About Kongskilde Industries
Founded in Denmark in 1949, Kongskilde Industries is a trusted global provider of material handling solutions. Specializing in pneumatic conveyance, or “blower,” technology, the company serves primarily agriculture and the plastics, paper and packaging industries.
Situation: Separate, Hard-Coded Domains Lacked Flexibility and Caused Confusion
Despite there being overlap in product content, Kongskilde’s industrial and grain websites existed on separate domains. Modifying the websites with new content and new pages was difficult, and the client team had to go through different layers of development support to do so, first on one site and then the other. The websites did not use commonly recognized UX patterns, making information consumption unwieldy. Grain customers and industrial customers sometimes found themselves on the “wrong” website, the industrial website contained confusing corporate information, and internal users had no easy way to locate documents or imagery they needed.
To achieve the overarching goal of increasing traffic and conversions, these problems needed to be solved, and the project would necessarily be complex, which was a welcome and exciting challenge for Windmill.
Solution: A Multisite Approach Combining Three Databases into One Code Structure, with Intensive Focus on Redirects, Tagging, Translation and More
With a deep dive into the existing websites and the client’s goals and frustrations, Windmill developed a robust strategy brief to guide the project. The existing “industries” website, which had received most of the traffic, was designated to remain as a corporate, or global, site, while also functioning essentially as a landing page. New “sub-sites” would simplify user paths for those interested in agricultural (grain) versus industrial products and applications.
By moving the website data and content to the new corporate site at the existing “industries” domain and broadcasting it to the two sub-sites, existing search equity was retained. This new architecture incorporated an extensive redirect strategy, particularly for pages from the old grain domain, to account for combining websites.
Windmill developed extensive reusable pattern libraries for content creation, making content management much easier and more flexible for the client. New content only has to be handled once. We created page types within Gutenberg that could be reused in a “template” fashion, as well as block patterns that could be inserted into any website page for style consistency and ease of updates.
Unique, custom post types were created for products and applications, as well as for careers. Users can search for products and applications, or if they’re interested in working for Kongskilde, they can search for jobs by role, office location and company division.
All content across the website now has relational tagging. Each product, application, document, case study or other content type is tagged with a custom taxonomy, allowing each page to have a curated selection. Content is shown in a card style view on archive pages, allowing the user to filter by different tags and taxonomies.
Windmill provided copywriting for 20 highly visible pages, primarily “Application” pages reconfigured from previous “Solution” pages, using simpler, customer-friendly language that stayed away from internal Kongskilde jargon that had sometimes baffled external users. An SEO specialist ensured that the copy was keyword optimized.
A robust dealer locator was created for the grain website. In addition to helping customers locate dealers, the website also incorporates a portal that allows Kongskilde dealers to log in and access advertising assets, PDF downloads, wiring diagrams and other information.
New embedded forms were integrated into Kongskilde’s Freshworks CRM and set up to be routed and assigned appropriately. Extensive effort was put into accurately mapping the various country representatives for accurate conversion tracking and sales engagement follow-ups. In France, for example, the forms are routed to a representative in the appropriate department, while in the U.K. they are routed according to postal code. This is a more granular approach than many companies require, but Kongkilde’s global reach, its structure and its desire to route leads and queries to the right place as quickly and efficiently as possible made it an important part of the project.
Advanced translation tooling and management was necessary to serve the client’s global markets. Translation was a critical component of the project, with both the client and a third-party resource providing translation so that the website could be read in Danish, German, French, Polish, Spanish, international English and U.S. English; the two English versions were separated primarily as a means to differentiate product mix between markets. A combination of human and machine translation was used. WPML, the WordPress Multilingual plug, was crucial to string translation and localization efforts.
In addition to actual page content, a complex document resource library is customized according to language. While international English is the default language for documents, many of them also exist in other languages. If the website is being read in German, for example, German-language documents will override international English and be listed, in German, as the default document. In all cases, however, flag icons in the results table indicate all the languages in which a document is available.
The site leverages Google Optimize for location-based content targeting, including automatically showing users the phone number of their closest Kongskilde office in the top navigation. This localization functionality works on both desktop and mobile.
Windmill’s visual design for the project adheres to Kongskilde’s brand standards, while moving the visual presentation forward to a cleaner and more consistent interpretation than in the previous versions. WordPress steers new pages into the appropriate color palette for the corporate, grain and industrial sub-sites.
Windmill updated and customized iconography, converting custom icons into a font for ease of use by the client team. The font was then turned into a WordPress block, for maximum flexibility and ease of use in creating new pages.
The Kongskilde team was happy to have been able to unveil the new website in time for an important trade show in October 2022.
The successful launch demonstrates Windmill’s website design and development expertise, innovative problem-solving abilities and commitment to maintaining close working relationships with its clients. Windmill is proud to have designed, built and launched this website project—one of the more complex and feature-rich in its history as an industrial digital marketing agency and web design company.
An ongoing engagement with Kongskilde will focus on SEO, case studies and other lead generation efforts, now that the improved website infrastructure is in place.
Are you looking for a digital marketing partner that understands the complexities of your industry? Let’s talk today
Windmill Strategy is a web design company & digital marketing agency helping B2B industrial manufacturing companies achieve increased visibility, higher quality leads, and greater marketing ROI through smarter web design. Our website design and B2B digital marketing approach goes beyond “more traffic,” seeking out better traffic, by gaining the attention of the specific niche groups of buyers and influencers that represent your best customers. We help our clients communicate and sell their complex products and services to multiple audiences – be it through web design or digital marketing and SEO. Working collaboratively with your in-house marketing and sales team, we design websites that drive leads and sales that result in overall business growth. Schedule a call to learn more.