A practical website brief for manufacturers and exporters
Industrial buyers research thoroughly before they make contact. Use this brief to plan a website that answers their questions and generates serious enquiries.
Many manufacturers have excellent products and a website that undersells them. For export and corporate buyers, the website is often the first test of whether a supplier is credible enough to contact.
Here's a brief you can use to plan a new website or review an existing one.
Who the website is for
List the people who will visit and what each needs. A procurement manager wants capacity, certifications and lead times. An engineer wants specifications and tolerances. A distributor wants product range and terms. Your structure should serve each of them without making them dig.
The pages that matter most
- Product or capability pages, one for each product line
- Industries or applications you serve
- Quality, certifications and testing
- Manufacturing facility and capacity
- About the company, including history and leadership
- Contact and request-for-quote
What every product page should include
- A clear description of what the product is and what it's used for
- Key specifications in a table, not a paragraph
- Available grades, sizes or variants
- Downloadable data sheets or brochures
- A request-for-quote button with the product already filled in
Proof that you can deliver
Buyers look for evidence of reliability: certifications, quality processes, photos of the actual facility, industries served and, where permitted, client names. Real photographs of your plant are far more convincing than stock images of factories.
Making enquiries easy
Keep the request-for-quote form short: name, company, email, product, quantity and message. Let buyers attach drawings or specifications. Make sure every submission is tracked so you know which pages and campaigns produce enquiries.
Planning for search
Industrial buyers search for specific terms: product names, grades, specifications and applications. Each important product deserves its own page targeting those terms. For export markets, consider which countries matter most and whether the site should support other languages.
