Web Design for Manufacturers: First Impressions that Make Cents

Damon Pistulka 00:02
All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means. It’s time for stop being the best kept secret. I am excited today. I’m one of your co hosts, Damon pistolka, that pretty gentleman right over there is Curt Anderson, and we are going to be talking about web design for manufacturers and making that first impression, or no first impressions that make sense. I can’t even talk. I’m so excited today rehearse this title that just That’s every

Curt Anderson 00:33
day, dude, that like you’re just so excited every day. Can’t you just feel the enthusiasm, passion just coming right through the screen,

Damon Pistulka 00:39
right ready to go. That’s, I’m just telling you, I’m ready. You’re

Curt Anderson 00:44
great, right? Alright, so hey, let’s start with, how about this amazing, incredible woman right here? So, Paola, happy Friday. How

Paola Santana 00:52
are you good? Thanks. Excited to be here. Awesome.

Curt Anderson 00:54
Great to have you here. And how about I always get like, how that that handsome devil downwards? Yeah. Like Jason, during the house, Jason, happy Friday. How are you happy Friday? Everyone? How’s that? How’s everybody? Family’s good. Everybody’s good. Every good week. Everybody’s doing good. Like, we’re in the spring, all that stuff right, waiting for Okay, so let’s we’ve got a ton of cover, and we’re going to keep this one. You know, it’s Friday. People have things to do. They’re busy. We’re going to fast and furious. We’re going to talk about making great first impressions with your website, in particular, website design for manufacturers. Now, Jason, you’ve been doing this for a long time. On occasion we come across manufacturer like they are just phenomenal. They’re awesome. They’ve been around for 50 years, 100 years. Unfortunately, just their website is not the absolute top priority, and so just was. The world has been changing. They’re trying to become more competitive. Now the website’s becoming more of a top priority. What are one of the first things that you’d like to do when you’re working with a client, like, what’s kind of like, 101, where do you start to create that great first webpression with their website. What are your thoughts?

Jason Deering 02:03
Yeah, very first thing that we talk about is who they’re targeting, their niche that they’re so their main buyer personas, that they’re going after. We need to really understand that and get a good feel of what their business is and how they’re serving their customers. We want to, we want to make sure we’re speaking the correct languages that their customers speak, saying the correct things that are going to allow the customer to understand that this company has those solutions to solve their issues. So right off the bat, we need to understand the company and who they’re selling to. That’s a number one. And then everything kind of spills out of their, their, you know, their content, their their their design of their website, the interior pages, that all comes from those first discussions about who they’re selling to and who they are, or who they are as a business.

Damon Pistulka 03:01
Right? Free time, Damon, are you on mute? Sorry, sorry, yeah. Like

Curt Anderson 03:04
he was, like, even threw himself on mute, just

Damon Pistulka 03:07
so excited. I didn’t want but I think you know the good thing, the thing about manufacturers, right, and seeing going through a few of the websites and being in those companies before, is we’re so excited to talk about this brand new, million dollar piece of equipment that we put on the floor that makes things so super slick, fast, whatever, and really understanding your customers and what your customers really care about is kind of left in the dust. Sometimes, when you look at these, these websites for custom manufacturers specifically, and it’s, just a something that I know you’ve helped, you’ve helped us point out and see with Curt and Paola and the team and and it’s just a good thing when you realize that. So

Curt Anderson 03:51
all right, so let’s dive into clarity a little bit. So Paola, you do an amazing job. I know you’re very modest, very humble. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna break that trend a little bit. So you do a phenomenal job helping out with, like creating mock ups. And, you know, we have a slow line, like, when you try to be everything to everyone, you become nothing to no one. So I think you do a great job of, kind of like pushing back and kind of like keeping that focus, any thoughts like that clarity with messaging, any thoughts when, like, you’re creating your mock ups, what do you have there?

