Digitally speaking, your manufacturing website is your best chance to put your company’s best foot forward, one step ahead of the competition. Like trade show booths, manufacturing websites should include strong imagery and messaging to increase traffic and convince your audience to spend time on your site, before they move on to a competitor’s website.
For example, if your manufacturing company serves the transportation industry, your website would ideally include audience-appropriate railway, railcar or logistics imagery, with clear messaging to show how your solutions can help them move their customers’ products more efficiently from point A to point B.
In that same vein, I’ve selected 10 of the best manufacturing websites, based on how likely they are to engage industrial audiences and help convert site visitors into sales prospects.
Our criteria for determining the best manufacturing websites include:
- Attention-grabbing content, imagery and video to drive to clear calls to action (CTAs), such as Request a Quote or Talk to an Engineer
- Engaging, easy-to-navigate user experience, via responsive or adaptive website designs that are mobile-friendly
- Easy-to-download technical and visual information, such as data sheets, 3D CAD models and other information for sharing with procurement teams
- Gated “lead-magnet” resources, such as a white papers that customers are willing to provide their contact information to access
- The ability to reach a real person via a chat bot or phone number, backed by staff ready to answer questions and nurture potential sales prospects
1. ZEON Chemicals
ZEON’s clean layout and compelling imagery grabbed my attention with messaging that quickly positions the company as an industrial leader in elastomer and non-elastomer application challenges. The homepage avoids the endless scroll that plagues many websites, with benefit-oriented copy that drives the visitor to take action (View Our Products, Talk to an Expert, Join Our Team, etc.).
The site design loads quickly for desktop and mobile devices, and is easy to navigate and search for product information. Each product landing page features extensive technical and visual details that engineers are often searching for to vet vendors for their procurement teams, such as video demos, data sheets, application-specific features and benefits.
2. Markforged
This additive manufacturing website does a great job zeroing in on the value proposition for the customer: “Our smart platform makes it easy to solve tough manufacturing problems.”
The site’s impressive 3D imagery and compelling content show how they solve their customers’ challenges, with application spotlights, case studies and blogs, as well as supporting data sheets and technical resources. Their helpful learning library makes it easy to understand the basics of 3D printing, so visitors can better envision what type of solutions fit their manufacturing needs.
3. Greenbrier
This website was featured in our previous list of the “10 Best Industrial Websites” because of how quickly it presents the value proposition to its customers: “Helping You Transport Your Products Safely and Easily.” They provide a concise breakdown of specific transportation industry services, from railcar manufacturing and maintenance to marine load management and logistics. Services are clearly delineated with different brand colors and icons.
This site also includes a careers landing page, with well-placed CTAs (Find Jobs, View All Jobs, etc.) supported by compelling reasons why you should consider Greenbrier as a future employer, from their strong stance on diversity and inclusion to providing opportunities for employee growth and development.
4. Fairlawn Tool Inc.
Like the ZEON website, Fairlawn Tool’s website scales well on mobile and desktop devices. The Fairlawn homepage quickly defines who they are and what they do, with a compelling value proposition for why you should consider them for contract metal manufacturing services: “We are not just a supplier. We are an extension of your success.”
They also provide specific reasons to believe their value proposition and the benefits to partnering with them, including reduced lead times, mitigated quality issues and lower operating costs. In addition to well-placed CTA buttons on the homepage (Contact Us, Request a Quote, etc.), they prominently display their phone number in the top navigation for site visitors.
5. Independent Machine Company (IMC)
This is another example of a manufacturing website that quickly gets to the point of what they offer their customers: “Specializing in the Design & Manufacturing of Web Processing Machinery.” The homepage highlights their key products and services immediately after the hero image, without forcing you to scroll down below the fold to find applicable machinery for your specific industry.
This site also stands out from most manufacturing websites because of its interactive spool calculators, which you can use to determine the spool size for a known length of material or to calculate the spool length for a known spool size. They also feature a video library of industry-specific product demonstrations.
6. Graco
Graco’s manufacturing microsite makes it easy for manufacturers to browse their products and services, without getting lost in their all-encompassing global website for a wide range of industries. The microsite offers easy-to-find resources to help manufacturers get the most value from their product offerings, from instruction manuals and product training to quick access to technical support and local distributors.
The tagline and manufacturing imagery quickly implies a clear benefit to browsing Graco’s solutions: “Moving Your Manufacturing Forward.” The supporting copy clarifies key industries served and the most sought-after material options for manufacturing and processing.
7. Siemens Energy
Like the Graco site, the Siemens Energy microsite effectively presents specific service offerings to power generation companies/utilities, oil and gas or other industries that require turbine repairs, replacements or refurbishments.
Unlike many manufacturing websites, this website also features a high level of professional imagery and videos. The concise customer-focused copy quickly clarifies what services and value they offer for busy facility managers or reliability engineers, instead of populating the site with catchy taglines and lengthy lists of all their technical features. In essence, the site is designed to make engineers’ jobs easier.
8. Marlin Steel
This site stands apart from most manufacturing websites because of the compelling copy and video/imagery, with a powerful value proposition that tells you exactly what they do: Quality Engineered Quick® – Wire and Steel Products. There is also a compelling video narrative, with a prominent link to the YouTube video on the homepage: Small, family-owned company reinvents itself as a custom wire and basket fabricator to overcome overseas competition.
The site also offers a wealth of “lead magnet” white papers, case studies, product guides and custom 3D renderings. Surprisingly, all of their downloadable content was gated. Even the brochures required a quick form-fill to download! A busy engineer may decide to move on to a competitor site, if they have to complete form fills to download basic product information.
9. A+ Group
Technically, this is not a manufacturing website, but the A+ Group site is targeted to manufacturers looking for metal and plastics hardware solutions. The company does a great job of differentiating themselves from other hardware suppliers by emphasizing their nearly 30 years of industry expertise and their massive scale (100,000,000+ units supplied annually).
Like many of the picks on this list of exceptional manufacturing websites, the site imagery and customer-targeted copy quickly get to the point of what they do, while conveying their unique value proposition. The persuasive copy drives to easy-to-find CTAs for product discounts and Contact Us prompts. The Resources section provides ungated, easy-to-download product catalogs and industry-relevant, topic-specific blogs.
10. Spray Equipment & Service Center
Spray Equipment & Service Center recently launched this e-commerce website. The new site serves as a company website with a user-friendly e-commerce platform, now fully-optimized for SEO. The homepage quickly lets you know who they are, with customer-focused copy that drives you to CTAs (Why Choose Spray).
This manufacturing website also displays customer-focused functionality, from a live chat tool to prominent phone accessibility to simplified purchase orders. The homepage design also makes it easier for site visitors to browse products and shop by category, as well as quickly explore Spray Equipment’s more customized services and solutions.
Do You Have What It Takes to Get on the List of Top 10 Manufacturing Websites?
Whether you’re a manufacturer or an industrial company that serves the manufacturing industry, your manufacturing website design and content must quickly engage visitors, or they’ll move on to one of your competitors.
It’s also important to remember that the industrial buying cycle can take nine months or more and frequently involves multiple stakeholders, which is why providing easy-to-download information is essential. During the many phases and non-linear nature of industrial buying, representatives from a company will likely visit your website multiple times across multiple devices, making it a critical aspect of your digital marketing mix.
