Two Audiences, One Website
Your
precision machining company website serves two different audiences with completely different evaluation criteria. Purchasing agents care about pricing, lead times, and vendor qualification paperwork. Engineers care about whether you can actually make the part.
Most machining websites are built for the first audience. They list services, mention quality commitments, and include a contact form. This works fine for transactional buyers shopping quotes.
But engineers aren't shopping quotes. They're determining technical fit before the RFQ ever gets issued. If your website doesn't pass engineering evaluation, purchasing never sees your name on the approved supplier list.
Engineers Research Before Purchasing Gets Involved
The buying process at OEMs and contract manufacturers often starts with an engineer who has a problem to solve. They need a supplier who can hold a specific tolerance on a specific material for a specific application. They research options, evaluate capabilities, and build a shortlist. Then they hand that shortlist to purchasing for quotes and vendor qualification.
This means your website needs to convince an engineer before it ever needs to convince a buyer. And engineers evaluate suppliers differently than purchasing agents do.
An engineer scanning your website isn't looking for your company history or your commitment to customer service. They're looking for evidence that you understand their technical requirements and have the capability to meet them.
Material Specifications Matter
Engineers work with specific materials for specific reasons. The aerospace engineer needs 6Al-4V titanium for weight and strength. The medical device engineer needs 316L stainless for biocompatibility. The semiconductor equipment engineer needs stress-relieved 6061-T6 for dimensional stability.
When your website says "we machine all materials," you've told the engineer nothing useful. They can't determine whether you have experience with their specific alloy, whether you understand its machining characteristics, or whether you can source it to the required specification.
The machining companies that win engineering approval get specific about materials. They list the alloys they work with regularly. They mention material certifications they can provide. They demonstrate understanding of the differences between machining 303 versus 304 versus 316 stainless, or the challenges of working with Inconel versus standard nickel alloys.
Material expertise signals technical depth. Generic capability claims signal a shop that takes whatever walks in the door.
Tolerance Data Needs Context
Every machining website claims tight tolerances. Most don't provide the context engineers need to evaluate those claims.
Holding ±.0005" on a simple OD turn in aluminum is routine work. Holding that same tolerance on a complex five-axis feature in titanium is genuinely difficult. When your website just says "we hold tight tolerances," the engineer has no way to assess your actual capability level.
Context matters. What tolerances can you hold on what features in what materials? Do you have CMM inspection capability to verify critical dimensions? What's your process for handling parts where tolerance stack-up creates cumulative error risk?
Engineers respect specificity. A statement like "we routinely hold ±.001" on turned features and ±.002" on milled features in standard materials, with tighter tolerances available depending on geometry and material" gives an engineer something to evaluate. A generic "precision machining" claim gives them nothing.
Equipment Lists Without Context Are Useless
Your equipment list might include a Mazak 5-axis, a Haas VF-4, and a Star SR-20 Swiss lathe. To a machinist, that communicates something. To an engineer evaluating suppliers, it often communicates very little.
Engineers want to understand what your equipment enables you to do, not just what you own. A 5-axis machine means you can handle complex geometries in single setups. A Swiss lathe means you can produce small-diameter turned parts efficiently. A large-envelope VMC means you can handle bigger workpieces.
Connect equipment to capability. Instead of just listing machine models, explain what problems each machine solves. What part sizes can you handle? What level of complexity? What production volumes make sense for your setup?
The goal isn't to impress engineers with expensive equipment. It's to help them quickly determine whether your shop is a technical fit for their project.
Technical Case Studies Beat Marketing Case Studies
Most machining company case studies read like marketing pieces. "Customer came to us with a challenge. We delivered on time and under budget. Customer was thrilled."
Engineers don't care about this narrative. They want technical substance.
A useful case study for engineering evaluation includes:
- The actual part or part type (within confidentiality limits)
- Material and critical specifications
- Key technical challenges and how you solved them
- Tolerances achieved and how they were verified
- Process details that demonstrate expertise
An engineer reading a case study wants to think "these people understand problems like mine." Generic success stories don't create that recognition. Technical depth does.
The Gap Between Marketing and Engineering
Marketing teams build websites to generate leads. They focus on calls to action, value propositions, and conversion optimization. None of this is wrong, but it misses what engineers need.
Engineers aren't leads to be converted. They're technical evaluators determining fit. The information they need often gets buried under marketing messaging or omitted entirely because it seemed too detailed for a website.
This creates the gap: machining company websites optimized for marketing performance that fail engineering evaluation. The contact form works perfectly, but engineers never reach it because the site didn't answer their technical questions. This same dynamic drives
price competition that erodes margins when shops can't differentiate on technical capability.
What Engineers Actually Want
Pull up your website and evaluate it through engineering eyes. Can they find material capabilities within two clicks? Tolerance expectations with context? Equipment information that connects to capability? Technical case studies with real substance?
If the answer is no, your website is filtering out exactly the customers you want. The engineers at OEMs and contract manufacturers are researching suppliers right now. The question is whether your site gives them what they need to put you on the shortlist.
