In the early stages of any industry, innovation is active. The winners are those who tightly integrate design, production, sales and marketing. Take the auto industry as an example: because the products (cars) were not quite good enough and needed constant improvement, proprietary integration allowed leaders to create better and more reliable vehicles. After some decades, owners could rely on buying great autos from many brands and the commoditization of the industry was in full swing, giving us the plethora of brands we have today, and pushing out the Oldsmobiles of the market.
Not long ago, I was on a call with a potential client who was lamenting the fact that he didn’t have enough leads in his business. “Once I get in front of them, we can close the sale,” he told me. “But getting in front of them—that is the issue.” Some variation on that theme is one of the three most consistent complaints I hear about growing businesses.
Windows, doors and skylights sometimes fall under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act’s definition of consumer goods, and other times they do not. Magnuson-Moss is a federal statutory scheme that mandates certain requirements for written warranties.
It provides, in part, that the “warrantor” (party giving a warranty for a product) may not make conditions in a written or implied warranty that consumers must use only parts or service identified by brand, trade, or corporate name—i.e., “authorized parts.” If the consumer or her agent is buying the windows, the statute likely applies.
Last week, the Window & Door Manufacturers Association brought together industry stakeholders and members of Congress, agency leaders and political strategists for its signature policymaking event. The lineup of speakers included representatives from the U.S.
Regular readers of my articles know I have a one-word answer for any small business looking to improve search engine optimization: content.
It's really that simple. Yes, you can do many other things to improve your window and door website's SEO, but nothing matters more than content. Many say content is king—I think it's the entire royal court. Nothing makes the search engine "spiders" happier than websites that are rich in original, relevant content and that organically include top-performing keywords for, in our case, windows and doors.
In the recent months, there have been several opportunities for Energy Star partners to have their voices heard. In May of 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency invited public comment on existing regulations pursuant to Executive Order 13777, Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agency.
Last week, I attended Glass Processing Automation Days in San Antonio. Organized by FeneTech and supported by the National Glass Association, the event is focused on the glass side of our world. But there was still a ton of great information about integrating automation that applies directly to our industry.
For more than a decade, search engine optimization has been the headline topic for businesses trying to boost their website rankings. But the SEO techniques that worked 15 years ago do not work now, and many of them can actually diminish organic search rankings on major search engines (such as Google). Those window and door websites that still employ outdated SEO practices are really just placing a big anchor around local search rankings.
As the housing market crashed in 2008, I was in the early days of my career in construction-related publishing. Despite entering the workforce—and the construction-related workforce at that—at arguably one of the most tumultuous times possible, I somehow weathered the Great Recession with my job intact.
According to James Mulvey, senior social media strategist, Hootsuite, there are three main challenges for businesses utilizing social media in 2018. They are: the continuing decline of unpaid, organic reach; keeping pace with social network innovation; and validating the worth of existing strategies.
Here are five trends to implement in 2018, according to Amber Naslund, senior director, industry leadership, Hootsuite.