SEO Success in a High Tech Business
Interview between Lisa Walker, Marketing Manager of Blue Chip Technology and Jan Klin
How would you describe your company and its mission?
Based just south of Chester, Blue Chip Technology designs and manufactures a range of embedded boards and industrial grade, rugardised computer systems.
Our single board computers bring the functionality of a complete computer to a very small board, roughly the size of a beer mat, which is then embedded into niche applications such as blood analysers, factory lasers, intelligent security cameras etc.
How long have you had a website and what is its main purpose?
The website has been in existence for best part of ten years, our target audience are mainly engineers who will go to the web as their first port of call when researching potential products.
Does the site work for you? ie deliver the benefits you were expecting?
We updated the website about four years ago - bringing in more material such as case studies and improving the structure. However, our Google referrals dropped, Google has always brought us the most enquiries and subsequent business. We worked with Jan Klin&Associates to improve our organic rankings - it didn't require any huge changes in content just more focus with things like key word placements, page titles and link building. Over a period of a few months we have seen huge improvements bringing us to a top five position across many of our key search terms.
For example if you do a search for “ industrial computers “ or “ single board computers “ we come 4th in Google out of 156,000,000 and 75,200,000 competing web pages respectively!
These terms get searched for tens of thousands of times per month and our positions bring in loads of enquiries.
What is your online marketing strategy? - which methods do you use to attract potential customers?
As well as SEO we pro-actively seek out industry relevant directories to appearin with a link back to our site. We also have a programme of e-shots, including a general newsletter and specific promotions/product launches. All communications include an opt-out. Respondees who do opt out are automatically blocked from receiving further communications from Blue Chip Technology.
Any activity like this is only as good as the database behind it - we're starting a program to clean and segment our data making it possible to tailor future communications.
How does your online activity mesh with your offline marketing?
We tend to combine a number of communications in any one campaign - e-shots, traditional post and telephone follow up. For example, we have metrics in place which collect open and click rates on e-communications which we can then use to prioritise any follow ups.
How much business do you do on the web?
Most of our sales - over 80%, our generated from web searches whether they come through via an enquiry form, e-mail or telephone call. Our customer base is proficient in using web technology and our product range is technically sophisticated - making the web the perfect marketing forum.
How do you see the future regarding your online activity?
I see improving our organic search engine rankings as phase 1, the next stage is to analyse the way people are using our site. Where do they come from, how do they navigate, what's popular, is there anything turning them off?
What is the single biggest lesson you have learned about your web activities?
When designing your website you will obviously strive to make it accessible and informative for your potential customers but don't forget about the Google spiderbot. On the whole, a website with a good repository of well structured, up to date information forms the basis of good search engine ranking but it does need to be optimised to really achieve it's full potential and put your name ahead of your competitors.
Can you imagine life without a website?
Absolutely not - it's our window on the world, today I've found out about the Low Pin Count bus, applying for a Russian visa and a recipe for Onion Soup.!
How would you describe your company and its mission?
Based just south of Chester, Blue Chip Technology designs and manufactures a range of embedded boards and industrial grade, rugardised computer systems.
Our single board computers bring the functionality of a complete computer to a very small board, roughly the size of a beer mat, which is then embedded into niche applications such as blood analysers, factory lasers, intelligent security cameras etc.
How long have you had a website and what is its main purpose?
The website has been in existence for best part of ten years, our target audience are mainly engineers who will go to the web as their first port of call when researching potential products.
Does the site work for you? ie deliver the benefits you were expecting?
We updated the website about four years ago - bringing in more material such as case studies and improving the structure. However, our Google referrals dropped, Google has always brought us the most enquiries and subsequent business. We worked with Jan Klin&Associates to improve our organic rankings - it didn't require any huge changes in content just more focus with things like key word placements, page titles and link building. Over a period of a few months we have seen huge improvements bringing us to a top five position across many of our key search terms.
For example if you do a search for “ industrial computers “ or “ single board computers “ we come 4th in Google out of 156,000,000 and 75,200,000 competing web pages respectively!
These terms get searched for tens of thousands of times per month and our positions bring in loads of enquiries.
What is your online marketing strategy? - which methods do you use to attract potential customers?
As well as SEO we pro-actively seek out industry relevant directories to appearin with a link back to our site. We also have a programme of e-shots, including a general newsletter and specific promotions/product launches. All communications include an opt-out. Respondees who do opt out are automatically blocked from receiving further communications from Blue Chip Technology.
Any activity like this is only as good as the database behind it - we're starting a program to clean and segment our data making it possible to tailor future communications.
How does your online activity mesh with your offline marketing?
We tend to combine a number of communications in any one campaign - e-shots, traditional post and telephone follow up. For example, we have metrics in place which collect open and click rates on e-communications which we can then use to prioritise any follow ups.
How much business do you do on the web?
Most of our sales - over 80%, our generated from web searches whether they come through via an enquiry form, e-mail or telephone call. Our customer base is proficient in using web technology and our product range is technically sophisticated - making the web the perfect marketing forum.
How do you see the future regarding your online activity?
I see improving our organic search engine rankings as phase 1, the next stage is to analyse the way people are using our site. Where do they come from, how do they navigate, what's popular, is there anything turning them off?
What is the single biggest lesson you have learned about your web activities?
When designing your website you will obviously strive to make it accessible and informative for your potential customers but don't forget about the Google spiderbot. On the whole, a website with a good repository of well structured, up to date information forms the basis of good search engine ranking but it does need to be optimised to really achieve it's full potential and put your name ahead of your competitors.
Can you imagine life without a website?
Absolutely not - it's our window on the world, today I've found out about the Low Pin Count bus, applying for a Russian visa and a recipe for Onion Soup.!
posted by Unknown at
4:24 pm
