Custom Websites For Gunsmiths

In the November 2014 issue, Wendell Dwight Deaner touched on active computer use for gunsmiths ("Computers In The Shop".) Upon reading it, I was prompted to take that to the next level and discuss designing and using a custom website for your business. The problem is the Internet and computers are foreign to many of us. Although we may have a Facebook account or browse websites like Brownells or e Bay, it may still seem like magic.

Others may have taken the plunge, bought an extremely expensive website that did nothing, and chalked it up as a waste of time and money. Done right, a well designed, useful website can revolutionize your business, save you time, and not costa fortune. What Is A Website? A website is defined as "a virtual location connected to the Internet that maintains or contains one or more pages of information." So, what is a website for your business going to do? Using Mr.

Deaner’s article as a jumping off point, a well-designed website can allow the owner to manage and create forms for your business, print receipts for customers, track shipping, generate sales, track inventory, follow the progress of a custom build in your shop (and let the customer know of the progress), communicate with potential clients around the world 24 hours a day, and showcase your skills and products.

Quite simply, the website can reach a huge volume of potential customers and it will do it day in and day out. About the only thing a website can’t do is the actual gunsmithing. That is your job! A good example is Mauser bolt turn downs. Now, a ‘smith with a shop will get the local fellows to come by and chit-chat for an hour doesn’t get charged for, losing two hours on a thirty minute job. Offering this service on your website, the customer fills out a form, ships the part, and you do the work.

When you get paid, send it back and you’ve another happy customer and anew name in your database. The customer may be a thousand miles away. How many of us live in an area that has more than a couple walk-in bolt jobs a month? This is an easy way to generate income and we didn’t tie up our time and money waiting on the customer to finally get back to us to pick it up. You already have a database. It’s all your customers that identify you as "their" gunsmith.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to reach out to them to help drive your business? With a website, you can program a monthly email newsletter (Brownells is a great example) that will keep you on their mind. Attending shows or matches and making new contacts can be added into the database. You can also use your website to link to other sites. Are you scoring a local Postal Match? Wouldn’t it be great if those scores came back to contestants from your business’s site? Free advertising, anyone?

Web Designers So now that you know a well-designed site can do nearly anything you imagine, how do you get one and not waste money? First, find a good Web designer/developer by asking local businesses, industry sites, or other sites that look good and have features you’re looking for. Some will have the name of the web designer at the bottom of the page. Do not get some local college kid to

build it for you! This always sounds great, buy them a case of beer and give them a couple hundred bucks and you are on the Internet. What they will build you is a billboard in the middle of the National Forest nobody will see. When you find a couple of web designers you like, interview them. Ask to see their work.

Make sure all their sites do not look the same (this is called templating and all the designer is doing is copying your information onto a template—the final product looks cheap and usually is not very useful.) Call the businesses they represent and ask about the site, the design, if it’s functional, have they helped with the maintenance, is it updated or did the designer train the business how to update it, and does the business own the domain name (very important).

A critical part in this conversation has to be about what you want your site to do. Are you looking for a simple site that merely outlines your company and showcases your work, or do you want to be able to sell (e Commerce) from the site? Find out about what platform the designer will write the site in. Word Press is a very easily trained platform, certain others can be very hard to use. If the designer says it will be in HTML, run screaming.

You will either be held hostage by them to make changes (usually $125 or more an hour) or you will have to learn code to make the changes. Neither is good. Additionally, check and make sure your developer is going to make the site responsive. This means that it will conform with the device that is retrieving it. If it is "pulled up" on an i Phone, it will size correctly to the screen, likewise, if it is on a regular PC monitor, it will be sized correctly.

Nothing looks as unprofessional and out of date as an unresponsive site. Next, you need to find out about the domain name, or the physical name of the website you will be using. Usually the cost is $10-$15 a year and can be purchased for a period of up to twenty years. These act as a copyright or trademark for your site name and are protected worldwide. Your web developer can point you in a direction to buy the domain but you need to make sure that you are listed as the owner and pay for it with your credit card.

This will protect you from losing the name if the developer drops the ball or is just a bad apple. A good, honest web designer is going to ask you a lot of questions about you and your business. If they don’t, that should beared flag. That same designer should be able to write the content for your site (or offer the service), provide images (ones found on the web will have to be paid for) or a photographer for you.

They should be able to discuss and elaborate on the uses you put forward for your site and be able to show you where they have done similar site functions in the past. The really good web developer will help you understand what the call to action on your website really is. Is it just a landing page? Does it offer e Commerce? Good websites ask the people that visit them to do something. As silly as it seems, you really also need to find a designer you like.

