A maintenance manager looking for an integrator to upgrade a production line does not browse a catalogue of drives - they want to see whether someone has already done a similar job somewhere else. Yet most websites in this industry look like a distributor’s digital brochure: manufacturer logos, photos of control cabinets with no captions and an “Offer” tab listing “automation, robotics, visualisation”. So when the owner of an integration business asks me what a website for an industrial automation firm should look like, my answer is that it should work like a proper reference folder: show completed projects, separate what the engineer is looking for from what management is looking for, and collect an enquiry with enough data to start a quote.
There is a second reason this site differs from an ordinary service business website. In automation, a large share of work comes from referrals, trade fairs or a regular client who has moved to another plant. That client still visits the site - just to check whether it is worth replying. So the site has to sell to new prospects and confirm credibility for people who have already heard of you, at the same time.
A website for an industrial automation firm - projects instead of a machine catalogue
A catalogue makes sense for a distributor selling components off the shelf. An integrator sells something else: design, installation, programming and commissioning for a specific client. The client is not buying a PLC from you - they are buying confidence that their line will restart within the planned shutdown. One thing builds that confidence: well-described projects.
A gallery of control cabinet photos is not a project. A project is a short write-up in a fixed layout that takes a minute to read:
- Industry and type of plant - food, automotive, plastics, water and wastewater; name the client only with their consent
- The problem at the start - an old controller with no spare parts, manual changeovers, no view of line performance from the office
- Scope of work - what was yours: electrical design, cabinet prefabrication, installation, PLC program, SCADA or HMI visualisation, commissioning, operator training
- Technology - the controllers, panels, industrial networks and systems you connected to; this is exactly what an engineer searches for
- How you fitted into the shutdown - whether the switchover happened in a planned break, over a weekend, in stages
- What changed after go-live - described in words, or in figures the client has confirmed themselves; invented efficiency percentages do more harm than good
I know many projects in this industry are covered by confidentiality. That does not rule out case studies. A description like “packaging line in a food plant, control system upgraded to a newer controller family, switchover during a two-day shutdown” does not reveal the client, yet it tells the reader exactly what they want to know. A photo of the inside of a cabinet with your wire labelling convinces an engineer more than a stock photo of a factory floor.
I covered the general principles of a B2B site that brings in enquiries instead of just sitting online in the article on a B2B website that generates leads. Here I stick to what is specific to integrators.
What the engineer needs to see and what management needs to see - two paths on one site
In a manufacturing plant, the choice of integrator is rarely made by one person. Usually someone from maintenance or the technical department looks for a contractor and checks their competence, while the plant director, purchasing or the owner ask about risk, schedule and cost. These two people read the same site in completely different ways.
The engineer looks for technical specifics:
- which controllers, panels and visualisation systems you work with day to day
- which networks and protocols you support and whether you integrate with higher-level systems such as MES or ERP
- whether you do your own electrical design and as-built documentation, in what software and in what form you hand it over
- whether the client gets the program code, and on what terms
- who comes to commissioning and who picks up the phone when the line stops at night
Management and purchasing look for something else:
- whether the firm has done a similar project in a similar plant
- what the collaboration looks like from enquiry to acceptance
- how you plan the work to fit into the scheduled shutdown
- what qualifications and documents you hold: electrical certifications, a quality system, manufacturer partner status if you have it
- whether there is service after commissioning, with a response time written into the contract
The simplest layout that handles this is a home page with two clear entry points - “For the technical team” and “How we work” - plus separate pages for industries and scopes of work. An industry page gathers projects from that industry, and a scope page (for example “Control system upgrades” or “Visualisation and data collection”) explains exactly what you do. That way the director of a food plant sees food industry projects, not foundry ones.
Technology partner logos make sense, but as evidence, not decoration. A strip of twelve manufacturer logos with no comment says nothing. A sentence like “we program these controller families and have completed projects on each of them”, linked to the case studies, says a lot. Those same names, written into the plain text of your pages, are what an engineer types into a search engine and asks AI assistants about. I wrote about creating content AI can quote in the article on AI visibility for B2B companies.
