An internet shop window designed to bring together timber specifiers and suppliers reports 155,000 hits during January.
Roger Galpin, TRADA‘s former head of technical consultancy who set up the website directory, said he was “stunned” by The Wood Shop’s performance so far this year and believed its popularity would keep on growing.
He has also been informed by a US-based web rankings system that www.thewoodshop.biz, is now placed in the top 0.5% of websites worldwide.
Mr Galpin said it had already enjoyed a month-on-month rise in visitor numbers since being launched in 2002 (TTJ October 12/19, 2002). But changes were made to key words and content at the end of last year to benefit from alterations made to search engine Google.
About 200 visitors per day clicked onto the site in January – more than 5,500 for the whole month, with architects and contractors featuring heavily. The directory recorded more than 450 click-through referrals for some suppliers during the month.
Search terms which typically find the directory near the top of Google are product names followed by “suppliers”.
Mr Galpin said: “We are pretty amazed and stunned by the amount of people coming through the search engines. We are also very keen to nurture the links with relevant bodies and directories and get people coming in through them.”
The Wood Shop was set up to fill a gap in the knowledge of specifiers and architects regarding timber specification. It contains lists of approved suppliers, a brief description of their products and service, contact details and a link through to their websites.