They may not know a muzzle from a floorplate, but just like any other business relationship, you need to like them and feel comfortable discussing your business with them.

Site Features I interviewed Jamie Gilleland of Mi- Syte.com (pronounced "My Site"), a web design firm specializing in small and medium sized business websites, for this article and she said the most important thing a customer should do in looking for a designer is to know their own business. "I want my customers to think through their business, not just what it is now, but where they want to take it. Are they looking to expand onto Internet sales? Amazon? e Bay? Do they want to do some of it themselves?

How soon do they need the site? Good designers have a responsibility to the client to first listen and become educated on your business, then to educate and guide you through their business, not just tell". Another thing Mi Syte does, she says, is to understand how the client process works at a customer’s business. From there, resources such as forms, inventory, billing, payment, shipping, accounting, email, databases, and site maintenance can be planned out.

All these things can make the site more useful to the owner, and are very important to the site’s end user—the customer or potential customer. Maybe the most important thing on your website is the security of it. We see articles on the news weekly about sites being hacked and your web developer should offer site security with at least a weekly back up. If you have chosen to have a more active site with blogging or e Commerce, you should discuss backing up daily or so.

This can be discussed in conjunction with the web designer’s hosting, that is, the computer server that retains your site. The developer should have a private server for all their clients because a shared server can cause problems, such as the machine also hosting objectionable sites (pornography, etc.) that may cause your site being blocked for being on a common server. Hosting from a private server should run you $10-$50 a month, depending on where you are and how big your site is.

This will be handled by the web designer and billed regularly to you. Sit down and think about what you want the website to do. We are traditionalists who work with our hands and tools in a time-honored business, not computer programmers or rocket scientists. Think about the purpose of the site and the growth of your business as a great website can radically change the volume and direction of your business.

An example is scope mounting while the customers waits. Let’s say John brings you his rifle and needs the scope mounted and bore sighted. In this example, he owns the gun, mount, rings, and scope. Most of us will charge him $20-$50 while he waits. It is a twenty minute job, but John loves to talk. For the next hour and twenty minutes, he tells us the history of the gun, the family member that bought it, the first and last deer that fell to it, the various loads he has used in it for the last decade, etc.

He is a nice guy, but he is taking up our most valuable commodity, time. When he departs we have lost two hours and made next to nothing. The $300 rush job is right where we left it, and we have missed calls from potential customers. I love to talk to customers but they can make you very inefficient while you chat. By opening up a store online (e Commerce) we can make some extra money while talking to John.

Review what you sell the most of and you can easily sell these and hundreds of other parts online through your website and never inventory them. In this example, we are not even on e Bay or Gunbroker, just your personal site. This can also be configured to sell on other sites and you can just as easily become a wholesaler having those items drop shipped directly from the distributor.

You will have to manage some sales tax and/or shipping and usually pay a monthly fee for the sales to the distributor, but you now have an income stream that does not tie up your money and works 24/7. Speaking of missed calls, adding a price sheet to your website cuts down on "dumb question" calls. The guy who wants to ask twenty questions and is not going to buy a thing. On your site he can see what you charge for your services as well as examples of your work, accuracy standards, etc.

You could even have a secure order form for full custom production. The customer would select from a menu of options, potentially fill out a shipping label, and could even send you the piece to be worked on. Taking this to the next level, you can access this function while at the show, the range, or the club to begin a transaction. This can showcase your work and validate your professionalism. People think that we are magicians when we refinish an old weapon or build a tackdriver from parts.

Adding an amazing website adds extra "wow" factor because they don’t know how to do that, either. Search Engine Optimization Like having a college kid slapping together your website, the other temptation is the Facebook page. With over one billion Facebook users, you should have a Facebook presence but it should compliment your website. Remember that call to action that the web developer should have been asking you about? Facebook can’t do that.

It can help drive people to your site but can’t showcase your business as effectively. In short, Facebook is part of your marketing and advertising strategy but not where all the details are, the same reason why that college kid’s webpage lacking SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t going to be seen by anybody. This is where we realize (again) the site has to be actively managed.

This starts with maintenance, security, and backups, done by us or the developer, and continues with SEO to drive visitors (potential customers) to our site. It is not enough to simply have a site. With more of our client base researching on what is out there, we still need to be smarter. We know how to do the job and they don’t. The catch is they have to find us. Fewer companies advertise in the phone book and fewer people even have a home phone.

They rely on a quick search online to give them the answer or to find a business. You do it, too. This is where SEO can shine for you. When you "google" something (perform an online search) it will take into account where your computer or device is. If you are looking for car insurance and located in Statesboro, Georgia, the search will pull providers from that area. This is geolocation. You would have to specify if you wanted it from somewhere else.