Paola Santana 04:19
Yeah, like I so one of the things that stands out to me the most is you kind of have to come from the customer’s viewpoint. And so kind of what Jason building off what Jason was saying earlier. You know, we ask them who their target audience is. That’s a good starting point, but then we have to come at it also from a customer’s point of view. So asking certain questions, understanding who the audience is, but not only understanding the audience who they are, but what questions they’re asking. Why are they coming to this website? What to learn? And so one of the first things I’m always looking for, or kind of give my two cents in when the mock ups come to me, or I factor creative, is what information am I seeing first? What information should be first? And and that kind of. Of them ties in with two adjacent is not only knowing the audience, but then the next question is, what are the processes behind the scenes? When you they talk to a salesperson, when they talk to the owner, when they talk to whomever they’re talking to at the company, you gotta have to take it out from the customer’s perspective and dive into, how are they processing the information when they first are coming on to, like, kind of get into their mindset, and then how we’re presenting that information to them. So always keep that in mind, like, it’s great from the from the company’s viewpoint, but ultimately, we’re serving the customer. We’re answering their questions and their objections. And so we always have to take a step back and be like, Okay, now how am I viewing this website if I was a customer and I need to get in here and learn about the company or ask questions about the product or service I’m looking to get from this company?

Curt Anderson 05:50
Yeah, I love that. So Damon, what do you have? Well, I’ve

Damon Pistulka 05:53
got a question for you. Curt, and this is because Paola got me thinking about it. Great information, Paola, because this is one of the things as you’re working with people Curt, how much does the customer journey play into this whole thing? And really, as tie into what Paola, Paola said about, you know, the right content, the right place, and going through that,

Curt Anderson 06:15
well, it’s all about the buyer’s journey, right? And so the thing is, you know, in kind of like packaging it all together. And Jason, I’m going to come to you because next we’re going to dive kind of talk like that first, like that hero section. I want to dive into that. But let’s go here. Damon, when our dear friend Allison Deford taught us a really wonderful, amazing, hysterical little line, right dude, Damon, what is, if I say the we we syndrome, what is the we we syndrome?

Damon Pistulka 06:45
The we we syndrome is when you’re looking at your website and it says, we do this. We have great quality, we have awesome people, we have awesome equipment. We deliver on time. It’s just there’s so much wheeze that the customers really don’t care about that,

Curt Anderson 07:00
right? Right? And I think Jason, if you go to, like, the Wayback Machine, and you go, like, when, when Jason built my, my website about B2Btail, when we, when COVID hit, if I have, like, we, and it’s like, it’s like, not like, it’s like, nails on a chalkboard, for those of us old enough to remember a chalkboard, right? So, yeah, you know. So I think the big thing Damon to that point is we want to make it all about that, right? What do they what do we as human beings? What do we think about all day, every day, unfortunately, ourselves, right? Like, what problem do I have? So as a manufacturer, you’re targeting that engineer. You’re targeting somebody in procurement, somebody in purchasing. And like, how do we? Like, hey, you and purchasing you in engineering. I got you. I understand your problems. So Jason, let’s talk about the hero image. You’ve you’ve done no 180 some websites that you’ve built in your career. You’ve really studied, you know, in in detail, like, you know, the structure of a website. Talk. Let’s talk about the top portion, like the hero section, why is that’s so important to catch them right there. What are your thoughts? Yeah,