An enquiry form that comes back with quote data (line, controller, shutdown date)
A plain “name, email, message” form in automation ends with the first three emails being follow-up questions. The client writes “we need a machine upgrade”, and you do not know whether it is one press or a whole line, or when. A technical form collects that data up front:
- type of job - a new machine or line, an upgrade of an existing one, visualisation and data collection, service, an urgent breakdown
- a short description of the problem - in their own words, with no need for technical language
- current control system - controller make and model if the client knows it; optional field
- number of machines or stations
- planned shutdown date, or a note that the date is open
- plant location
- attachments - photos of rating plates and cabinets, drawings or a tender specification
- phone number and job title of the person submitting
Two fields matter most: the shutdown date and the attachments. The date tells you straight away whether you can take the job at all, and a photo of the rating plate and cabinet answers questions that would otherwise need a site visit. Mark fields the client may not know as optional - someone from purchasing does not need to know which PLC sits in the machine and should not get stuck because of it.
Breakdowns deserve separate handling. A firm that offers service should show a service phone number on every page, with a sentence stating the hours it covers. A client whose line has stopped does not fill in an eight-field form - they call. If the forms bring in few enquiries despite traffic, I look for the causes one by one, as in the list of reasons for low conversion on a company website.
An enquiry from a form like this does not have to land in an inbox where it gets lost among sales offers. It can go straight into the spreadsheet or system where you track quotes, with the shutdown date as the deadline. It is a small automation, but it brings order to a firm where quotes are prepared by the same engineer who is off to a commissioning tomorrow.
Should the site sell, or just confirm credibility
Both goals can be combined, but they need to be named. A client from a referral or a trade fair visits the site for a few minutes and checks three things: whether the firm exists and is up to date, whether it has done something similar, and whether it is easy to reach the right person. Fresh projects, company details and a direct contact to a sales engineer or the head of projects are enough for them.
A new client from a search engine needs more. They arrive with a specific problem and look for a firm that solves it, so they need pages that answer those problems: upgrading old control systems, connecting machines to a data collection system, automating a packing station. The same pages help the referred client too, because they show a wider scope than the one they heard about from a colleague.
In practice I start with the credibility layer, because it handles most contacts in this industry today: projects, two paths, company details, a technical form. I add pages for specific problems in stages, starting with what the firm wants to sell more of. The site has a job after a trade fair as well - if you hand out leaflets or business cards on the stand, point them to the projects page for the industry that fair was about, not to the generic home page.
What it costs and how long it takes
A website for an industrial automation firm in the scope described above - a home page with two paths, industry and scope pages, a project template you can fill in yourself, a technical form with attachments and a separate service contact - is a fixed-price project with me, with a written quote after a conversation, billed in stages. The figure depends on the number of pages, an English version for foreign clients, and whether enquiries should go into a quoting system rather than just to email. I broke down what else affects the price and which costs come on top of the build in the article on how much a website costs, and the scope of work and how we would work together is on the page about websites for businesses.
In this industry, time is set by materials, not by programming. Collecting project descriptions and client consent to show them takes longest. So I suggest a simple move: start with three or four well-described projects, and add the next ones after each acceptance, in a ready template, without needing me. I put the delivery date in writing in the quote, together with a list of what I need from you and when.
Frequently asked questions
Does an automation integrator need a website if work comes from referrals? Yes, because a referred contact still checks the firm online before replying, and often forwards the link to management or purchasing. A site with current projects shortens that path and answers questions before they come up in a meeting.
Should I show projects that are covered by confidentiality? Yes, as a description without the client’s name: industry, scope, technology and how the work was carried out. Add the name and photos from the plant only when the client agrees - it is worth asking directly at project acceptance.
Should an automation firm show prices on its website? Usually not as a price list, because every project has a different scope. It is better to describe what drives the cost and how the quoting process works, and give prices only for repeatable services, such as an ongoing service contract.
Should an integrator’s website also be in English? If you work for international groups with plants in Poland, or travel abroad for installations - yes, at least the projects, the scope and the contact details. Supplier decisions in those companies are often made at headquarters, where nobody reads Polish.
Need something like this on your side? I design and build websites for B2B companies - from scratch or as a rebuild of what already stands. Let’s talk about your project.