In an increasingly competitive industry, a high-quality website is the foundation of a successful manufacturing marketing strategy.
Whether your company's goals include establishing industry credibility and expertise, generating leads, or boosting sales, a well-designed website can help you get there.
Throughout this article, we'll be looking at the many benefits of stellar website design for manufacturers. We'll also introduce you to some of the key components of great manufacturer website design, complete with examples from real companies.
Website design for manufacturing companies is the foundation of a strong online presence. A well-designed website can serve as a testament to your company’s credibility, professionalism, and expertise.
But a quality manufacturing website design can help your company do a lot more than make a good first impression. It can also incorporate the tools and features you need to succeed in an increasingly global economy.
A recent Gartner survey revealed that over 80% of B2B customers prefer using eCommerce to place orders. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that B2B eCommerce manufacturing sales in the U.S. are already pulling in over $620 billion dollars worth of business. Now is the time to invest in key manufacturing trends that are only likely to continue growing.
But even if you aren't quite ready to make the eCommerce leap, your website can still help create better customer experiences for leads at every stage of the marketing funnel. Incorporating features like marketing automation for manufacturers can be a game-changer when it comes to boosting conversions and increasing efficiency.
The good news is that web design for manufacturers doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective. Let’s start with the basics of a solid web design strategy, as demonstrated by real manufacturing website examples.
Never underestimate the power of consistency when it comes to creating recognizable branding. Take Ford, for instance, a company whose logo font has changed very little in over a century. The company’s trademark blue oval, which has been in play since the 1920s, is also instantly recognizable to people all over the world.
The bottom line is that top manufacturers put a great deal of thought into their color schemes and branding, then use them consistently across their marketing materials. Check out Ford’s website for a great example of how to incorporate your company’s trademark color scheme into your website design.
The easier your website is to navigate, the more effective it’s likely to be. Start with a header menu that features links to the top 5 to 7 most important categories on your website, such as “Products,” “Services,” and “About Our Company.”
How do you organize and present numerous subcategories? Let’s look at a great example from BASF, a global manufacturing company that engineers solutions for multiple markets.
When you click a main menu option on the company’s website, you’ll be presented with a dropdown side menu featuring more specific subcategories. The company also makes effective use of internal linking opportunities, as well as a well organized footer menu.
While images and videos can add a great deal to a website, it’s important to ensure that you stick exclusively to high-quality media. Few things look more unprofessional than grainy photos or videos that fail to load quickly.
A great UX designer can also help you ensure that your media loads at the right resolution across a number of different devices. Additionally, consider using multiple types of media to appeal to different viewers. Check out the Chevron website for a great example of this concept in action.
If you are building a website for your manufacturing company or considering a redesign of your existing site you’re going to start the process with a lot of questions. One of those will be “What’s a good example of web design for manufacturing companies?”
As you are considering the answer to that it’s important to think about what design entails. Yes, it’s what the look and feel of the site is but it should also incorporate how the information is presented and what the purpose of the site is. The design of the site needs to tell your company story.
As you contemplate the answers to those, explore these examples of manufacturing website design inspiration.
This is a good example of putting a product in the spotlight. The headline pulls the reader in by being slightly almost condescending, while the copy of the page quickly pulls you in with two key words that every manufacturing purchaser wants to see: “No CAPEx.”
Here’s what’s great about the Xometry site, it immediately sends the visitor a message - “You know what you need so let’s get started.” Yes, you can explore their site and go through all of their products and services but they don’t highlight those on the home page. Instead, they use the space to showcase their interest in becoming a partner. Right now.
People are not going to randomly visit the Kongskilde site, they are going there for a purpose. The design of the product pages helps visitors achieve that purpose. The pages not only showcase the features and benefits of a product, they help you to easily compare product models. There’s also a video section to see products in action and hear from customers and employees directly. Keeping all of this information together instead of siloed in different sections of the site puts everything a visitor needs to make a purchase right in their hands.
Videos can do a lot of lifting when it comes to delivering content on your site. Hayes uses videos to not just show their products in action but to let the people who make them explain the how and the why of what a product does.
Primary Flow Signal specializes in a very specific solution. They use space on their homepage to showcase all of the variations they offer on those solutions. Using clean images and short descriptions helps site visitors quickly find what they need.