Jason Deering 08:05
I I’m just to start this conversation. I’d like to just start with, you know, a lot of a lot of web developers, a lot of people that are looking for websites are are looking for a website that just looks fantastic, has all kinds of bells and whistles and all that kind of thing, though, that does draw attention to people, but it doesn’t tell them what you do and what they what, how you’re going to help them, right? And sometimes it pushes them away if they can’t figure that out right away. So right off the bat, they have to understand the content is the most important thing on the page, right? So the content has to make them understand that you are the solution for their issues. So and when we start in that hero section, that first top section, underneath the navigation, your logo and all that beautiful stuff, the next main section that people see, and it’s usually the first thing, if it’s done well, it’s the first thing that catches our eye as that page loads, is what is normally called the hero section, and that usually has a strong graphic, whether it’s a background graphic or a graphic maybe to the side, that shows what you’re doing for them, right? It kind of shows the industry, or it matches, right, the content that you’re putting there the headline needs to be a strong, engaging headline has to hook them. It has to tell them between the headline and the sub headline and or the complimentary text in that hero section. That has to explain exactly what you’re what problems you’re solving, right, who you’re solving that problem for and briefly tell how you are accomplishing that and that all needs to be done in that hero section in just a couple sentences. It’s can be difficult, but it is probably the most important thing you have on your website, because if you don’t nail that, they’re not going further below the hero image, and they’re not going into an internal page. At all. They’re coming there. If you just say, Hey, welcome to our website. In that hero section, they’re going to say, well, it was nice visit. I’m gone. They’re not going to, you know, they’re they don’t have time to look through everything. The chances of them that come going down the page is going to be a lot less, because when they hit that page, they don’t know who you’re talking to, what what you’re doing with your company or website, and they immediately will feel, start feeling lost and afraid that they’re in the wrong place, and they will bounce and they’ll go back to the next search result in Google,

Paola Santana 10:32
right? Yeah. So generally, it’s like the answering the biggest pain that your client has or your customer has, you’re answering it in that quick that little banner, or big banner, or, you know, animation, whatever you decide to use. But basically, you’re, you’re answering the biggest objection, the biggest pain, and broadcasting that you have, the solution for that biggest problem they’re having, and everything else is just supporting that, that, you know, saying phrase or question.

Curt Anderson 11:01
Awesome. Well, Damon, what do you have? Because I’m, we’re gonna put power on the spot here. What

Damon Pistulka 11:07
do you have? No, I think that’s, that’s the real thing that people have to know now is like we we look at our websites, and we’re going to look through them, right? We’re going to read through them, but you just think about yourself, take yourself, think about you looking at other websites, and if that website doesn’t grab you right away, you’re gone right your your potential customers, your existing customers, they’re doing the same thing when they hit your website. If that thing is not grabbing their attention, for them to want to read down the page, learn more about what’s next, click on that call to action. It’s got to grab em and hook their attention to do it otherwise, just like all of us listening, all of us on this, we go to the next one, as Jason said, and

Curt Anderson 11:49
it’s important, like, practice what you preach, right? Because, like, you know, you can go to, you know, we could go to B2Btail, or you could go to whatever, you know, website, like, you know, it’s, you’re always going to find something, you know, yeah. Another tip I’d like to encourage folks to do is, like, sometimes you get so close to your website, you know, have somebody take a look at it. Have a friend, a family, your dog, have, I don’t know, have somebody Jason when we had the ecommerce business back in, you know, 20 years ago, like, you know, like, if a spouse, or, like, some of these kids came into our office, I’d be like, Hey, come here a second. And like, you know, we’d like, sit them down and be like, hey, what do you think of that page right there? Hey, like, try to buy something. Like, what do you know? Like, we would stand over their shoulder, right remember that Jason? Absolutely. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 11:50
But it’s the thing. Like, there’s some, there’s some technical tools that we used to use in the eCommerce business too, like hot jars, one of them show where people click. And it’s amazing how you’ll spend all this time to design a page. You think people are going to instinctively know where they need to click, and you’re going to find that they’re clicking the stuff that you go why? And hundreds of people are doing it, yeah? So, yeah, just

Paola Santana 12:51
don’t tell my mom, because my mom will tell me. Everything is great. Yeah?

