New research.

1. Presentation Title
Subtitle
Month, #, Year
Manufacturing Company Websites:
7 Best Practices
What do top manufacturing firms
put on their websites?

2. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
ANDY CRESTODINA
Co-Founder / CMO
SHAHIN DEJY
Business Development Lead
Welcome
AMANDA GANT
Director of Marketing

3. What do the top
manufacturing firms
put on their sites?

4. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
The Data

6. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Website Usability Study, 2004 vs 2016
source: NN Group

7. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: NN Group
Causes of User Failure

8. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Which of these online frustrations
have you experienced in the last month?
source: Drift, 2020

9. Answer visitor questions

10. Questions to ask your
clients/customers…

11. Take me back to that moment when
you first realized you needed help.

12. What almost kept you
from hiring us?

13. What made you confident enough
to give us a try?

14. When evaluating options,
what was most important to you?

15. If you couldn’t work with us ever again,
what would you miss the most?

16. Questions to ask
your top salesperson…

17. What questions are you just sick
and tired of answering?

18. What should people ask you,
but they usually don’t?

19. What is the biggest number
you can get up to?

20. What is the A-ha moment
prospects have during sales calls?

21. Fill in this blank: people can work
with us even if they ______.

22. ABC Electrical Components

23. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
We partner with
product design teams…
Marketing Client
Take me back to the
moment when you
knew you needed help.
We were designing
the new product,
realized we needed a
new component.

24. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
…Safe for outdoor
connections…
Marketing Client
…Meets ISO 9001
standards…
When evaluating
options, what was most
important to you?
The connectors have
to work outdoors.
Also, we need ISO
9001 documentation.

25. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
What can you do now
that you couldn’t do
before?
Because these
couplings are universal,
ordering is way easier
Universal couplings for
easy ordering and fewer
returns
Marketing Client

26. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
What made you confident
enough to give us a try?
I know your
components are in a
lot of products
4500+ products use
our connectors
Marketing Client

27. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
What is the biggest
number you can get up to?
We’ve sold and
delivered 22,000
miles of conduit
22,000+ miles
of conduit delivered
since 1983
Marketing Sales

28. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Companies can use our
products even if _____?
Even if they have a
small order!
Small order? Short run?
No problem.
Marketing Sales

29. Product Designer

30. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: Service Page Checklist
Checklist for
high-performing
sales pages

31. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
1. Short descriptive headline
2. Keyword focus
3. Quick visual credibility
4. Meaningful subheads
5. Answers to top questions
6. Short paragraphs
B2B Sales Page Checklist
7. Testimonials / social proof
8. Strong supportive visuals
9. Faces of your people
10. Data and statistics
11. Clean, simple flow
12. Depth and detail (800+ words)
13. Compelling call to action

32. 1. Descriptive Homepage Headline
Just 51% of manufacturing company websites
have descriptive homepage headlines

33. What does this company do??

34. No one knows what this means

35. The Backyard BBQ Test
“So what do you do for a living?”

36. “Products” “Products”
“Products” …but what kind?

37. They solve “industry-specific”
problems

38. Products, Services and
Solutions

39. The home page has 20x the
ranking potential of any other page
on the website

40. They make laminators,
so this makes sense!

41. The elevator pitch

43. Ah, that’s what they do!

44. 75%
50%
75%
50%
Scroll Heat Maps
source: HotJar

45. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Most homepage visitors don’t scroll
Composite scroll heat maps for 10 lead gen
website homepages (desktop only).
On average 73% of homepage visitors
do not see any below-the-fold content.

46. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices

49. Visual Prominence
That Guides their Attention

58. Get a quick quote

59. 2. Social Icons In the Header
Many manufacturing company websites
still have social icons in their headers

61. Do you really want
people to click on these?

65. Social media icons at the bottom

67. Which of these gets
clicked the most?

68. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

69. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

70. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

71. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

73. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

74. Source: Where’d They Go? Tracking Exit Clicks Using GTM

79. 3. Homepage Title Tags
22% of manufacturing company websites
have “home” as the title of their homepage

80. The title tag is descriptive

81. “Home” doesn’t indicate
relevance for anything…

82. The homepage has 25x the
ranking potential as the next
most credible page…

83. …and yet it ranks for nothing.

84. <title>Home</title>

85. 4. Slideshows and Carousels
47% of manufacturing websites still use slideshows

87. Seven slides on a
very short page

88. Nine slides

90. source: Do Rotating Sliders Help or Hurt?

91. Slideshows were invented to
prevent stabbings in
conference rooms

96. 5. Descriptive Navigation Labels
…not just what we do, services, products.
Just 17% of manufacturing websites
use descriptive navigation labels

97. Thousands of website have
this same navigation

98. Aha! The items in the dropdown
are much more helpful / specific

100. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Generic navigation labels, common to millions of websites.

101. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Descriptive labels that indicate relevance
to search engines and visitors

103. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Simple dropdown with few options

106. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Mega dropdown with lots of options

108. Where do I find info about
power convertors?

110. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Format-based navigation isn’t that helpful

111. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
Topics are how people look for information

112. How are visitors using
our navigation?

119. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
1. Any small links getting clicked a lot?
2. Any big buttons getting missed?
3. Are calls to action effective?
4. What gets clicked the most in the main nav?
5. What never gets clicked in the main nav?
5 Questions to ask your Navigation Summary

120. 6. Supportive Evidence
Are there testimonials, client logos, statistics?
Just 16% of manufacturing websites
feature evidence on the homepage

121. “trust seals”

122. 3rd party credential
Years in business

123. Must be legit!

126. 7 Things to Add To Your Testimonials

127. As-seen-in logos
Video testimonials
Reports and case studies
Statistics and data
Fill your pages with evidence…

128. Support every marketing claim
with evidence

129. 7. Specific Calls to Action
…not just contact us, learn more, click here
11% of manufacturing websites use specific CTAs

130. There is no call to action

132. Suggests that you get in touch

133. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
BENEFITS COSTS

134. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
RETURN INVESTMENT

135. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices

136. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices

137. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices

141. Putting it all together

142. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: Google UX Playbooks

143. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: Google UX Playbooks
% of manufacturing
firms doing it
“right”
51%
53%
21%
16%

144. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: Google UX Playbooks

145. Manufacturing Company Website Best Practices
source: Service Page Checklist
Checklist for
high-performing
sales pages

146. Thank you.
Reach out anytime.
Andy Crestodina
Co-founder / CMO
773.353.8301
andy@orbitmedia.com