Target Audience:
Siren Related Products = Police and fire departments, aftermarket vehicle customizers, etc.
Rotary Switches = Design engineers and purchasing managers in various industries.
Contract Manufacturing = Production managers and executives in various manufacturing industries.

Single Most Important Marketing Communication Objective:
To get the site ranked as high as possible on all the major search engines so that it is found in the natural, organic search results for a multitude of ideal key terms.

Background:
Carson Manufacturing's previous website was a traditionally-developed site that did not incorporate Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques and methodologies. The site was very poorly ranked, if ranked at all, and thus, it was generating very little traffic and absolutely no leads.

Approach:
Using SEO techniques, keyword research, and professional resources, we determined the exact key terms that were actively being searched for on the major search engines. Then we used those terms and our proven optimized website development methodology to build a site that would get ranked high on the search engines. In addition, we continued our thought process all the way through the site, considering multiple navigational paths, making all the most important content only one click deep, providing in-depth and useful content, and offering the site visitor easy ways to respond. The link-intensive home page (most are below the scroll line), and the non-traditional left menu structure, may not be expected (or desired from a design standpoint), but they are important elements of this optimized design. This site is designed, first and foremost, to be found on the search engines, and then, to be quickly and easily navigated.

Results:
Note: These results are based purely on natural, organic listings on the search engines through SEO (see examples), no pay-per-click (PPC) is being used.

Using sophisticated server-side website traffic monitoring software, we collected baseline data for several months prior to posting the new site. Traffic to the old site from the search engines was averaging around only 400 unique visitors per month and the lead count was nearly zero. Also, the search terms then site was being found for were not ideal for generating qualified leads. When the new site went live in the Spring of 2005, its first full month saw almost 2,400 unique visitors, and this number has continued to increase to over 3,000 unique visitors in recent months (this represents 650% increase in traffic). Below are some additional bullet point stats regarding this project:

• 4 new long-term customers have been generated as a direct result of the new website (this is nearly 10% of the total number of new customers generated in an average year).
• More than 100% ROI was achieved in less than one year. More than the entire cost of the website was recovered from revenues received from new web-generated customers, and these customers continue to provide on-going income.
• 102 qualified, substantiated leads have been generated as a direct result of the new website for the company's reps. This is an increase from only 26 leads of this type in a typical year (a nearly 300% increase).
• 5 qualified contract manufacturing leads have been generated by the new website. These projects can be quite large, and the company typically only receives 1 - 3 of these types of leads per year. These leads have a long sales cycle time and are still being worked on closing.
• In-coming phone calls increase dramatically. Customer service reports that more people than ever are calling to request information on specific product models, dealer locations, ordering instructions, etc.