Is Your Manufacturing Website Answering These 5 Important Questions?

In today’s business landscape, manufacturing websites are no longer just digital real estate to get found, but a lead generating and converting weapon for marketing and sales. Because the nature of manufacturing marketing has changed into a more user-driven transaction with the abundance of options for research online, manufacturers must ensure that their website answers five essential questions.

1. Who are you?

Are users able to easily understand who you are upon visiting your website? If not, you’re making a vital mistake. Information that conveys who you are should be easily communicated on your site. While it’s a must for this information to appear on your homepage most especially, your website in its entirety should clearly define the answers to this question.

Specifically, your website must be able to provide key pieces of information that tell your visitors who you are and why they should trust you, such as:

What is your value proposition?

What makes you an attractive option for your prospects? Convey what your business brings to the table.

What makes you different?

Think about what sets you apart from your competitors. This message should be clear, concise, strong, and poignant. You can support this messaging by placing social proof items such as awards and accolades, or client testimonials. Case studies are also a great way of showcasing your edge.

What is your brand messaging?

This particular question can be answered in many ways other than writing the answer on your website. Your brand colors, your website design, your tagline, the language and tone you choose, the images on your website, etc.—all of these pieces ultimately communicate your brand messaging.

2. What are you offering?

Your products and service offerings must be clearly communicated on your website. After all, your website is more than just a static place to put directory-like information about your company—it’s a powerful inbound marketing and sales machine if built strategically. Simply put, you’re missing out on a grand opportunity to turn your website visitors into leads or leads into clients if your website does not contain clear information on what exactly you’re selling.

When it comes to placing your products and service offerings on your website, you must think about user experience. Think about the following:

• Are your product or service listings organized to make sense for your target audience?
• Do they contain important information such as specs or pricing to help your website visitors assess them?
• Do you have high-quality images to help convey the right information?
• Do you have strategically placed relevant inbound marketing content offerings to help capture your visitors’ information and help funnel them down the buyer’s journey with lead nurturing?
• Are they current?
• Can they easily be read and understood on desktop and mobile devices?

3. Who buys from you?

Your website visitors should be able to self-identify and clearly tell what type of organizations buy from you. To convey this properly, create your messaging around the pain points and triggers of your buyer personas. Speak in a language that resonates with these personas, explain what benefits these personas experience with the help of your products or services. And lastly, if you can provide video testimonials from your real clients in these persona classifications, the better.

4. Are you knowledgeable in this industry?

Answering this question on your website doesn’t mean blatantly claiming that you are indeed an expert and flooding your site will tactless self-promotional and sales-y language. Instead, to assert your knowledge in the industry you must share your expertise by creating valuable content around it. Blogging, publishing ebooks, guides, video testimonials, and other informative and truly valuable resources for your audience will establish your expertise in your industry.

5. How can I reach out or make a purchase?

Because your inbound marketing website isn’t just your rolodex, but your marketing tool as well, it must ultimately be designed to capture leads and convert them into clients. To do so, your website must be designed with a clear path to doing just that. It must contain tools and information that enables visitors to reach out or make a purchase. As with all things in your website, the simpler you can make it for your audience the better the user experience and likelihood of using these tools to reach out and buy.

Building your manufacturing website strategically around these questions will help you generate leads with ease and attract more of them easily. If your site is not answering these questions just yet, it may be time for you to consider re-strategizing or recreating your website if you don’t want to get outpaced by your competitors.