September 2010 - Price slash
June 2010 - Optimising your website
October 2009 - Grade 8.8 coach bolts
September 2009 - New Product Development
2009 & 2010 Newsletters
Who do we support?
Price Slash - September 2010
Over the last 18months we at ASPL have been fine tuning our business. Realizing that we were facing an upcoming global recession (back in 2008/9) we had no choice but to self-examine ourselves, how we were doing business and what we needed to do to ensure we come through the recession with flying colours. But no matter how much preparation we undertook these last few years have been tough & we needed some luck. Luck found us ... and a lot of preys!
Now after significant manufacturing restructuring we are starting to reap some of the benefits. Our cost of manufacturing has declined as a result of numerous improvements we have made & luck has been on ourside that despite unpredictable steel prices the New Zealand dollar has remained strong. Locally we have at last managed to negotiate favourable steel prices for posts & various steel types, so we are now able to offer competitive custom made gates & fences. So if you have in the past found us to be uncompetitive we are sure that you will be encouraged by our pricing, the truth is, 90% of our customers give us positive feedback that they don't understand how come we are so competitive already. Guess Christmas has arrived early.
How to optimise your website - June 2010
This topic is a worldwide phenomenon. Technology advances force paradigm shifts in importance of different marketing techniques and platforms. Gone were the days of only being able to scour the morning paper for deals or going to your one trusted shop (Farmers and Foodtown for my nana)...Those who deny that a website which is competitive in Google rankings, easy to use and attractive to the potential customer must step out of their stone cave and accept the inevitable.
To consider; what are your goals in having a website?
• PARAMOUNT! Communicate with your customers
• Portray who you are
• Inform your potential customers what you offer
• Educate your potential customers about products and services available to them
Having a decent website will build trust between yourself and your customers and will be easy to understand whilst offering plenty of information thus nurturing repeat business.
Your website can be your point of difference...It is one of the strongest marketing tools you have. If you take care of it, it will take care of you.
For some, the idea of building, updating or maintaining a website is like cycling up a hill backwards, however it need not be an impossible feat.
The first step is to find a suitable hosting company which offers a holistic approach/service where they will develop, host and optimise the site. You will find it much easier to have all of your eggs in the one basket as opposed to having to jump (often playing a mediator) between three parties for the maintenance and optimisation of the site. It also ensures that all of the people working on your site are on the same page where communication lines are more open. Ensure that the host you chose has search engine optimisation specialists who can provide you with long term guidance and support services.
The website hosting company you chose will most likely sort out the HTML for you. Some will offer you a “word editor” which instantly updates the HTML as you type into a word screen. This can be both a blessing and a burden. Sometimes having access to that HTML will save you many dollars as some hosting organisations will not let you change the HTML which is responsible for lots of functions including background colour and changing templates...then they will charge you big dollars to alter that HTML themselves.
Here at ASPL, we are investing a lot of time and effort into improving our websites for our customers and also their effectiveness in Google.
A few activities we have been undertaking (we are in the beginning stages, there is a lot more to do) include layout changes, prioritization, keyword infiltration, consistency of keywords and content additions, but most importantly, we are trying to develop meaningful, quality links with other relevant companies. Google highly rates links with other companies. This is the simple reason: If you have many other websites linking to yours, it shows Google that your content is of high value and relevant.
Try to develop links in each of your important landing pages which you are optimizing.
If you would like to develop a reciprocal link with any of ASPL’s websites, contact us on 09-427 4980 or at sales@aspl.co.nz.
Other links which are helpful are those to online articles or other sources. Not only have you developed another link, but you can offer your customers more information, henceforth gaining trust and giving an impression of expertise.
Here are some tips which can help you to optimise your website
General
1) Try to have bold colours on your website that will reflect the look of your company. This creates continuity which helps your audience recognise you from simply your colour use.
2) Use images which will not take a long time to load (compress them using an image editor prior to uploading the image) and ensure to name their alt tags with key words or relevant names.
3) Try to have a call to action on each page which allows the user to easily take their interest further, e.g., To contact us, click here.
4) Make sure your information is easy to follow and emits the right tone
5) Contact details should be easily found and clearly displayed
6) Build trust with your customers by offering information about the services which you offer, such as testimonials, guarantees and personnel information.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
1) Ensure you have links coming in to almost all of your pages (if possible). It tells a search engine that you evidently have large amounts of worthwhile content.
2) Your website, no matter how large or small, should have a site map which links every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. A small site will more commonly have a ‘navigation bar’.
3) Develop keywords for each landing page which will be strewn throughout that page and put those keywords in the title tag for that page. These words should be relevant to your site and spelt the same throughout the page...i.e. if you decide that one of your keywords are “fence” make the title tag include “fence” and then put that word throughout that entire page; make sure you do not change the term through the page to “fences” or “fencing”.
4) Words in titles and content are prioritised, so use the most important keywords and relevant words first.
5) Put as much information as you can on each page you wish to optimise. Have a few pages of articles which are related to your website to increase the amount of content and potential keyword use. Use different keyword search terms for each different article. Any homepage should have 300 words on it...at least.
6) Use your keyword search term for the page as the page title and title tag. This makes the page very relevant and more likely to rank highly on Google. Ensure that the keyword/phrase is consistent.
To further discuss any of the topics covered in this article, feel free to contact Amy at amy@aspl.co.nz.
Alternately, there are numerous sites with an abundance of SEO tips and information on Google.
Grade 8.8 Bolts - October 2009
Over the last few months you may have noticed that many of your new Lynx products are being supplied with a new type of bolt. For ALL Lynx products manufactured over the last few months this industry leading bolt is now supplied as standard, but what is the big deal? Well for starters a 8.8 grade bolt is able to offer over double the strength of the standard 4.6 grade bolt. This offers greater piece of mind to the installer, the end purchaser & guarantees the integrity of the structure from any possible failure as a result of a loading placed on a bolt.
The table below illustrates this advantage.
8.8 grade bolts typically have a tensile strength (the ultimate strength when the bolt fails) of over 800 MPa, whereas 4.6 grade bolts are half this value. More interestingly, the Yield Strength, or the point at which the bolt deforms permanently under load occurs at about 640MPa for the 8.8 grade bolts & at about 200MPa for the 4.6 grade bolts.
If you consider this to be the "practical" or useful strength to you, then you will appreciate that the new bolts used on the Lynx products actually offer over 3 times the load capacity. So the next time you need to use a split fitting, make sure it is a Lynx.
New Product Development - September 2009
We are working on a new Proto-type high-end security fence. We need a name for it & would welcome any comments, have a look at the video: www.youtube.com/watch
Please email us your comments.
2009 & 2010 newsletters:
WHO DO WE SUPPORT?
