Small Manufacturing Businesses Websites – Features and SEO Elements
First and foremost, we would like to congratulate all the DIY-lovers reading this post for your courage in manufacturing your own creative items!
For any manufacturing business, either small or well-established, a website seems to be an important vein. Did you know that over 71% of businesses have their own website?! Now, one after the other questions will be running in your mind.
- Will my audience get a chance to even just look at my website?
- Will they like my site?
- Will my website get lost among the competitors’ sites?
Through website features and SEO elements, you can make a difference in capturing your visitor’s attention and establish a competitive advantage.
What are we waiting for? Just dive in.
How is a Website Useful for Your Manufacturing Business?
As you all are aware, in this technology-driven century, the manufacturing industry is broad and wide. No matter whether you manufacture a fitness band or new flavored cookie, homemade body-washing detergent, or anything you name it, a brand’s online visibility has the power to make all your traditional approaches like word-of-mouth referrals, cold calls, campaigns, etc fall short.
- First, the internet has opened the floodgates of opportunities to even buy a product online from an e-commerce website without in-person visits to the manufacturer’s brick-and-mortar store
- Second, customers of today’s era do not make a purchase once after looking at the product. They do research about the brand, educate themselves about the product, read the reviews, and only after satisfaction, they buy the product. For educating about your brand and helping users read your customer reviews, a website would be an excellent platform
Digital efforts you put in for your comprehensive website might not go in vain! There are an estimated 12 million – 24 million e-commerce sites across the entire globe, with more and more being created every single day.
Features of a Small Manufacturing Business Website
Below, we’re listing a few must-have features for your manufacturer’s website. Make a note of these and add them to your site.
1. About Us Page
On a manufacturer website, it’s the about us section where you can play around and persuade your buyers. So, you’ve to naildown your about us page in such a way that when customers see, make up their mind for conversion.
Customers particularly look into your about us page to read about your brand story, certifications, products quality, quality policies. Don’t disappoint them. Make sure you include all these in your about us page.
- ISO certifications and others – Top of your page with the logo and throughout your website on drop-down menus
- Quality policies
- Company’s history – The year your company was launched, vision & mission, founder’s keynote
- Company’s tour – Engaging video content format
2. Products Page
Moving on to the products page, this is again another important page for your customers to make a purchase. Products page is nothing but a page where you list down the images of products you manufacture.
- Bakers will list down the cakes, cookies, bread, and others that they manufacture (e-menu card)
- Soap manufacturers will add the images of soaps, shampoos, and others
- Beauticians will list down the body lotions, face washes, etc (e-catalog)
- Fitness freaks will include the photos of the equipment they do manufacture
Visual content in manufacturer websites is an effective way to show off the quality of your products and also paves the way in grabbing the attention of your buyers than text.
Make a note of these things.
- Low-quality grainy images from a cellphone or stock photos shouldn’t be used
- If you’re an OEM or a custom part manufacturer, showcase your work with high-quality products
- If you’re a service provider or distributor, show off your work with professional-grade photographs
- 95% of users preferred the photos of real people over stock photos, as the stock photos are regarded as irrelevant by the users
“Photo Quality is Important & Placement of Photos is Equally Important”
What we meant here is, before placing the images on your site, you must first decide where to use them and how to use them.
3. Case Studies & Testimonials Sections
You might wonder why a manufacturer site should have a case studies section, but a library of case studies can drive results equally to your word-of-mouth marketing.
- If you’re a baker, you can share about your customized cakes & candies that you make for customers
- If you’re a person manufacturing nutrition bars for diabetes patients, then you can write about it. To add quality, you can add your customer’s before and after transformation photos with their permission
Testimonials work similar to the case studies, that’s why we’ve coupled them. When your customers read your testimonials on your manufacturer’s website, their thoughts about your brand might change.
If you’ve good testimonials from your customers, then it’s for sure a perfect add-on for your manufacturer’s website.
4. E-Shopping Feature
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping has become the new normal. Online shopping is growing so fast that the global online shopping market size, nearly hit 4 trillion in 2020. And in the US alone, we’re expecting to have 300 million online shoppers in 2023.
That’s 91% of the country’s current population!!
So, for a manufacturer website, the e-shopping feature is very much essential. Instead of placing your products on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, you can integrate e-commerce functionality on your own website.
