Custom hose assemblies are not a simple order. There are a lot of variables involved, and when customers came in without the right information, the whole process stalled before it even started.
I spent seven years at Atlanta Rubber & Hydraulics before the company was acquired by Tipco. In that time, I saw the same gap come up over and over: customers needed something custom, but they were missing critical details. The result was back-and-forth, delays, and frustration on all sides.
The fix was simpler than you might expect. It was a flyer.
The problem it was built to solve
The S.T.A.M.P.E.D. acronym is an industry standard for specifying hose assemblies: Size, Temperature, Application, Media, Pressure, Ends, and Delivery. Every custom order needs answers to all seven. Miss one and the order can’t move forward.
The framework existed. What didn’t exist was a clean, branded piece that put it in front of customers in a way that was easy to understand and easy to act on. So I built one from scratch: the content, the layout, and the design.
How it worked across the business
Once it existed, it found its way into four different use cases without anyone having to force it.
For customers researching before they called, it lived on the website. They could look up what they needed before picking up the phone, which meant fewer calls spent gathering basic information.
For the sales team, it became a reference tool during customer conversations. Instead of walking through the same seven questions from memory every time, they had something concrete to point to. It kept the process consistent no matter who was handling the call.
For walk-in customers, it was ready at the counter. Someone came in, picked it up, and had a clear checklist of what they needed to pull together before placing their order.
And because it was a clean, professional document, it could be emailed out when needed. One file, used in context.
The takeaway
This wasn’t a complicated project. It was a well-placed piece of content that solved a recurring problem across multiple touchpoints at once.
When you take the time to identify where the friction actually lives and build something that addresses it directly, you don’t need four separate solutions. Build it once, do it well, and it works forever.
An existing ecommerce site built on the Big Commerce platform, but vital business functions could not be setup.
The decision was made to scrap it and start over on WooCommerce, where I could build it the right way from the ground up.
The new site went live mid-June 2019.
Screenshots were taken May 2022 and reflect a point-in-time snapshot of SEO performance.
The next screenshot is a view of 5 years.
The small charts across the top are month comparing the previous month.
This is screenshot of the current SEO competition landscape as of May 2022.
Interpretation
The supplier’s website consistently ranks higher than everyone else in the landscape, and that’s expected. Distributors go through a selection process and are referred back to the supplier’s site, so the domain authority and traffic signals are working in their favor by design.
SEO Strategy
I built this out in layers. On-page first, then product visibility, then local.
On-page I started with the foundation: image tags, page text, headers, site structure, and the metadata that visitors never see but search engines read closely. From there I audited our product descriptions against the competition and established a consistent standard across the catalog. I also added resources directly to the site: sales sheets and manufacturer catalogs, giving customers and search engines more to work with.
Off-page Off-page SEO is harder to control, and for our industry, tactics like PR and link outreach weren’t worth the time or the spend. I focused on what I could actually influence. Google Merchant Center gets lumped into “product feeds” but I look at it differently: if someone searches for one of our products and it shows up in Shopping results and organic rankings, that’s SEO working. The feed is just the mechanism.
Local After a competitive analysis of the surrounding areas, I updated all three Google Business Profiles: adding product categories with direct links back to the site. I tightened up the three location pages on the website and updated the social media profiles for each location.
These screenshots are a snapshot from May 2022, not the finish line. The work was ongoing, and the rankings reflect a strategy that was still building. This was also during the COVID era: companies in our space either adapted their digital presence or lost ground. One data point worth noting: around this time, one of the competitors in that landscape was actively hiring for marketing positions.
About
Cathy Gray is a digital marketing and eCommerce professional based in Metro Atlanta, GA. Outside of work she's chasing waterfalls, kayaking rivers, and finding places to camp to see the stars. Her dog Sam is officially retired from the adventures but still supervises from the couch or campsite. None of it happens without coffee in the morning.
