TL;DR: A manufacturing website design company can build structure, layout and speed. It cannot invent your tolerances, machine list, certificates or photos of real parts. Give the designer those inputs before the first mock-up, together with who your buyers are and how RFQs arrive, and the site will be built around what buyers check rather than around stock images.
Most website projects for manufacturers go wrong in the same week: the designer has a contract and a deadline but no content, so the first mock-up fills the gaps with a stock photo of a robot arm and three paragraphs of placeholder text. The owner approves the look, the placeholder text survives launch, and the site says nothing a buyer filters on. The cure is a brief that hands over the technical material up front. The wider reasoning is in the manufacturing company marketing guide.
How this was made: drafted by Miriad with AI assistance; every figure links to its source.
What does a website design company need from a manufacturer?
A website designer needs four kinds of input from you: technical facts (processes, materials, tolerances, capacity), proof (certificates, inspection methods, comparable projects), real images (parts, machines, people, site), and buyer context (who buys, what they filter on, how RFQs arrive). The designer brings structure and craft; the facts have to come from the company.
This matters because buyers read the site closely. In a 2019 Thomas survey, 73% of industrial buyers said they pay close attention to a supplier's website, and 71% vet fewer than five suppliers before deciding (Thomas). A design that looks good but holds no data loses that short list.
Agree at the start that no page goes live with placeholder text, and that every technical value on the site is approved by a named person in your company.
Which technical documents should go into the brief?
Put the documents your quoting engineer uses into the brief: datasheets, the capability statement, the machine list with working envelopes, material lists, certificate copies with scope and expiry, and a few anonymised past quotes. These give the designer the real structure of your pages: which tables, how many process pages, which downloads.
A practical checklist:
- Capability statement or company profile, even if it is old. It shows how you describe yourself today.
- Datasheets for processes, materials or standard products. Manufacturing marketers already lean on them: 71% used technical or data sheets in the last year (CMI).
- Machine list with make, model and working envelope for each CNC machining centre, laser cutting machine or press.
- Materials you run regularly, by process.
- Certificates: the ISO 9001 certificate and any sector approvals, with scope and expiry date.
- Quality process: how you do first article inspection (FAI), whether you supply a material certificate per batch, PPAP if relevant.
- Typical RFQ: two or three anonymised RFQs with the drawing, so the designer sees what the form must accept.
If you sell machinery or products with CE marking, add a note on what the customer can download. The manufacturer carries out the conformity assessment, sets up the technical file and issues the EU declaration of conformity before CE marking (European Commission); the website should only show what that paperwork supports.
Why do photos of real parts and machines matter so much?
Real photos are proof. A buyer looking at a photo of a part you machined, on your bench, with your inspection gauge next to it, learns more than from any stock image. Designers can make your own photos look good; they cannot make stock photos say anything true about your shop.
Make a photo list for the brief and shoot before the design starts, even with a phone in good light:
- Parts for each process, one close-up and one in context, only those you have permission to show.
- Each main machine, with something for scale.
- The inspection area and measuring equipment.
- The people: the quoting engineer, the production manager, the shop floor at work.
- The building and reception, which also helps a Google Business Profile.
Short videos are worth planning at the same time. Manufacturing marketers rate videos (74%) and case studies (45%) as the most effective content types in the CMI research. A designer needs to know early whether pages will hold video, so the layout can make room for it.
What should the brief say about buyers and RFQs?
Tell the designer who your buyers are, what they filter on, and what happens when an RFQ arrives. A purchasing engineer at an OEM checking tolerances needs different pages than a maintenance buyer looking for a quick repair part. The RFQ path, including file types and who receives the form, shapes the whole site's navigation.
Write this part as short answers:
- Who buys? Job titles and company types, for example purchasing engineers at OEMs and tier-1 suppliers.
- What do they filter on? Process, material, size, tolerance, batch size, certificates, lead time.
- Which work do we want more of? Name the processes and sectors, so the home page can lead with them.
- How do RFQs arrive today? Email, phone, portals, trade shows. What percentage comes through the website is worth tracking once the new site is live.
- What must the RFQ form accept? STEP and PDF files, quantity, material, required date.
- Who answers? A shared inbox, not one person.
This is also where you tell the designer what not to build: no auto-generated pages per city, no long animations before the content, no chat widget no one staffs.
What brand inputs does the designer need?
The designer needs your logo files, any colours and fonts you already use, and a few sentences on how the company talks: plain and technical, or more personal. If none of this is written down, decide it before design starts, or the designer will decide it for you and the result may not fit your shop.
Many small manufacturers have a logo from years ago and colours that drifted between the van, the brochure and the old site. That is normal. A short session to fix the logo files, two or three colours and one font is enough for a website project.
Example (illustrative): a twelve-person contract manufacturing firm doing sheet metal fabrication and assembly hires a local design studio. The owner's brief arrives as one folder: capability statement, machine list, certificate PDFs, forty phone photos of real parts, three anonymised RFQs with STEP files, and one page on buyers and processes. The studio's first mock-up uses the real photos and a materials table on each process page. The one round of changes concerns colours, because the brand had never been written down.
For which page types to plan, see manufacturing company website templates. For what a buyer must find once the site is live, see what a purchasing engineer needs to find on a manufacturing company website. And for how the site fits the rest of your marketing, return to the manufacturing company marketing guide.
If your brand basics are not written down yet, the Brand Identity Prompt Pack takes you from positioning to a one-page brand guideline. Get notified when it launches.
FAQ
What should I send a website designer before the project starts?
Send the technical material first: capability statement, datasheets, machine list with working envelopes, material lists, certificate copies, a description of your quality process, real photos of parts and machines, and two or three anonymised RFQs. Add a short page on buyers, the work you want more of and how RFQs should arrive. Content before design avoids placeholder text surviving launch.
Do I need professional photos for a manufacturing website?
Not at the start. Clear phone photos of real parts, machines and people, taken in good light, are better than stock images because they show what you actually do. Professional photos are worth it later for the home page and key process pages. Only show customer parts when you have permission, and keep a simple list of approved images.
How long does a manufacturing website project take?
It depends mostly on how quickly the content arrives, not on the design work. If the technical documents, photos and buyer information are ready at the start, a small site with a handful of process pages can move quickly. Projects stall when the designer waits for texts and approvals, so name one person who collects inputs and approves every technical value.
Sources
- New Thomas report reveals industrial buyer habits — Thomas, 2019-01-31.
- Manufacturing content marketing research — Content Marketing Institute / MarketingProfs, 2024-11-20.
- CE marking — European Commission, accessed 2026.