Curt Anderson 12:56
Damon, our moms do the same thing. Yeah, they you know, hey, that’s, that’s what good moms do. So I let’s I know we’re going to keep this session a little bit on the short side, but again, thank you for joining us. If you’re here, drop a note. Let us know where you’re coming from. Connect with Jason Deering on LinkedIn. Connect with dear friend Paola. Hey, while you’re at it, connect with Damon and myself. We’d love to hear what you guys have going on, but drop any questions. We’re here talking about website website design strategies in particular for manufacturers, how to make that great first impression. We like to call it Jason webpressions, right? Those great

Jason Deering 13:29
questions got him sleeping. So

Curt Anderson 13:31
I Paul, I’m going to put you on the spot. Do you mind if I pull up one of your beautiful pieces? Let’s see it, and I and Damon, you’re going to love it, Jason, you’re going to every reason I love it. So I just spoke with this client. All right, look. I’ll give you the good news after let’s take a look. You guys gonna be thrilled. So this, this is a mock up, okay? And can you guys see my screen? Yeah, you sure can. Okay, so let’s go here. Paola, what I absolutely love? I’m gonna move some things around here, and I’m gonna start with I want to point out something I would love for you to kind of share what’s going on here. Now you take a look at what Paola did. So she created this mock up for a client. They are a ground strap manufacturer, manufacturer, incredible, wonderful ground straps. It’s a multi gazillion dollar industry. Everything that draws a current needs to be grounded. These guys are made in USA. They do incredible, incredible work. Now, Papla, what I love is I Damon, did you notice there’s no we be on this page, right? So Paola, talk to us a little bit about how, how you created the structure for this page. Um,

Paola Santana 14:35
well, we started off with, uh, actually creating a guide, or a buyer’s guide, surrounded on this. And honestly, the copy is not my own. It’s literally taking what our amazing copywriter on our team, Amy, she put that together, and I just really built off of that. And so again, kind of going back to what I was saying earlier, as we were just, we’re basically putting ourselves and the customer in their own shoes as they’re going through this guy, like, what is a ground strap? Why do I need it, and is it solving the problems that I need? And honestly, I just wanted to keep something really clean. I like my answers, and when I go on a website, I mean, I love fancy websites, but the truth of the matter is, I’m on a website because I need an answer to a question that I have, or I need a solution to a problem that I’m experiencing, or I’m trying to simplify a bottleneck, whether in my personal life or my business, you know. So I always looking for the most the information, the most critical information that I need, that looking to get answers from and so I kind of just went from that and just started kind of going through, taking that guide and just pulling out the pieces of it, not everything, because for our goal on this particular page is we want our customers on this page to download that guide so they have everything, all the resources that they need in their hands, whether on their computer or if they’re out in the field. And they’re like, dude, does this company provide the right strap for me and I can go with my tablet or my cell phone. And so this will be, obviously, mobile and tablet optimized, but the goal is just to get them the credit the most important information that’s going to answer the questions that they’re most likely asking at the moment that they’re looking at this. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 16:16
I absolutely. And so a few things I want to point out now. Number one, here at the top, we’ve got, you know, what we call our Riks. Damon, what are our Riks? Can you explain to everybody, what are our Ricks?

Damon Pistulka 16:26
Those are the ridiculously important keywords. That’s

Curt Anderson 16:30
right. So what these guys are aggressive? You know, it’s a small family business. They’re going up against like Amazon, McMaster, car, like anybody that sells ground straps, you know, Fortune 500 companies and like Dirk, they have great rankings all over the place for their Rick ground straps. And here’s what I love. We were kidding around about the we, we syndrome, but man, we were being dead serious. Like, as soon as I see the word we Damon, it’s like, I cringe now, right? But ground straps, you can trust. And what I love, what you did here, Paula, is like you’re telling soul mate, hey, soul mate, I know you’re busy. I know you’re looking all over the place. You can trust these. These are built for safety and built to last. And down here you’ve got IPC certified. So if you’re in electrical world, you know exactly what that is, Rojas compliant. You know exactly what that is. And then right here, you know, like we’re whatever time or day that you catch this, we’re in the midst of a little bit of tariff. I call it the tariff roller coaster, if you will. But you know, these guys, they were getting beat up pretty bad on Amazon and some places with, you know, foreign imports and so, you know, the tariffs might help a company like this. But anyway, here’s the exciting news. Jason Damon, Paula, you ready for a little drum roll? Who’s got a drum roll? Dave, Jason, you got a drum roll?