The first part of your site showing up in a search is getting your business registered by name and address on the local versions of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. How can your web developer make sure you are on that first page of a Google search? Asking Ms. Gilleland launched along discussion about algorithms, Panda, Penguin, keywords, and a whole lot of stuff I didn’t understand.

In short, search engines like Google have developed software that "thinks" like a person to pull up a series of potential sites that will answer the search criteria (the thing you typed in.) She continued, "Just a few years ago, you simply made sure that you put a whole lot of key words in the short description of a website (the meta description) that Google or others would use, even if they didn’t make sense, and that would get you to the top of the page on a search.

What we see now is that the engine can ‘read’ the text of the page and decide what it is and how it should rank. Nowadays, stacking key words will actually hurt your search because it is seen as cheating and will put you at the bottom." Your web site should be built so that your skills or products are forced at the top of the search. This is why you need a designer that asks lots of questions. We just said keywords and those are important, too.

These are the things that a customer might enter into a search to find you, such as "gunsmith", "barrel fitting", or "custom rifle builder". A web designer that does not understand your business will not get these correct. You also need a clear vision of where your company is going and what it really does. So the first part of SEO

is a web designer that understands your business and builds a site that is clear, functional, and informative and is updated frequently. The second half is on you. Setting Up "But I’m a gunsmith, not a computer programmer!" Calm down, we aren’t launching the Space Shuttle. This part can actually be fun and you’re likely already doing this, you just didn’t call it marketing or SEO. Are you an expert in some part of your field of gunsmithing? Restoration work, bluing, refinishing, machining?

Chances are you know more than a whole bunch of people about a lot of "gun stuff" and you can use that expert status and help out your SEO and company by answering questions on a forum. When you answer or comment on these sites, you can link your answer back to your site. Google will "see" this mention as a pertinent reference to your site and start adding value to it. Additionally, this is free advertising to a whole world of potential clients who may never have heard of you but realize you really know your stuff.

Web Log Your web designer can help you take this to the next level by helping you to set up a Web Log ("blog") on your site, which is a periodic log entry that can be read by people who subscribe to it. This can be done by you or your employees or even ghostwritten by someone and can be a direct discussion of the business, your specialties, or just a simple article sent out to customers or people in your database to remind them of your business.

If you really don’t want to dedicate the time to write it or pay someone to do it, you can still set up and send out a newsletter monthly or quarterly, discussing specials, new products, match results, industry issues, or just observations from your business. Think of your own version of Gunsmith Kinks from Brownells.

Now I know what you’re going to say, "If I had that much time, I’d do it, but I still have a business to run." Yes you do, and the beauty of a newsletter or blog is that you can write or prepare these weeks or months in advance and they can be set up to be sent out automatically at a certain day and time. You would manage these once a month or so. I’m sure most of us have "office days" where we balance the books, send out checks, etc.

You can knock out a month of blogging in an hour or two, set up the dispersal, and forget about until the next month. Jamie Gilleland shared a story about a site her company did several years ago. The company is a popular tourist destination in South Carolina and had e Commerce on their old website but only did $200 in sales from it the previous year. With the new Mi Syte website and SEO they did over $30,000 in online sales the next year with the same goods for sale!

This is a great example of why you need to look at where you want the business to go, why you need to be the expert in firearms forums, and why you should build up the database of customers and potential customers you are sending newsletters to. They come back to you. You are "their" guy! Social Media You can’t ignore Facebook. If you have employees, they are on it, sometimes to the point of distraction.

Personally, I don’t really understand the fascination with it but it is a very powerful tool you can use to drive business back to your site and into your cash register. Much of what I said about forums also applies to social media. These social sites are free, anyone can join them, and they can be effective accessories to your business. Obviously, keep a comment on your social media business pages clean and in alignment with your client base.

Denigrating a religion, a gender, or race has no place on a business social media page, although you also have the right to be honest. If you don’t like a politician or a law, let people know. That is your right. The downside is that people forget that once it is on the Internet, it has a life of its own and an objectionable post is going to be there forever. You have a responsibility as a business owner to be a grown up. Be smart about it.

In my former life in a large corporation, more than a few people were fired for the wrong things being said in a Facebook post. I do not want to leave a valuable firearm with a gunsmith who has posted pictures of himself passed out on the front porch naked. The other part of social media that people forget about is that you still need to post items and interact with people. It is still SOCIAL media. Another real value of the social media aspect of marketing is it’s stupidly powerful.