As soon as visitors enter the Laguna Tools website, they are met with a full-screen video. It’s less of a showcase of products and more of an aesthetic piece showing quick hits of where and when products could be used. And it does exactly what it’s intended to do - get you excited to dig into the site and learn more.
When it comes to manufacturing website examples, Qualitair stands on its own. They have a modern look that leans heavily on text and blueprint-like illustrations. It’s a fun design that invites you to play and explore.
Sometimes the best way for people to understand what your company can do is to simply show them. That’s what AtkinsRėalis does with their website. Incorporating large case studies in a place of prominence on the site instills a certain level of confidence with a site visitor.
You want your website to make a statement, and that’s what the site for Reload Motors does. Quite literally. The homepage of their site is reserved for a bold statement made on a striking all-black screen. It knows exactly the type of company it is and proclaims it loudly.
Icons can be a great way to move people through your site. They are a way to succinctly tell your story and can overcome any potential language barriers. There is a careful balance that must be met when using them in a website design for manufacturing companies and Hajster achieves that beautifully.
Now let’s explore the sales strategy side of website design for manufacturers. The key here is often to create the best, most helpful user experience possible.
When it comes to web design, the smallest details can often make the biggest difference. Make sure elements like product descriptions are clear, compelling, and well organized. General Mills, a company with multiple brands under its umbrella, offers a great example.
NTS Unitek, a global supply chain services provider, demonstrates how the same organization principles can also be used to showcase client testimonials. Ontic, an aerospace parts manufacturer, uses the same cohesive flow to demonstrate their expertise through case studies.
Last but not least, be sure to include clear call-to-action (CTA) links that tell your readers what you’d like them to do next. Whether it be filling out a lead generation form or exploring your blog, CTAs should serve as road markers along your reader’s customer journey.
In web design terms, a “responsive” website is one that can be accessed from any device without sacrificing quality. Given that mobile users now account for over half of all web traffic, having a responsive site is incredibly important.
While a good developer should be able to help ensure that your website is responsive, there are also plenty of free online tools you can use to see what it looks like on different devices. Some web design platforms, such as Webflow, even come with built-in tools that allow you to gauge responsiveness during the design process.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art of boosting your website’s odds of appearing in relevant search results. If you’re not familiar with SEO principles, it's a worthy investment to hire a professional SEO agency. While SEO tends to be a bit of an art unto itself, here’s a look at several factors that can affect your site’s search engine visibility:
If you’re interested in learning more about SEO, consider checking out this free course from HubSpot. It’ll get you up to speed on the many components that go into boosting your website’s search engine visibility.
Building your manufacturing website on the right platform is critical to its success. But what is the “right” platform? That depends on what you want your site to do.
If you are going to be enabling your site to make sales online you might want to build on a platform that’s focused on e-commerce like:
If the intent of your site is to be more informational, you can consider a platform like:
The task of creating a good manufacturing web design will ultimately be the responsibility of a talented designer. But they will not be able to complete the work alone. The first step in the process will be for members of every team invested in the web site to get together to discuss what content they have to go into the site and what they need the site to do. (i.e. sell products, generate leads, showcase investor information etc.)
It will also be important to do an industry analysis to see what competitors are, and are not, doing. You don’t want to follow their lead just to do it, but you may find patterns and see areas where there is a clear visitor expectation. For example, if everyone has a chat feature, visitors may expect your site to have that as well so it will be important to meet their expectations.
At this time, you’ll also want to review your buyer personas to get an understanding as to how and when customers may be using the site.
With a detailed understanding of what a site needs to be, the colors, imagery, icons and other visual elements can start to be laid out.
At Market Veep we sit in a good groove. We have experience with marketing and design and we really understand the manufacturing industry. When we put these two sides together we can help industrial companies re-define their online presence. Using design best-practices and refined analytics, our team can come up with the best website design for your manufacturing company to:
Contact us today and let’s talk about designing a high-performing manufacturing website for your company.
While a great deal of thought and planning goes into website design for manufacturers, the results can be well worth the effort. Upping your company’s website game can be a real game-changer when it comes to improving your credibility, attracting higher-quality leads, and boosting your conversion numbers. Investing in manufacturing marketing services can further enhance your online presence, ensuring your website becomes a powerful tool for driving business growth.