When a manager says "the website doesn't bring leads", it usually means one of two things. Either almost nobody writes, or plenty of people write and almost none of them are worth a call: job seekers, students, competitors checking prices, small buyers looking for one spare part, suppliers trying to sell to you.
Both have the same root. The site doesn't make it clear enough what you do, for whom, and why you, so the right buyers don't recognize themselves and the wrong ones don't filter themselves out.
The good news is that this is diagnosable. You don't need an agency or a big budget to find the problem. You need an afternoon, access to your analytics, and someone willing to be honest.
START HEREDefine what a “right inquiry” is
You can't judge a website against a goal nobody wrote down. Before any check, put one paragraph on paper that describes the inquiry you'd love to get every week. Be specific:
- Type of company: fab owner, EPC contractor, OEM, food plant, utility, system integrator.
- Size and region: where they operate, roughly how big a project they run.
- What they need: the type of project or system, not "everything we do".
- Who writes: engineer, project manager, procurement, plant manager.
- Why now: a new line, an expansion, a failing supplier, a deadline.
"A project or engineering manager at a semiconductor or pharma plant in Europe, planning a new utility or gas distribution system in the next 12 months, looking for a contractor who can design, prefabricate and install."
Keep this paragraph next to you. Every check below asks the same question: would that person find what they need here, fast?
CHECK 01The five-second test
Show your homepage to someone outside the company, ideally someone in your industry who doesn't know you, for five seconds. Then close it and ask three questions:
- What does this company do?
- Who is it for?
- What are they especially good at?
If the answers are vague ("something with engineering?"), the problem starts at the top. The usual causes:
- A slogan instead of a statement. "Excellence in engineering" or "Your trusted partner" could belong to any company. A buyer needs a sentence that only you could write.
- Everything has equal weight. Twelve services in a row tell the visitor you're good at nothing in particular. Lead with the two or three things you want to be hired for.
- Stock photos. A smiling handshake says nothing. A photo of your own shop floor, your own team or a system you built says a lot.
A good industrial headline names the work, the buyer and the advantage. If you can swap your logo for a competitor's and nothing changes, it isn't working.
CHECK 02Is the site talking to the buyer or to itself?
Industrial websites are usually written by the people who know the company best: founders and engineers. That's a strength, and a trap. They describe the company the way it sees itself, by departments, machines and history, instead of the way a buyer evaluates a supplier.
In B2B industry the decision is rarely made by one person. Each role arrives with different questions:
- Engineers want to know whether you can actually do it: capabilities, standards, tolerances, materials, design tools.
- Project managers want to know whether you'll deliver: process, timelines, how you handle changes, who their contact is.
- Procurement wants to reduce risk: certifications, financial stability, references, insurance, compliance.
- Plant or operations managers want to know what happens after handover: service, spare parts, support.
Quick test: pick each role and try to find the answer to its top question in under a minute. Wherever you can't, there's a page or a section missing.
CHECK 03Is the proof where buyers look for it?
Industrial buyers are careful by nature. A failed supplier can stop a production line. So before they write, they look for proof that you've done this before, for companies like theirs.
Most companies have plenty of proof. It just isn't on the website. It lives in a capabilities PDF nobody downloads, in a sales deck, or in the heads of the senior engineers. Look for these on your site:
- Projects with substance: industry, year, scope, the systems involved and what was hard about it. A logo wall alone isn't enough.
- Certifications and standards, visible without digging: ISO, welding procedures, safety records, industry approvals.
- Real images of your facility, your team and your work.
- Types of clients you serve, even when you can't name them.
On the Lesico Process Piping website, every project page lists the years, the systems and the scope of work. An engineer can judge whether Lesico has done something similar before picking up the phone, which means the calls that do come in are better qualified.
Confidential projects are not an excuse for an empty site. You can describe the type of plant, the system and the challenge without naming the client, and show renderings or process footage instead of site photos.
CHECK 04Who is actually finding you?
