GeckoMonkey
Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2006
- Messages
- 34
Hello All,
I work for a multi-disciplinary professional services firm. Demographically they are sometimes heaped into a statistical lump known as AEC firms, where AEC stands for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. Whithin this "AEC" category fall sever disciplines such as:
Firms that are classified into the AEC category are sometimes truly a single or primary discipline firm. Sometimes they can fit into a particular category like Environmental Engineering (trust me enviro-engineers and civil engineers don't know beans about each others line of work). In may cases, companies like mine, and there are several much larger than mine, are multi-disciplined and truly do not have a single specialized discipline.
This makes categorized index submission VERY difficult. To compound the issue, AEC-type business relies generally upon land development or in some cases re-development on a large scale to sustain itself. This usually means that to grow an AEC company you must create multiple offices in geographically disparate areas, which in Florida means that each office can only server a nine-county area (if counties were square) before another office is needed. In addition, AEC firms will sometimes do projects in places far away from their offices. This makes regional type listings and submissions difficult, because it would look like we were spamming a directory to put listings for each fairly autonomous office in for submission.
Lastly, the AEC industry, is not very web/SEO-saavy. That's not to say we're not smart, but merely that due to both the nature of their work, and the marketing demographic of their client base, web based marketing is not a priority for most firms. Sure they almost all have web sites, but they are mostly "yellow page" ads, for giving our phone number in case somebody lost a business card. To wit most are incorectly listed in Yahoo, and very few are listed in the DMOZ (none of my company's direct competitors are).
So, I've been trying to get listed on the DMOZ for a long time, and while I have never received an email from an editor, I have a sneaking suspicion that the issue has to do with the categories I tried. Editors may have reviewed my site when submitted to Engineering type categories, and felt it better suited Planning, or perhaps Landscape Architecture and vice-versa.
I propose a new Land Development / AEC category to accomodate this class of company / web site.
If prompted, I can give several examples of companies sites just from my own limited exposure.
GeckoMonkey - <URL removed>
I work for a multi-disciplinary professional services firm. Demographically they are sometimes heaped into a statistical lump known as AEC firms, where AEC stands for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. Whithin this "AEC" category fall sever disciplines such as:
- Civil Engineering
- Landscape Architecture
- Urban Design
- Architecture (buildings)
- Land Planning
- GIS (Geographical Information Systems)
- Land Surveying and Mapping
- Transportation Planning
- Transportation Engineering
- Traffic Engineering
- Engineering Inspection
Firms that are classified into the AEC category are sometimes truly a single or primary discipline firm. Sometimes they can fit into a particular category like Environmental Engineering (trust me enviro-engineers and civil engineers don't know beans about each others line of work). In may cases, companies like mine, and there are several much larger than mine, are multi-disciplined and truly do not have a single specialized discipline.
This makes categorized index submission VERY difficult. To compound the issue, AEC-type business relies generally upon land development or in some cases re-development on a large scale to sustain itself. This usually means that to grow an AEC company you must create multiple offices in geographically disparate areas, which in Florida means that each office can only server a nine-county area (if counties were square) before another office is needed. In addition, AEC firms will sometimes do projects in places far away from their offices. This makes regional type listings and submissions difficult, because it would look like we were spamming a directory to put listings for each fairly autonomous office in for submission.
Lastly, the AEC industry, is not very web/SEO-saavy. That's not to say we're not smart, but merely that due to both the nature of their work, and the marketing demographic of their client base, web based marketing is not a priority for most firms. Sure they almost all have web sites, but they are mostly "yellow page" ads, for giving our phone number in case somebody lost a business card. To wit most are incorectly listed in Yahoo, and very few are listed in the DMOZ (none of my company's direct competitors are).
So, I've been trying to get listed on the DMOZ for a long time, and while I have never received an email from an editor, I have a sneaking suspicion that the issue has to do with the categories I tried. Editors may have reviewed my site when submitted to Engineering type categories, and felt it better suited Planning, or perhaps Landscape Architecture and vice-versa.
I propose a new Land Development / AEC category to accomodate this class of company / web site.
- Multi-Discipline and Multi-Service Sector
- Multi-Locational
- Under/Miss-Representation is proof of concept.
If prompted, I can give several examples of companies sites just from my own limited exposure.
GeckoMonkey - <URL removed>