I post something, then people who are my "friends" see it and potentially repost it, then their friends pass it on. I have a business partner that recently published a book online with inspirational stories about women. Not on my reading list, but through her website developer, they crafted a series of Facebook posts the day before the release of the book on Amazon. Hundreds of thousands of people ended up seeing the notification and her book was an Amazon best seller the day it was released. That is very powerful.

I’m sure the book would have done well on its own but the number of people who ordered it as a result of the social media marketing had a lot to do with her initial success. I made reference to Gunsmith Kinks from Brownells earlier and that is a great example of publishing to a very specific market. That is a much easier task today than it was when the first one came out in the sixties and is another area you should discuss with the web designer. Even if you only write down

funny stories that you have encountered in our trade, you can fill a volume. You can become a "published author" and that sure sounds good to a potential customer. What about all the tricks to setting up and getting a great bedding job for that Benchrest gun? Tuning a Smith & Wesson revolver? Getting that prewar polish on a Colt? I’ll bet you have the makings of a book in your notes and knowledge from years of experience. Keep in mind that publishing a book online is not limited to a volume with hundreds of pages.

You can easily write and publish an e Book that may be little more than a pamphlet to us older folks. People can look it up, download it, and print it for their notes for a few dollars. I’d be willing to bet you have ten or fifteen pages of notes on handloads, tool setup, bluing recipes, etc. in your office right now. Publish them and get some great advertising, make some money, and become the acknowledged expert in afield, even if it is a small one.

Your local community or technical school probably offers a selection of computer courses from basic use to accounting to publishing and social media. Look it up and learn some new skills to drive your business forward. Active Marketing So far, what I have outlined is a sort of passive advertising through areas that many customers are already using. There is a more active way to market your business, much like the Yellow Pages of our youth, called "pay per click".

In this area, your business pops up at the top of a browser search when certain key words are searched for. Lets say you area gunsmith in South Florida and you and your web designer select a list of specific words that someone could type in to their search (think "Duracoat in Miami"), then a link to your site would appear at the top of the page. Your site may still be on the list that they see from the search but they also see the direct link to your site at the top.

Brownells, Midway, and other large companies do this, you can too. When the person doing the search clicks on your link, you are charged a small fee, perhaps five or ten cents, and they enter your site. The nice thing about this is that you can set up how much you want to spend each day, and for how long. Your web designer can also use a tool called analytics to see how long that person stayed on the site, if they bought or browsed for anything, etc.

It is a great way to introduce your new website in a specific area to a specific group of people and you control the budget! Cost So, what does all this cost? I’d seen the do-it-yourself stuff advertised on television and logged on to one to see how easy it was. It wasn’t. I had to register, figure out some stuff I really didn’t understand, wasted three hours, and still didn’t have a site. Back to Ms.

Gilleland at Mi- Syte.com. "The free sites are great and you get what you pay for." She smiled and turned the tables on me, asking about my humble gunsmithing operation. How long had I done it? How did I learn? Couldn’t anybody do it? I conceded that with time and experience, I felt I could teach the skills necessary to rust blue and restore furniture on older firearms. And I walked into my own words. "Anybody can do a website, too, but they are not experts at it. That takes time and experience.

A free site will not have the look and feel of one done professionally, nor will it have the little touches, the calls to action for your customer. And who do you call to fix it if there is a problem? We believe a good site can be had for a business, depending on a lot of variables, for $1,500-$4,000." She continued to elaborate on those variables, a lot of which helped to make up this article, and now it seems that a good, functional website is a lot like a tool in our shops.

It can help to produce income, save time, bring in customers, and showcase our talents as gunsmiths and business owners. For marketing and SEO, that is up to you. A very basic Internet marketing package may only be $100 a month. A full advertising, SEO, pay-per-click program may be up to $750 a month. This is another reason why you pick a web designer that you can enjoy working with, because he or she needs to be around to continue to assist you and your business.

Remember, you don’t need to have them stick around but it can sure make a difference when they do. Think of them as you would any other service provider you might use, such as an accountant, attorney, or plumber. You may not need them everyday but its good to know where they are when you do. I will conclude this by saying that no amount of advertising, marketing, SEO, or a beautiful website will make up for bad business. You alone can control that. If you are not a good gunsmith, no web designer can fix that.

If, however, you are very good at what you do, you are professional in your dealings with people, and you can meet your deadlines a great website and marketing campaign can take your business to great places. American Gunsmith Special Jamie Gilleland from MiSyte.com has agreed to offer a free half hour phone consultation to all American Gunsmith member/subscribers regarding website design, use, and lore.

Her normal rate is $150/hour so this is a great way to speak to a pro for free and get ideas about making a website, whether you need one made from scratch or to improve an existing one. Contact her at Jaor MiSyte.com. Mention you are an American Gunsmith member and use code "AG". AG