Selling adhesives, resins and solvents by application, not by product name

A furniture workshop owner who needs glue for laminate does not search for "SR-40 synthetic rubber adhesive". The search is for the job: "adhesive for sticking laminate on plywood". A footwear unit searches "glue for PU sole". So for adhesives, sealants and many resins, the page that gets found is named for the application. It names the two materials and the problem the buyer wants to avoid. Product pages still matter once the buyer is comparing. But the first visit comes through the job, and a catalogue of product codes does not appear in that search.

Which of your products deserve an application page?

Not all of them. Searches fall into two kinds, and the kind decides the page.

Commodity solvents and standard resins are bought by name and grade. A buyer who needs toluene, IPA or a general purpose polyester resin types exactly that, with a purity or a pack size. For these, a product page with grade, packing, documents and a rate enquiry route is the right page. An application page for "solvent for cleaning" would attract hobbyists, not tanker buyers.

Formulated products are different. Nobody outside your plant knows what KX-22 is. The buyer knows what they are joining, coating or cleaning, and what went wrong last time.

So use one test: would two buyers use the same product name and mean the same thing? If yes, build a product page by grade. If they would describe the job instead, build an application page.

From product list to application pages

Write your catalogue down the left side. Then, beside each product, write what the buyer actually types. Your sales team and the chemist who takes technical calls know these phrases; ask them, and read the last few enquiry emails.

Two things show up when you fill this in. One application can use two of your products, which belong on the same page with the reason to choose each. And some products have no buyer phrase at all, which tells you they are sold through a few customers who already know the code.

What goes on an application page

The page is written for the person who has the problem, not for your chemist. Build it from these parts, in this order:

1. A heading naming the materials and the job, in the buyer's words.
2. The problem they want to avoid, as they would say it: edges lifting, sole peeling after a month, bubbles in the laminate.
3. Which of your products fits, which grade, and why that one rather than the other.
4. How it is applied (brush, spray, roller or gun) and the open time and drying time from your own technical data sheet.
5. What it is not suited for. Name the materials and conditions you have not tested.
6. Pack sizes, the smallest order you will dispatch, and the towns you deliver to.
7. A photograph of the real joint or job, not a stock picture of a drum.
8. The technical data sheet and safety data sheet as downloads, and a named person to call.

Item 5 is the one owners resist. It is also the one that saves you from a complaint. Any claim about strength, heat resistance or food contact must come from your own test records. The rules on what you may claim, and on labels and safety sheets, differ by product and change. Check with your own adviser or the regulator before the page goes live.

Show the job, with the customer's permission

An application page gets stronger when it describes one real job. A sofa maker in your town who switched to your foam adhesive, what was used before, and what changed on the shop floor. Photographs of the workshop, taken with the maker's agreement. If the maker would rather not be named, describe the trade and the town without the name.

This is the point where a page stops reading like a catalogue. Write two or three of these as customer case studies, one per main application, and link each from its page.

For example: an adhesive maker in Kundli

Imagine, as an invented example, an adhesive maker in Kundli, on the Haryana side of Delhi. It makes synthetic rubber and PU adhesives for footwear units in Bahadurgarh and furniture workshops across west Delhi. Its website lists fourteen products by code under one page called "Industrial adhesives". Searches for the company name find it. Nothing else does.

The owner builds three application pages: sole attaching for footwear, laminate to plywood, and foam for upholstery. Each names the products by code inside the page and links to the data sheets. Within a season, the footwear page brings enquiries from units in Agra as well as Bahadurgarh.

It also brings a problem. The page said the PU grade suited "all common sole materials". A unit making TPR soles orders a trial drum, and the bond fails on their soles, a material the plant had never tested. The owner corrects the page the same week, at the cost of a replacement drum and the buyer's lost production day, about ₹45,000 in this example. It now lists the soles tested, states that TPR has not been tested, and offers a free sample against the buyer's own sole before any order. The next TPR enquiry starts with a sample, not a complaint.

When application pages are wasted effort

Skip them if you sell to a handful of manufacturers whose drawings already specify your product code. Those buyers reorder by code, and a better data sheet does more for them.

Skip them for products you sell only on the day's rate by the tanker or drum. And hold off if nobody in your plant can answer an application question on the phone. Pages built for search bring technical callers. A caller who reaches a sales person reading from a price list goes back to the search results.

Write the page for the call your chemist takes most often

Ask your chemist or technical sales person which application they explain most on the phone, and write that page first in the callers' own words. Fill in the "not suited for" line honestly. Then see which enquiries mention it. The wider trade picture is on the chemicals hub. If you want help turning your product list into application pages that search engine optimisation can bring buyers to, tell us what you need.