Sometimes the site is fine and the traffic is wrong. That's a search problem, and it's measurable. Open Google Search Console (it's free; if nobody set it up, that's the first task) and look at Performance → Queries for the last few months.
Read the list of searches that bring people to your site and sort them into three piles:
- Buyers: searches for the systems, services and problems you solve.
- Brand: people searching for your company name. Useful, but they already know you.
- Noise: job searches, student topics, part numbers you don't sell, unrelated meanings of your keywords.
If the buyer pile is small, Google doesn't understand what you sell, usually because there's no dedicated page for it. A single "Services" page with one paragraph per service rarely ranks for anything. Each important capability deserves its own page, written around the words your buyers actually use.
Then check the other side in Google Analytics: which pages do the people who contact you land on? If most inquiries come from the careers page or a blog post about a general topic, you've found the leak.
CHECK 05Is the path to contact built for the right person?
Two opposite mistakes, both common:
- Too much friction. A long form, a captcha, a generic "Contact us" buried in the footer, or only a phone number that goes to reception. Senior buyers won't fight your website.
- Too little qualification. A single "message" box invites everyone equally. You get volume, not fit.
The fix is a short form that asks one or two qualifying questions, for example the type of project and the reason it's happening now, plus a clear promise about what happens next: who will answer, and when. Put the call to action on every capability page, not just on the contact page.
Send an inquiry through your own website today. How long until someone answers? Does it reach the right person? Many companies find their form has been going to an old mailbox for months.
CHECK 06Does the site tell the same story as sales?
Ask your best salesperson how they explain the company on a first call. Then compare it with the homepage. If they sound like two different companies, buyers get confused at exactly the moment you want them to feel confident.
The website, the sales deck and the one-pager should share the same position, the same key messages and the same proof. When they do, the site does part of the selling before the meeting, and the meeting starts at a higher level.
CHECK 07Is anything being measured?
You can't improve what you can't see. At a minimum, you should know:
- How many inquiries came through the website each month, counted once each.
- Which pages and which sources (search, LinkedIn, referral, direct) they came from.
- How many of them turned out to be a real fit.
The third one isn't a website metric at all, and it's the most important. Even a simple spreadsheet where sales marks each inquiry as "fit" or "not a fit" turns guesswork into a clear picture within a few months.
SUMMARYThe scorecard
Go through the table with one or two colleagues. Each row you can't honestly mark as "good" is a place to work on.
| Check | Good looks like | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Five-second test | An outsider can say what you do, for whom and where you're strong | A slogan, a stock photo and a list of twelve services |
| Buyer roles | Engineers, PMs and procurement each find their answer in under a minute | Pages organized by your departments and history |
| Proof | Projects with scope and dates, visible certifications, real images | Proof only in PDFs and decks |
| Search | Most non-brand searches are buyer searches | Job seekers and unrelated queries dominate |
| Contact path | Short, qualifying form on every key page, quick reply | One generic form, slow or lost replies |
| Sales alignment | Site, deck and one-pager tell one story | Sales "explains what the site really means" |
| Measurement | Inquiries counted, sourced and marked fit / not a fit | Nobody knows how many came in last month |
PRIORITIESWhat to fix first
It's tempting to start with design or with SEO. In most cases the order below gives the fastest improvement in the quality of inquiries, because each step makes the next one work better:
- The message. Decide what you want to be hired for and say it plainly at the top of the site. Everything else builds on this.
- The proof. Move projects, certifications and real images out of the PDFs and onto the pages where buyers decide.
- The contact path. A short qualifying form, a clear promise, and someone who answers.
- Measurement. Search Console, analytics and form tracking, so you know whether the changes worked.
- Content and SEO. Dedicated pages for each capability and industry, and guides that answer your buyers' real questions.
If the first two steps reveal that the website no longer reflects the company, it's time to plan an upgrade. Our second guide, what to prepare before upgrading your website, walks through exactly what to gather before you talk to anyone.