Can Specifiers Search for Products on Your Website?

I recently received an email from a specifier complaining that he had a product number from a subcontractor or a brochure. He went to the manufacturer's website and could not find the product through their search routine.

Web designers may assume that the user will come in through the home page or a search engine and not fully investigate the use of internal searches.

I suggest you add your own search routine. I have used the Zoom Search Engine on 4specs for many years - https://www.zoomsearchengine.com/zoom/index.html It costs $200 for a license (one time, not annual). The program uses spider to download your Wordpress or database-driven website. As 4specs is a flat-html website and I can update the search in seconds reading the files on my computer. You can upload the Zoom results to your website.

My vision of a manufacturer's website is focused on these points:

Help the architect find and understand a solution to his design question - generally searched through Google
Help the specifier develop and maintain their specification office masters. The specifier typically has the specification being updated in one computer screen and the manufacturer's website being visited in an other, He is looking to update and validate his prior product decisions. If he gets frustrated, he may leave and spec another group of products.
Help the contractor understand the fine points of installing your product.

This is why I developed WebFormat as a suggested website template. Make it wasy to find and use your data. This was first written in the summer of 2000 and updated in 2009 to work with Google searches. Still valid today.

Contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Colin

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Colin Gilboy
Publisher - 4specs
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