5. Easy Search & Filter Option
For a manufacturer website, this is again another important feature. As a manufacturer, your primary goal of having a website would be for selling your products online. If you just create a page and list down all your products, it would be hard for your buyers to navigate.
You should always make sure that when visitors come into your website, they find the things they are searching for easily. It shouldn’t be a problem for your users to search and find things.
Add a search bar along with autocorrect & autosuggest features which would further help your customers easily find the things and reduce your site’s bounce rate as well.
6. User Registration & Login
The basic idea of you manufacturing products will be to take them to customers. No manufacturer would develop a new product and keep it in his/her cupboard. But, selling a product is not a cup of tea, you’ll have to find a retailer or reach customers in-person.
In either approach, you’ll have challenges. E-stores can ease you from this. All you’ve to do is integrate an e-commerce functionality in your site. Further, you can offer a hassle-free shopping experience to your prospects by allowing them to register on your site.
Something like this.
Source: Easy Tutorials
7. Security Policies
Security seems to be the backbone for any e-commerce store. Being an e-commerce owner, you’re going to deal with all customer’s sensitive data like bank details and financial transactions. Therefore, you’re solely responsible for protecting your customer data from hacks, thefts, and other fraudulent activities.
Phishing, malware & ransomware, SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), e-skimming are some of the security threats you have to be aware of.
Few E-commerce Security Tips to Protect Your Online Store
- Choose a highly-secure e-commerce software of the latest version with PCI compliance
- Implement SSL – a security layer that establishes secure connectivity between your e-commerce website and end-user systems
- Implement two-factor authentication (2FA) – customers have to provide two types of identification – username & password and autogenerated security code sent to the registered customer’s mobile number. It’s highly impossible for hackers to crack the code as it expires too fast
- Establish a virtual private network – Unlike other public networks, VPN provides you with an encrypted connection to a secure offsite server. This prevents a third party from intermeddling between you and the server
- Check it twice before you download plugins or addons or other tools. This is why, because many hackers implant malware on your site through these add-ons
Vital SEO Elements Every Small Manufacturer Websites should have
You cannot stop by once after creating a website with these features. The game is on only when you get into the SEO phase.
Here, we’ve listed a few crucial SEO elements that you shouldn’t miss out on your manufacturer’s website.
Structure of the URL
- Consistent throughout your website
- Reflect the path of your users
- Structured URL – Include a business name, keyword, and hyphens
- Create short & easy-to-read URLs
- Use descriptive keywords
Page Titles & Heading Tags
- Consistent and proper structure (Main subject | Company Name)
- Placed in the URL
- Main subject and keyword for that page
- 50-70 characters long
Keywords
- Long-tail keywords
- Localized keywords including city or state name
- Tools like Google Keyword Planner
- The most important keywords should be fixed in the first 150-160 characters of the content
- No keywords stuffing instead, incorporate them in a natural way
Meta Description
- 155 character limit
- Unique to each page
- Convey the sole purpose
- Include the common keywords
Point to Remember – Website development is not a ‘set-it and forget-it’ task, once after giving life to the website that was in your vision, you’ll have to continuously update the tools you’ve used in your website, add the latest web features, and revamp the whole site whenever necessary.
Build Your Small Manufacturer Business Website with these Features & SEO Elements
A website has become the digital face of your business. Therefore, it should solely be responsible for driving users toward any action. You can make your users download a newsletter, login to your ebook, enter their contact details to make a purchase, etc.
If you want your site with better visibility on SERPs and encourage users to perform any action, then don’t miss out on incorporating all these features and SEO elements on your website.
Do reach our website designers, developers, and digital marketers at Small Business Web. We can support your website development journey by clearly taking heed to your requirements.
You no need to grab the audience, your website can do it for you!
About the Author - Pavithra Samuel
I'm a passionate copywriter at Small Business Web sharing a special bond with digital marketing. I aim at delivering masterpiece content for which my research helps a lot. I always search for unique inspirations and write them all down to use in my blogs & content. I make the best use of the upgraded tools & technologies that greatly assist in content writing. Other than reading & writing, my other two friends are food & music. On and often, I do write blog posts, to get regular updates, stay tuned with us.
