Meet The Team

Michael Alford

Website Manager at Broken Tractor. The search bar you use, the product pages you read, the photos you check fitment against, the “My Machine” tool that knows what fits your equipment — all of it is his work.

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Michael Alford • Website Manager • Baton Rouge, LA

For most customers, the first thing they ever see of Broken Tractor is brokentractor.com. The search bar. The category pages. The 19,000-product catalog. The photos used to verify a part fits the machine in the shop. The way the right options surface when somebody types in a make and model. That’s all Michael.

Four and a half years on the job, and the title “Website Manager” undersells what the role actually involves. It’s closer to running a small in-house product team. Michael writes code, builds custom tools, manages the catalog, runs photo sessions, ships product launches, watches the analytics, and works directly with Chance on whatever’s next.

What the job actually involves

“I work hand-in-hand with Chance on listings, redesigns, product launches, photo sessions, and everything in between.”

Most days find Michael cycling between four tools: BigCommerce admin for the catalog, Visual Studio Code for the actual code that runs the site, Photoshop for product imagery, and Google Analytics for understanding what’s working. The mix matters. A Website Manager who only knows the admin panel can manage a website. A Website Manager who can also write the code and shoot the photos can build one.

What’s behind the search bar

Most customers see a search bar and a product page. The honest version of what makes that work:

“It takes custom tools to manage our 19,000-product catalog. We are always scanning our listings to ensure accuracy and clarity.”

That word — custom — is doing the heavy lifting in that sentence. Off-the-shelf e-commerce tools weren’t designed to handle 30+ heavy-equipment brands, decades of model variants, dozens of serial-number breaks, and the kind of fitment data customers need to verify before they order. So Michael builds what BigCommerce doesn’t ship with. Tools that scan for accuracy. Tools that flag listings that need updating. Tools that make sure the right model fits the right part across the entire catalog.

None of that is visible to a customer. All of it is the reason the website actually works.

The feature he’s most proud of

Ask Michael what he’s built that he’s most proud of, and the answer is a feature most customers may have used without realizing somebody on staff designed and built it: the My Machine tool.

“This feature allows you to add your machine to the site and get the right content brought to your attention. Tags are added to all products that potentially fit your machine. This has helped our customers verify fitments and reduce downtime on returns.”

Here’s why that matters. The single biggest source of frustration in the aftermarket parts business isn’t finding parts. It’s ordering the right part — one that actually fits the specific machine in the customer’s shop, with its specific serial-number break, its specific configuration. The “My Machine” tool turns the entire 19,000-product catalog into a personalized view: tag your machine once, and from then on, the site knows what could fit you. Less guessing. Fewer wrong-part returns. Less downtime on the job site.

That’s a tool you don’t see other parts sites investing in — and it’s the kind of build that’s only possible because the person managing the website actually writes the code.

What he wants every customer to know

“My job is to make sure that when you land on brokentractor.com, you find whatever you need with ease.”

That’s the bar he holds the website to. Not “looks nice.” Not “feature-rich.” Find what you need with ease. When the site does that, his work is invisible — which is the entire point.

Off the clock

On any given weekend, Michael might have an acoustic guitar in his hands. Or a baseball glove. (Not at the same time, he’ll point out.) The same quiet competence that builds the website builds chord progressions and warmups for catch in the yard. The mix probably doesn’t make sense on paper. It works in practice.