Sloan Implement Company needed a channel to keep visitors on their site and drive more search engine traffic. Their site was not ranking well on targeted, equipment related keyword searches because their equipment inventory was maintained on a separate domain.

For this situation NPS enhanced their website to browse, query, and view detailed information about the available equipment inventory held by Sloan Implement.  The development added a fully automated system that constantly updates content to their site from an XML feed of their external managed equipment inventory data. NPS fetches the XML file, parses the data, and outputs the HTML for the display on www.sloans.com. The programming methodology ensures quick page load speeds and no site down time to refresh the XML data.

The new development greatly improved the performance goals desired by Sloan Implement. As compared to pre development web statistics, site operation improvements are as follows:

• Traffic from Search Engines:  + 14%
• Visits:  + 6%
• Pageviews:  + 182%
• Pages/Visit:  + 167%
• Bounce Rate:  - 33%
• Average Time on Site:  + 36%

On top of the website statistical improvements, the search engine ranking for the targeted, equipment related keyword searches also improved dramatically.  For example, www.sloans.com went from not on the top 10 pages for the term “john deere 5055d” to page 1 on Google in less than a week.  This improved search engine placement will help drive a greater number of targeted customers to their website.

The "search used equipment" development launched on April 8, 2010. Headquarted in Assumption, IL, Sloan Implement Company is one of the largest John Deere Dealerships in the world.

If you would be interested in discussing how Norlight Professional Services can assist you with a website redesign, SEO, usability improvements, or a custom application please contact us: nps@norlight.com; on Twitter @nps_norlight; facebook.com/nps.norlight.

VIBRONICS, Inc. was in need of expanding their content and updating the look of their website. Their original design had un-intuitive navigation and lacked in design appeal to draw interest in their site. NPS developed a new look and site structure for VIBRONICS to focus on their needs in a website: expanded content, a unique look, usability, product & service information, and a contact form.

Redesign:

The site redesign utilizes XHTML, PHP, CSS, and the jQuery javascript library. Our coding techniques will facilitate timely updates to the content as their products and services grow in the future.

The www.vibronics.com redesign launched April 1, 2010.

Before:

If you would be interested in discussing how Norlight Professional Services can assist you with a website redesign, SEO, usability improvements, or a custom application please contact us: nps@norlight.com; on Twitter @nps_norlight; facebook.com/nps.norlight.

Efficiently communicating to a mobile, remote workforce is an issue for many companies in today’s business environment.  This employee connection hurdle faced Mulzer Crushed Stone, Inc., a company headquartered in Evansville, Indiana.

Mulzer is faced with a need to cultivate the “community” of their widespread, regionally deployed workforce.

For a solution, Mulzer partnered with NPS to leverage the power Social Networking. We created a complete social toolset for Mulzer to enhance their employee connections and better distribute news, events, and other company information.

Blog
The Mulzer Blog is the first layer in the Mulzer social landscape.  Utilizing the Blog gives Mulzer a vehicle to easily administer communications. Additionally, RSS and integration with other Social Networking tools streamlines their communication channels to automatically update with content from the Blog.  This successfully reduced the content administration to one universal location.

Facebook
Facebook is being used to create an online community for the employees to come together and share information.  Their Blog is also integrates with Facebook so that each new blog post is written on the Wall of the Mulzer Facebook fan page.  This effort allows Mulzer to syndicate the information from the Blog to other networks.

YouTube
Mulzer also creates company videos to share corporate and event information.  NPS integrated a YouTube Channel (link) with the Blog to have new videos from posted on YouTube update on the Blog.

RSS
Our utilization of the Mulzer Blog RSS feed enabled us to syndicate content from the Blog to their Facebook fan page and www.mulzer.com. RSS is also provided as a way for users to subscribe to the Blog’s feed to receive the latest updates via their feed reader.  This effort essentially creates an “opt in” list for users to receive updates from Mulzer.

Share
In addition to the above methods, NPS included share functionality in the footer of each blog post. Sharing allows blog readers to distribute a link to the blog post across additional social networks that they may be a part of, empowering readers to advertise for them.

Our latest project launch is a redesign of the Evansville Chapter 13 Trustee's website, www.evvchap13.com. The client was looking for a solution that would afford them the ability to easily manage their website's content.

For the site owner: NPS implemented a lightweight Content Management System (CMS) that provided the ability to update content areas of the website. NPS also integrated features of the Google API to provide a clean interface for the client to maintain their website resources including a Calendar, Maps, and PowerPoint Presentations. NPS is providing website hosting services to www.evvchap13.com.

For the viewers: NPS created a clean, straightforward website design and layout. Images and code are optimized for page download speed. Printing the website’s content from within a web browser is effortless thanks to the embedded stylesheet.