17:44
It’s I

Curt Anderson 17:44
just talked to the client this morning. He so this particular product line of his company, he’s up over 40% for this product line. So he is, yeah, absolutely on. Yeah. He’s on cloud nine, just over the moon. And so, like, again, it’s like, it’s that consistency. So Jason, we’re going to start winding down I wanted to talk about real quick. Hit a couple bullet points. Speed mobile just hit those points rule for everybody out there. Catching, yeah,

Jason Deering 18:11
absolutely now, people now, this is not 2010 any longer. People are using their phones to view websites almost primarily, it does change depending on industry and niches a little bit, but primarily it’s more than 60% of everyone is using their phones to view their web websites. So everything you have in terms of a web page, every page needs to be responsive, meaning that it reshapes itself and it looks awesome on any browser that you’re looking at, whether it’s your iPhone, your Android phone, your iPad, your Amazon or Samsung Galaxy, whatever tablet you have, whatever desktop you have, whatever laptop you have whatever device you’re using to view the website, and it has to look absolutely phenomenal. You also have to, you want to make sure that your site is accessible and easy to view. It’s easy to view. If your visitor has any kind of handicaps, visual handicaps, or anything of that, so such. So like, if they’re color blind, your colors can’t You can’t be affecting them. They have to be able to read that page. You have to have the contrasting colors, right? So you know, text isn’t getting blended into that background color or an image or something like that. We want to make sure as many people as possible can use your website without any issues, and then speed. Everyone’s on their phones. Everyone has socials going. Everyone has something taking their attention away. Everyone’s developing ADHD, whatever it is, everyone has very short attention spans and. So your website has to load very quickly, especially on the phone, because people are they’re on their phone because they don’t have a lot of time. They’re they’re busy. They’re trying to look up really quick. They might be, you know, sitting at an intersection in the car, or, you know, in the middle of something a little break, and they’re quickly looking up something, right? That has to load really quickly. If it doesn’t load quickly, they’re going to get impatient and they’re going to jump in find the next web page in the Google search to check out. Yeah, so it’s very important that your site is very quick and accessible and can be viewed exactly the way you want it to be viewed on all the devices. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 20:38
excellent. So now, now you’re not encouraging people to be on their in their cars, on the phone? Is that encouraging? It

20:48
never happens.

Curt Anderson 20:51
I just heard an ad about that, you know, like, like, the the person at night where, like, you just see like this glowing like they’re like, they like, hey, we don’t see you on your phone, right? So, Paula, let’s take us home. Any other thoughts, tips, strategies, how to build trust, responsive. Jason just covered responsiveness. Any other tips and strategies for how to make that great first impression for our folks? No,

Paola Santana 21:11
I mean, we said really, some really good takeaways. Like, really, all of that is a little bit complicated when you trying to create a responsive website and making sure it loads fast, like there’s a lot of technicality. So I again, there’s some really great, I think that website builders have come a long ways to helping me ease that process. So really rely heavily on those. But if, when in doubt, they definitely it doesn’t hurt to hire someone to help you with that. You know, AI can do is, somewhat, too, can build some really, I guess, amazing websites. I haven’t really dove in that personally, just seen, you know, the social talking about it. But you know, it’s always important to just make sure that you have, like, that human touch looking at and making sure that you are testing those, you know, the responsiveness to speed and making sure that it looks good in all your devices. That’s always going to be probably the one. Number one advice you’ll get from any web developer is just making sure it actually looks right on every device you plan on or looking to target to view your your content.

