Cummins Inc., an independent manufacturer of diesel engines, is nearing its 100^th anniversary in 2019. And with a website built in 2002—a long time ago in Internet time—it was sorely in need of a web refresh.

“We supply diesel engines for any application imaginable; from highway construction to railroad and marine,” digital marketing communications manager Lisa Eubank says. “We’re an important provider, with a well-earned reputation as a tech leader in the fields in which we do business. Yet our website, launched in 2002, was clunky and not user friendly. We needed an ease-of-use online marketing solution reflective of who we are, one that would also optimize across mobile platforms.”

Cummins researched its web analytics data for its customer-facing website, CumminsEngines.com, surveyed its customers regarding their site satisfaction, and hired web design and development firm 352 Inc. to audit its website technology and design. The outdated website was found to be slow and difficult to navigate. And as Cummins added more products to the site, a poor site search and navigation system made them difficult for customers to find.

“We knew our old web presence needed a dress-up,” Eubank says. “Working with 352, we constructed an entirely new site over the course of just six weeks.”  352 also developed a content management system, and updated the site’s product descriptions, data tags and web page addresses to make the site more noticeable by Internet search engines and improve its natural search rankings.

The redesigned site launched in early 2013. A year later, the site showed multiple year-over-year improvements. Page load time quickened by 30%; the bounce rate—the percentage of site visitors that immediately abandon the site after landing on it—dropped by 15%.  The site also realized a 12% increase in the number of unique monthly visitors, with a 24% increase in the average number of pages per visit. Cummins didn’t comment on the redesigned site’s effect on sales.

The new CumminsEngines.com is also device-agnostic, Eubank says. Built with responsive design, the site’s content automatically conforms to any desktop or mobile device.

“Responsive design was spurred by surging demand,” Eubank says. “More than 90% percent of Cummins customers were desktop users just four years ago. Today more than 50% are mobile. Responsive design allows mobile customers to painlessly browse text and pictures, and access a key-word searched brochure library of all our products. Our mission is to take care of all our customers.”

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