Hey Lee, I don't know much about building a website, but I have, on occasion, viewed some sites of trucking companies with whom I am already familiar with including a couple that I have worked for as an O/O in the past. One thing that really bothers me is to see that the webmaster, or whoever built the site, had included pictures of the trucks/equipment in action, but to make them fit in the available space, the pictures had been shrunk horizontally, but not vertically therefore distorting the picture. For example, a tractor/trailer which in real life would be about 70 feet long, but the picture makes it look 45 feet long or look 20 feet high??! I know that these people grew up with 'transformer' toys and stuff that in no way resembles anything that one might encounter in real life, so they likely don't give a damn if the picture actually represents anything, but when trying to show the world who you are and what you do, perhaps they should take some care and try to represent an actual piece of equipment that is being used by the company. I know that it shouldn't matter to most customers if the pictures on the website are 'to scale' or not, but I honestly would look elsewhere for a carrier if they showed that little care in what they do! They might also care that little about whether they have loaded MY freight, or just loaded some freight without ensuring that they have got the right stuff and the right amount of stuff. Get it right or stay home! Another interesting thing about these websites is the fact that they don't usually provide much relevant information that isn't already assumed by the person looking at the site. Most sites will tell you something like this: "We are a modern transportation company who provides local and long haul service transporting our customers full-load and LTL freight across Canada and the 48 continental United States" If it's really informative, it may even say something like this: "We have warehousing services in the GTA, in Mb, Ab, BC, Ca, and Tx." and it will usually have some jargon about their 'commitment to safety' or something else that someone who just 'GOOGLED' them will have already assumed, but it seems that they never include any useful information to a perspective customer. Can they haul my bulldozer from Ab to Az? Can they haul a load of cattle to Greeley, Co? Can they warehouse my QSK Cummins engine and genset in Great Falls, Mt for a few weeks? Anyone who is looking at the website will surely already think that this company has trucks that run around hauling full load and maybe LTL and that they will have some kind of a safety commitment, but they will not find any answers to their questions and this seems strange to me that someone would go to the trouble of building a site that doesn't indicate what it is that they actually do!

Thanks Stephen. Your comments are spot on and what you pointed out is the very reason we are in business. You'll never see a distorted truck on a site we've built and I think we tell a pretty good story for our customers on what there key services are. Suprisingly, like you pointed out companies fall short of telling the right story and portraying the right image. Today marketing needs to be stepped up to draw in the increasing number of buyers using the internet as a resource.

We just launched 2 new sites this week www.bowdentransport.com and www.expedited365.com I think you'll find the message clear and the visuals high quality.

Thanks for your comments!

Thanks Lee Palmer,I enjoyed reading your Post ~ thanks for posting such useful content.

Good post Lee. I would also add building your site on a good Content Management System (CMS) like Wordpress or Drupal is vital.

You also need good forms to capture B2B leads.

I talk about this and a few other critical B2B website items in my free 2011 Guide to Building B2B websites on my website: http://www.dmzinteractive.com/how-to-build-b2b-websites

Derek

Founder and CEO
DMZ Interactive