Forging into
the 21^st Century

by Molli Nickell

Long before Paul Revere's famous ride through the streets of Boston, Ball family artisans were forging metal hardware in England and colonial America. Aware that Paul's method of sharing information and launching revolutions was rather limited, the Pennsylvania-based company, now known as Ball and Ball Antique Hardware Reproductions and Restoration, has become firmly linked to 21^st century communications through its innovative Web site.

• Starting from scratch: From the 18^th century to the 21^st.
• Creating a catalog: Finding antique hardware the modern way.
• Give the customers what they want: Helping them find what they're looking for and giving them an easy way to communicate with you.
• Use it or lose it: What if you created a site and no one came? And how to avoid it.
• Starting over: If he had it to do all over again.
• Getting personal: Letting the people behind the company shine through.
• Leaner and meaner: Lessons learned about creating more efficient graphics.
• Happily ever after: Continual expansion.

When General Manager Bill Ball decided, in 1996, that it was time for his company to reach the world market electronically, he set himself and Mitchell Smith—Webmaster and blacksmith in training—on a learning curve from the past to the future. Bill comments: "Creating a Web site seemed like a natural extension—an untapped resource—of our advertising programs. We thought we'd keep it small and simple and just become a presence out there. But it kept growing and growing and, three years later, is still growing."

"Where the heck do I start?"

When he was designated Webmaster-to-be, Mitchell was a site virgin—so to speak—with minimal understanding of Internet workings. Plus, no one in the company was clear on what they wanted to do, how they wanted the site to look, or where to go for straight answers. Because of this inexperience Mitchell set out on a voyage of discovery with a "less-than program and some bad advice from an inept provider."

Mitchell and Bill were faced with never-ending expenses during their first efforts, working with FrontPage. And, although this first experience was about as pleasant as "drilling your own teeth," Mitchell persevered. Searching for information and answers to questions he hadn't yet formulated, he consulted experts, read software reviews, and then selected NetObjects Fusion 3.0, the latest version at the time.

Armed with NetObjects Fusion, he created the site (without catalog pages) in a few weeks, working on it part time. Mitchell relied heavily on the "sophisticated and well-thought-out page designs that came with NetObjects Fusion."

And then there was the catalog

The next hurdle was enormous—setting up the detailed, 100+ page Ball and Ball catalog, which is more than a listing of products. It's a virtual historical source for authentically reproduced hardware ranging from Victorian pulls to hinges to clock hardware.

Heavily influenced by the techniques of Brother Sebastian, the monk who laboriously copied pages of Latin liturgy by hand in 1700 BCM (before copy machine), Mitchell built the pages one by one by one. Had Mitchell known about NetObjects Fusion's built-in database publishing features, he could have had Fusion build his catalog pages from the information in his database. Well, live and learn. (You can read more about NetObjects Fusion's database features by clicking here.)

Give customers what they want, immediately!

Not only does Ball and Ball create a wide variety of products, it also offers authentic Old World finishes that include brass, antique wax, black lacquer, bright tin, and chocolate coated. (Just kidding about that one). Mixing and matching products and finishes by looking through the entire catalog can be labor intensive. To satisfy the customers' need for instant response and to help them avoid that dreaded on-line shopper's affliction—mouse fatigue—Mitchell set up a Site Search so product hunters could quickly locate what they want to see.

Then, to further facilitate communication, Mitchell created a "feedback form." However, instead of specifically using that form, "people contact us through the various e-mail links on the site," Mitchell says. "Ninety-five percent of the people who e-mail us are looking for something specific, or didn't have the patience to either look for it or use our search engine. Funny thing though, there isn't anything that comes through e-mail that couldn't also come via the phone or through the mail. It's just a different medium that people enjoy using."

Use it or lose it

Initially, the Ball and Ball site didn't have much traffic. The decision was made to either plug the site or pull the plug.

