADA compliant.  They may be okay for frugal small business and non-mission-critical websites, but they don’t stand a chance at becoming engines for liberating revenue for fast-growing small, medium and enterprise companies. Mission-critical websites need custom argument construction on key pages, lightening speed, SEO friendliness, and ADA compliance.  For mission-critical websites, Elliance has created Smart Page Builder to create custom websites that are easy to manage and operate by non-technical content marketers. Our Smart Page Builder: revolutionizes website development by providing an intuitive interface that allows content marketers with varying technical skills to create and customize web pages easily.  streamlines the website development process and reduces the need for coding knowledge. democratizes website creation and … Continue reading

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As one of the top website design and web development agencies for manufacturing, industrial companies come to us to design and develop their marketing and e-commerce websites. Here are responses to some of their frequently asked question (FAQs): What are the essential features for a successful manufacturing website? Here are some smart features worth providing for your smart engineering-minded buyers: Product catalog and services – as a quick reference to your offerings. Custom solutions – to facilitate higher-margin, complex sales. Project galleries – to showcase your solutions in action. Markets served – to reduce their risk of buying from you. Customer stories, testimonials and third-party validations – to reduce their risk of buying from you. Auto-complete site search – to give quickest path to your products and services. Faceted search – to show depth and breadth of product (and service) offerings. Configurators – to engage your buyers. Resource center – to provide convenient access to all your brochures and spec … Continue reading

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Today, more than any other marketing touch point, a website is the digital soul of an organization. All roads lead to it. As a leading website design and development agency for manufacturers, industrial companies frequently come to us to perform website audit so they can develop a plan to improve it. These are the ten dimensions of our website audit: 1. Brand AuditFirst and foremost, we ensure that your brand essence and brand values are infused into the entire website experience. We evaluate consistent application of brand identity, color and typography. 2. User Experience AuditUser experience is important to both human beings and search engine bots. Great websites are intuitive, easy to use, readable and engender trust. Their persistent navigation and prominent calls-to-action systems put the buyers in control. The Sitemap (org structure) and Wireframes (page schematics) – not just design and copy – create a logical content hierarchy and make a compelling argument. Balancing logic and emotion, stories and facts, they progressively … Continue reading

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Today, more than any other marketing touch point, a website is the digital soul of an organization. All roads lead to it. As a mission-critical asset, it must be kept current and fresh with an easy-to-use content management system (CMS). Which one should you pick? I hope this post help you answer the question. The CMS Ecosystem Generally speaking, the CMS exists in the following setting with the responsive website powered by the CMS, and various website users experiencing it on their favorite devices. The Desirable CMS Feature Set A robust CMS system must be: User Friendly – The CMS should be easy to use for both non-technical content administrators and web/technology teams. It should have spell-checkers, content preview, and content rollback features. Customizable – It should be flexible and customizable for standard tasks, but it should also have the ability to extend its capabilities with custom language support. Scalable –  The CMS should be able to handle large amounts of content and accommodate the … Continue reading

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Macro forces often drive micro actions. This certainly holds true for manufacturing website design trends for the coming year. Our agency sees three primary forces impacting the manufacturing environment: First, there has been a generational shift from Boomers to Gen-Xers, Millennials, and Gen-Zers. By 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be largely comprised of Millennials and Gen-Zers. Not only are they digitally savvy, they care deeply about climate change, sustainability, and corporate values. Second, in-sourcing and bringing manufacturing back to the US is in full swing.  In 2021 and 2022, we saw the passing of three key pieces of legislation: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Domestic manufacturing is hot again. Third, the era of Industry 4.0 powered by smart factories fitted with AI, robotics, 5G, IoT, data analytics, and cloud computing is here. These forces are re-shaping the entire manufacturing sector. … Continue reading

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Manufacturing and industrial buyers invest in the inseparable twin SEO and content strategies to secure Google/Bing rankings for three reasons. First, research shows that when suppliers “get found” via organic Google page one results, prospects trust them more. Google page one organic results command over 90% of click share, and generate close to two-thirds of leads. Organic inquiries tend to form long-term relationships with the manufacturers and they tend to melt away at a reduced rate.  Second, leads generated from Google organic rankings outperform paid advertising leads by three-folds. Third, the best prospects prefer to “discover” the suppliers of their choice through “accidental finds” on Google page one and word-of-mouth on social media. Fresh content is the lifeblood of Google/Bing rankings algorithms. Content can take many shapes: blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, white papers, case studies, news, interactive pieces, new pages and more. Recall that Google/Bing bots build a knowledge graph of your site content. Bots are doing the same … Continue reading

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