Curt Anderson 22:15
Drop the mic there. Paulo, that was perfect. So way to close us out. Damon, parting thoughts, words of wisdom, anything that you want to

Damon Pistulka 22:21
share. No, I think it’s great. Great stuff covered here, you know. And it just really comes back again to understanding your customer, making sure you’re grabbing their attention with their biggest pain points, as Paula said, making it come quick, as Jason was talking about, and then driving home the problems you solve succinctly. And then what? How do you do business with you? What’s the next step? And leave it there. I mean, your your website. You can spend 10s of 1000s of dollars on a website that does absolutely nothing right. It can it can look beautiful. It can be as as good as any Fortune 100 company, if you wanted to, but never convert a single visitor. A simple and effective website is one of the best investments you can make if it addresses those things. And

Jason Deering 23:10
if I could just put a little bit more to that, like, yeah, visuals are fantastic. Visuals are important to but it’s not the most important thing. Again, like some of the most highest, the highest converting pages in history of the internet have been some of the ugliest pages, some of the plainest pages, and they’ve converted amazingly, and that’s because of the content you’re saying, the saying, the things that need to be said exactly the way that your your end user needs to hear your customer, so and chills.

Paola Santana 23:41
And if you don’t know, or you’re not sure if your website’s doing that, ask your customers. There’s nothing wrong with asking their feedback. Like, Hey, have you been on our website recently? Give us your feedback. Let us know. Well, how was the interaction with it if they’re not already sharing that information free willy nilly, you know, ask. It doesn’t hurt to ask you. It may be growing maybe a little bit painful to listen, but I mean that you don’t grow without a little bit of pain. So

Curt Anderson 24:04
great advice there. So Hey, Damon, we gotta go back and

Damon Pistulka 24:06
comment here. Yeah, Harry’s dropping by to say Happy Friday. Thank you. Happy Friday, Harry. Yeah, speed is critical for me. If the site is slow, I bounce. Jason, that’s what Harry’s saying. There we got maps is saying it responsiveness of the website is a must. Yeah, that was something that’s gotten easier, obviously, as websites have improved. And stuff that was tough a while ago. And then Rosie said, interesting, thanks for stopping to buy everybody and dropping your comments. We, we love it, yeah.

Curt Anderson 24:37
And so, you know. And Damon, what you know, Harry is just such an awesome dude. He’s here every Friday, you know. And I had a grandfather, his name was Harold, and I just I loved him endearingly, and they called him Harry. And I am so thankful that they, my family, didn’t name me Harry, because it wouldn’t worked out. Imagine if I was Harry, that would not gone well. So anyway, Harry, Happy Friday. Happy Friday to everybody. We’re going to wind down. We’re. We’re man, we have some really cool topics coming up. But you know what? Next week? It’s a little family week this week. So even we’re not going to be going live, it’s for those that celebrate Easter, taking a little break next week. So we’re we won’t be here next Monday or next Friday. We’ll be back the following week. We’re going to be pulling Paola and Jason back on with us. We have all sorts of fun things. We’re going to be diving into SEO strategies for manufacturers. More website design strategies for manufacturers and man, we’re going to have a really good time.

Damon Pistulka 25:27
Oh yes, yes. Alright, let’s close

Curt Anderson 25:31
it out. So hey, God bless you guys out there. Go out have an amazing, incredible, safe, wonderful weekend. Keep crushing it. Take a pick your website, and you too, man, just, you know, go out and have it. Make yourself a great first webpression, and we would love to hear what’s going on in your world, and you go out and crush it. Damon, why don’t you close us

Damon Pistulka 25:48
out? All right, everyone, thanks for being here with us today. We’re going to be done for now. But if you are looking to make a great first webpression and talk about website design for manufacturers, and you got in here late, go back to the beginning and start over. There’s gonna be some golden nuggets for you to listen to, and if you need some help with that, you can sure reach out to Curt, Jason Paula or myself, and we can talk about a little bit more. Have a great weekend. Everyone. Happy Friday. Diane. Diane, thanks for stopping by. Oh. Rosie said, Happy Happy weekend too. Happy

26:26
weekend. Yeah, everyone, bye, bye, yeah, you.