During this stage of economic recovery it seems that my company is doing everything it can to increase business. 2009 was a difficult year for many companies, and my company was one of them. Furthermore, the forecast for 2010 doesn’t look much better. So as an engineering company that has thrived on large capital improvement projects for power and process companies we are now looking to get whatever is out there (which appears to be mostly smaller maintenance jobs).
One thing that my company is doing is re-designing their webpage. To be honest, I can’t remember what our old page even looked like. As an employee, I only have use for the intranet page (which has everything I need and works properly). But to improve brand effectiveness and overall client impressions, the company website is one of the first things they see. I know that when I’m looking for companies to work with, their website is one of the first things I look for and the clarity and design of the site has a significant effect on my impression of those companies. I assume I’m not alone in the way I judge these companies from talking to co-workers.
The most important items for an engineering website to include are what the company does, where they are, who they have on staff, what they’ve done in the past, and how to contact them. All of these items are important to clearly understand so that a prospective client can see if the company can design their project and meet their standards of quality. Pictures of past projects go a long way in helping to describe the scope of past projects.
In my estimation, looking at the website today, I believe it could use some work. (http://www.bisfei.com/) It looks a little too basic to me, and some of the tabs don’t have any links below them. Unfortunately I don’t know if that is our old website or our new one. Hopefully it is our old one, and I suspect it is, since I have heard about the directive to improve it, but have not heard anything about that work being completed. Of course, I feel the same about some competing firms of similar size as well. Horner and Shifrin’s website, for example, seems a little plain as well. (http://www.hornershifrin.com/AboutUs/.) After a little research, it appears that many engineering companies in the area choose function over aesthetics (which fits well with their M.O.). A little bit of work on fonts and images would probably go a long way.
I don’t know how much it costs to re-design a webpage, and I know that our IT department is very small by now (and probably their budget as well). But I think there is definitely room for improvement, and if I were the CEO, I would push for re-design as well. I know that in past searches I’ve seen well designed and effective sites (such as CH2MHill – http://www.ch2m.com/corporate/default_north_america.asp). But at the same time, even CE News’ Best Firm to Work For in 2009 (Traffic Planning and Design) seemed pretty basic and dull. http://www.trafficpd.com/
What I guess I’m saying is that there appears to be room for improvement across the board for engineering company websites. I understand there being less focus on websites because no sales would occur on the webpage (unlike product based companies),but at the very least enough attention should be paid to a website that it looks professional and capable because some sales could still originate (even subconsciously) at that level. And any advantage that an engineering company can do in today’s environment to set itself apart from others should be explored. I hope that my company’s website improves.
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