I visit hundreds of industrial products' company Web sites each month. You see, I sell industrial seals and gaskets from our site, www.epm.com.

My site is a vital part of my overall marketing. So, I want to see what other companies are doing, what their site looks like.

I want to see how the site functions and how its shopping cart works and which shopping cart they use. I also read dozens of business and trade magazines each month.

I see a trend, not a good trend. Something that has already happened. It shook out late last year with the slide of the NASDAQ and the birth of a new term — dot-bomb. Industrial companies have had the "Roman candle fireworks" reaction to Web marketing. They gave it a run, spent thousands of dollars, and hired a large Web site development staff.

They signed up with one of the many consortiums of industrial MRO Web marketeers, hucksters, if you will, who guaranteed, "Join with us and thousands of customers will come to your site and buy millions of dollars worth of your products."

Not so. Poof! They are gone. The distributor found out that the Internet is a ruthless place. It will gobble up your marketing money faster than a Las Vegas crap table.

Now what happens? Did the Web die? No. In fact, I see a rising trend where more and more industrial buyers are using the Web as the information source of choice.

I think the individual industrial distributors have not marketed their own sites and have relied on the MRO consortiums to the point of dependence and don't know how to market their site at all. What do you do with your site now?

My advice: Re-evaluate everything.

Here's some simple steps to save your site and boost your Web business:

• Re-evaluate your site. Does it really make sense? Would you buy from that site?
• Redesign the site to build trust and credibility
• Redesign your store's opening page to lure the shoppers inside. Make sure it loads fast, too!
• Display the products compellingly and intelligently
• Employ color and graphics to stimulate sales
• Improve your product description copy
• Offer something free, like a free report or technical data. In addition, create compelling special offers to boost sales, such as handy items, hard-to-find products and online specials.
• Increase sales through cross-selling and up-selling with follow up from inside sales
• Overcome common barriers to order completion, like not enough information or pricing
• Use e-mail to sell your products. Collect the e-mail address of your visitors and send them information. Also monitor and respond to e-mails immediately.
• Structure your shipping charges to improve the conversion rate of visitors to buyers
• Fine tune your ordering system to encourage sales.

I realize that is a lot to consider, but you have to start somewhere. Take a look around and compare your site to other industrial products companies. Make the changes slowly but deliberately.

The rush to the Web may be over, but industrial buyers still use it to find products. Your site can be a dot-com success, too.