Ten seconds.
When visitors arrive on your site, you have just 10 seconds to capture their attention and communicate your company’s value before they leave.
If you’re seeing high bounce rates, it may be time to redesign your manufacturing, industrial, or B2B website to engage prospects better and turn them into leads – and, ultimately, loyal customers.
A strategic manufacturing website redesign lets you reshape your site’s structure for a more compelling, user-friendly experience. Beyond aesthetics, it’s a chance to improve SEO (search engine optimization) and streamline navigation, guiding visitors smoothly through your site and reinforcing your position as a problem solver.
Careful planning is necessary for a successful manufacturing site design. It ensures that your goals are met and your impact is maximized.
With that in mind, this article will discuss the top five key considerations for a manufacturing website redesign.
When designing a website for a manufacturing company, the focus should be less on showy pictures and videos and more on how you can improve user experience, boost engagement, and drive conversions. Here are five strategies for an impactful website redesign tailored to the manufacturing industry.
More choices can help site users navigate or make decisions, but they also hurt conversion rates. Users become confident and do something when they have a clear path forward.
In an article from Psychology Today, the author discusses how the abundance of options in modern life can lead to decision paralysis. For instance, when faced with an extensive menu at a restaurant, diners may need help to choose a dish, leading to increased stress and buyer’s remorse.
This phenomenon, known as choice overload, suggests that while having options is generally positive, too many can overwhelm individuals, making decision-making more complex and less satisfying.
To combat this in your site redesign, create a clear site map, limit the number of main navigation options atop your site, and make it easy for people to find what they are looking for. On landing pages, in particular, ensure users have one clear action to follow.
Your 301 redirects will be an important SEO component during a site redesign. One of the biggest risks with a redesign is having prospective customers land on your old URLs and not get redirected to the new page. The error message they will receive leads to a bad user experience, hurting your site’s credibility and ability to nurture the relationship.
Google also uses backlinks in its algorithm. This means Google looks at the number and quality of sites that link back to your content to determine your value. When you redesign a site, you want to ensure all links pointing to your old site are reserved.
This will help ensure that the “link juice”—the SEO credentials you earned through the backlinks—won’t be lost. These 301 redirects help preserve some of the link juice of the old site and transfer it to the new one.
Manufacturers typically have long sales cycles. Visitors to your site will likely wait to purchase the spot, as they may at L.L. Bean or the Apple Store. Instead, they spend more time researching and learning about their options. This type of sales cycle needs to be incorporated into your site design.
Save time pushing your site readers to take immediate action. Instead, you want to focus on building relationships through education. Identify their pain points and offer solutions; they’ll be more likely to purchase from you when ready.
Find ways to demonstrate that you are a trustworthy authority in the field using industry-relevant keywords:
Part of redesigning with lead conversion in mind is getting visitors to fill out a form so you can collect their information for future email blasts, etc. To convince people to fill out a form, ensure the bullet points above offer customer value. Only then will customers be willing to surrender valuable info like their:
Capturing this info through your website lets you further engage prospects and demonstrate your expertise.
Although design is important, it shouldn’t be your primary focus. A site that looks pretty but fails to offer site users what they seek will not perform well.
Instead, your top priorities should be:
The site should coordinate high-value information to engage and educate the user. At the same time, quality navigation with few choices should help users find more content that helps them.
Since the beginning of 2018, Google has been rolling out a mobile-first algorithm. This means Google’s algorithm prioritizes the mobile version of a website first when determining how well it should rank in search results. By March 2020, Google announced plans to switch all websites to mobile-first indexing by September 2020.
However, this deadline was extended, and as of May 2023, Google confirmed that the final batch of sites had been moved to mobile-first indexing, completing the process.
This shift highlights the importance of mobile-friendly websites in search rankings.
As of 2023, mobile devices account for approximately 63% of all Google searches in the United States. People turn to mobile because it offers them convenience. They can search while on the go or from the comfort of their bedrooms. Your redesign must take these users into account to properly engage your audience.
Basic mobile guidelines include:
Answering Your Manufacturing Website Redesign Questions
How can I ensure my site remains SEO-friendly during a redesign? Implement 301 redirects for URL changes to preserve SEO value so backlinks continue contributing to your site’s ranking and credibility. What mobile-friendly practices should I focus on? To enhance the mobile experience, prioritize touch-friendly spacing, clear font sizes, compatible media, and easily accessible contact information. |
Redesigning your manufacturing company website design is a powerful way to engage users and build trust – but it’s only part of the process. A sleek site alone means little if it doesn’t bring in more leads. Instead, focus on strategies that showcase your company’s unique value to capture visitors' attention and turn them into customers.
An effective website design isn’t just about looks, but results too. A full-service marketing agency or training consultant can help you create a website that attracts and converts the right visitors. Regardless of your potential path, you can see how custom service packages work by trying out our cost calculator here:
(Editor's Note: This article was originally published in August 2018 and was recently updated.)