Bill and Mitchell decided to pursue setting up reciprocal links, which now is an ongoing marketing activity. Has it paid off? Definitely. People building houses, restoring antique furniture, or searching for authentic brass door hinges or forged iron fireplace tongs may not be able to personally search Pennsylvania for a Dutch person whose barn is crammed with antique hardware. Instead, they check out related sites (building, historical, etc.) on the Web that link them to Ball and Ball. The company also promotes the site in print ads, on stationary, and on Orange Frog race cars.

If he had it to do all over again

Mitchell emphasizes he would start out by getting good advice from sites such as Virtual Promote and eFuse.com. He highly recommends NetObjects Fusion 4.0 because it enables anyone to build a site, even a large one like Ball and Ball, quickly and easy. Mitchell firmly believes that "there's a lot of other stuff out there, but it's just not the caliber of NetObjects Fusion."

Communicating with the world

Creating an Internet site allows any business to introduce itself to the world in a humanized manner that can't be accomplished with print advertising alone. During my first visit to the Ball and Ball site, I was not only impressed with the site design, but also with the personality of the company.

The general manager writes a newsy column filled with info about who's doing what at Ball and Ball. In his February communication, he acknowledged an employee celebrating 40 years of service to the company.

He also wished Happy Birthday to the founding father of Ball and Ball, William A. Ball, a.k.a. TOM (The Old Man). After 65 years in the business, William still comes into the office on a regular basis. He also enjoys searching out antique bargains, haggling over prices, and convincing the store owner to load the goods into his minivan. Pretty remarkable when you consider that he's celebrating his 95^th birthday!

And then there's Orange Frog Racing. No, they don't paint frogs or make them push oranges around a little track. Orange Frog Racing is simply a name for the Ball and Ball folks who race restored (of course) Austin Healeys—creating both glory and big bucks--$15 prize money if you happen to be lucky and good on the same day.

The pictures are wonderful but...

When you visit the Ball and Ball site, you'll be aware of not only the clarity of the pictures but also of how long it takes for them to load. Trust me on this one, it's worth the wait because they are interesting. (To avoid being bored while waiting, you used to have to hum YankeeDoodle Dandy or go make a sandwich.)

Mitchell decided to use large and detailed color pictures taken with a digital camera to feature showrooms, products, processes, and work areas, including this one that shows sand molds being filled with molten brass.

He comments, "If there was going to be a next time, I'd be more inclined to use thumbnails for most of the pictures. And, I'd break the product pages up into multiple pages. But, despite the slow loading time, people comment on how much they enjoy seeing the site and our product line, so maybe it's a tossup."

While we were working on this article, the editor of eFuse.com gave Mitchell some tips, most important of which was that changing the compression setting when saving JPG files could reduce their size by more than half, which means they'd appear to visitors twice as fast. Mitchell says, "eFuse.com has really helped me improve the site. I printed out the article on databases so I now have a place to start to build the next version of my catalog automatically. As for the images, I saved a file and used a quality factor of 75. Voila! 102k down to 24k! What a difference a setting makes. I never knew what that setting did."

Mitchell adds, "You have given me real information to help get my Web site looking and running better. That's more than anyone else has ever done."

Happily ever after

What does the future hold for the Ball and Ball site? Continual expansion. They're setting up on-line ordering, creating a better tracking system, adding new products and new photographs, and continually searching for new links. When asked for words of wisdom about Web sites in general, Bill offers this advice: "Lots of business people are too stiff, too serious, and too self-important about themselves and their sites—they should relax . . .,'' maybe take up racing Austin Healeys.

How's your site?

So how's your site? If it was created using NetObjects Fusion, let us know. We may drop by for a visit. And who knows, fame and fortune may come your way if we feature your site in a future "My First Time" article.

About the author

Molli Nickell, shown here shopping with husband Glenn (a John Wayne lookalike), is an author, freelance writer, and former publisher who, when not snooping around the Internet looking at sites, enjoys tai chi, cowboy movies, and sushi.