What a manufacturer's website needs to answer before a buyer calls

The fourth call before lunch wants zinc castings, and you only pour aluminium. A manufacturer's website has to answer five questions before a buyer rings. What do you make, in what quantities, and how do you check it? Who have you made it for? And how does the drawing reach you? When the site answers them, the calls that reach you come from buyers who already fit. When it does not, your works manager answers them one at a time, between shifts.

What callers ask is the brief for the website

Before anyone writes a page, keep a notebook beside the phone that takes enquiries, for a fortnight. For every call, WhatsApp message and directory lead, note the caller's first question and whether they were a buyer you could serve.

Two patterns show up. Good buyers ask the same three or four things in nearly the same words, and each is a sentence missing from your site. The wrong callers repeat themselves too: the alloy you do not run, a quantity of fifty when your dies pay back only in thousands, a dealer wanting a rate list.

Those notes, in the callers' own words, are a better brief than any template. They also show why "a leading manufacturer committed to quality" fails as a home page line: no caller asks whether you are committed.

The five answers, and where each one sits

Write them in the order a buyer checks them, and put each on a specific page, not in the About us paragraph.

1. What can you make? On each process page, give the size range, the materials and grades you run, and the tolerance you hold without special effort. "Aluminium pressure die castings in ADC12 and LM6, from small brackets up to gearbox covers" tells a design engineer more than a photograph of the machine.
2. In what quantities, and by when? The purchase officer needs your comfortable batch range, and the event your lead time is counted from: the drawing, the sample approval or the purchase order. A lead time with no starting point is no use to anyone.
3. How do you check it? The quality engineer looks for inspection equipment by name, the report that travels with a first lot, and whether you keep a sample from each batch.
4. Who have you made it for? Name the industries and the kinds of parts, and say how long you have supplied them. "The same cover for one motor maker through two model changes" is proof a buyer can weigh. A wall of logos is not.
5. Where does the drawing go? A named person, a mobile number that takes WhatsApp, and an email address that accepts a STEP file. Then the four things you need with it: the drawing, the material, the yearly quantity and the finish.

The full list of pages a factory site needs is in our website checklist for manufacturing companies. This post is about the words on them.

Say what you do not take

A short page, or a block on each process page, can list what you do not do. Put it near the top, in plain words: "Not for us: zinc or magnesium, sand or gravity castings, and runs too short to pay for a new die. Ask anyway and we will suggest a unit that does it."

A no-list feels like turning business away. In practice it keeps the works manager's afternoon for callers who fit, and a buyer who reads an honest no believes the yes beside it. Rate collectors will still ring, but the buyer with the wrong alloy has an answer before dialling.

Keep two things off the page. A rate for parts made to a drawing invites the rate collector and tells your competitor your number. And a capacity figure you would not defend on the phone will be quoted back to you. If output swings with the season, give the range and add "confirmed against your drawing".

Proof a buyer can check without ringing

Photograph the floor on a working day: stores, inspection table and despatch, not the reception desk. Put up a sample inspection report with the customer's name and part number blanked out, so the quality engineer sees the format before asking for it.

Show certificates with the scope line readable. A certificate that covers machining does not cover casting, and an engineer will read that line. Where a customer forbids naming, describe the part and the industry instead. The post on how industrial buyers decide which unit gets the RFQ says more on what buyers weigh.

Imagine a die-casting unit in Rajkot

Imagine an aluminium pressure die-casting unit in Rajkot, making housings and covers for electric motor and gearbox makers. Its site had a home page slider, a machine list and a contact form that emailed an address only the accountant opened. The works manager took enquiries on a personal mobile and spent a good part of each day saying no: to zinc enquiries, to a buyer wanting forty pieces, to a dealer asking for a price list.

The mistake was not the design. The site never said which alloys it ran, how large a part it could cast, what the minimum run was, or what happened after casting. So every caller had to ask.

New writing fixed most of it. The unit made one page each for die casting, machining of castings and powder coating, with sizes, alloys and the no-list at the top of the casting page. The contact block moved onto every page, with the works manager's name and WhatsApp number above one line: "Send the drawing, the alloy, the yearly quantity and the finish." Calls fell and grew longer. The pages took the works manager two weekends to check, and a few zinc callers still rang.

When the website should say less

If two customers already take all your capacity, more enquiries are a nuisance. Write pages only for the process with spare hours.

A tool room where every job is different should not invent standard numbers. Say how you quote and what you need from the buyer. And if your product falls under a certification or approval, describe it only as the certificate states it. Rules differ by product, state and certifying body and they change, so check with your certifying body or adviser before you claim anything on a page.

Start with the notebook by the phone

Put it there today. After a fortnight, circle each first question that came up three times and has no answer on your site. That is the first page to write. A die caster's buyer asks different things from a forge's buyer, and the manufacturing hub is split by trade for that reason. If you would rather hand the notebook to someone outside the factory and get pages back, see website content writing or tell us what you need.