What to put on an exporter’s website so buyers trust it.

Why buyers check your website

A buyer who has never met you cannot see your factory. Your website is one of the first things they can look at before they decide whether to reply. They are looking for four answers:

1. Who are you? A real company, in a real place, with real people.
2. What exactly do you make? Products with details, not only a list of names.
3. Can I trust you? Proof they can check: certificates, company details, profiles.
4. How do I ask, and how do I order? A clear way to contact you and to get a quote, with minimum orders, shipping and payment terms.

Google’s guidance on helpful content asks three questions of any page: Who made it, How was it made and Why was it made. A buyer asks the same about your company. The sections below turn these into 13 concrete checks, in three parts. They are the same 13 checks used by our free Exporter Buyer-Ready Score, which you can use at the end to test your own site.

Part 1: Can a buyer understand you?

1. Clear English

Write English that a buyer in any country can follow, including a buyer who reads English as a second language. Use short sentences, plain words and one meaning for each term. Check your spelling. Do not paste machine translations without a careful read, because mistakes make a buyer wonder what else is wrong.

Hard to understand:

We are the best quality high level manufacturer products with good price and fast.

Clear (fill every bracket with a true fact):

We make [product] from [material] for [type of customer]. Every batch is checked for [a check you really do] before packing.

2. Products with details

A product page should answer the questions a buyer would otherwise email you. Show, for each product or product group:

• Name and your product code
• Material, finish and sizes
• Standards or specifications it follows
• Packing and carton details
• Minimum order quantity and usual lead time
• Real photos from several angles
• A downloadable specification sheet
• A “Request a quote” button

3. Export markets

Say where you sell and where you are ready to ship. Write “We ship to [countries]” only for places you really ship to. If you are new to a market, say “Ready to export to [countries]”, which is also true. It tells a buyer that you have thought about the paperwork and the freight.

4. Product photos

Use real photos of your own products, packing and factory. Several clear photos tell a buyer more than any adjective. Do not use stock photos as if they were your factory, and do not use another company’s photos.

Part 2: Can a buyer trust you?

5. Certifications, named properly

If you hold certificates, show them in a way a buyer can check. For each one write:

• The standard (for example ISO 9001) and the edition
• The certificate number
• The certification body that issued it
• What it covers (the scope) and your site
• The valid-until date
• “A copy is available on request”

ISO does not certify companies itself. Certificates are issued by independent certification bodies. Buyers can check many accredited management-system certificates in the IAF CertSearch database, so expect them to look yours up. Not every certificate is listed there, so keep the issuer’s name and a copy of the certificate ready.

Never show a certificate you do not hold, an expired one, or one issued to another company. The FDA has warned that registration certificates are sometimes used in a misleading way.

6. Company details

Put these on your company page and in the footer, and make them match your official records:

• Legal company name and trading name
• Registered address and factory address
• Year founded (only if it is true)
• Your company registration or tax number, if your country and your buyers expect it
• Phone number with the country code
• The names and roles of key people, with their permission
• Real photos of the team, factory or workshop

Your developer can also add Organization structured data to your home page. It describes your company (name, logo, address and contact details) in a form search engines read. Google documents the format. It helps search engines understand you; it does not prove anything to a buyer.

7. LinkedIn and other profiles

Link to your company’s LinkedIn page and to any other real profile, such as a trade association membership page or a business listing. Keep them up to date and make sure the name, address and phone match your website. A buyer may check LinkedIn to see who works for you.

8. A secure website (https)

Your address should start with https, with no browser warnings, and the plain http version should send visitors to https. Browsers warn visitors about sites that are not secure, and a warning can end a visit.

9. Works on phones

Some buyers will read your site on a phone. Text must be easy to read without zooming, buttons easy to tap, and the page must not scroll sideways. Open your own site on your phone and try to find the contact page in a few seconds.

Part 3: Can a buyer ask, and order?

10. Ways to contact you

This is the biggest single check in our list, because a buyer who cannot reach you cannot buy. Give several ways:

• An email address on your own company domain, such as sales@yourcompany.com. A free address alone can look less established.
• A phone number, and WhatsApp if you use it, with the country code
• Your postal address
• A contact form
• Your office hours and time zone
• How fast you usually reply (only promise what you can keep)

11. A clear way to ask for a quote

Put a “Request a quote” button on every product page and the home page. Keep the form short. A good form asks:

Show a thank-you message after the form is sent, and reply within the time you promised.

12. Minimum order quantity

Buyers want to know early if your minimum fits their plan. State the minimum order quantity for each product or product group. If you offer a smaller trial order or samples, say how that works and what it costs.

13. Shipping and payment terms

Give a page that answers the logistics questions in advance:

• Your usual lead time, from order to ready for shipping
• How you pack, and which airport or port you ship from
• The delivery terms you offer, written as rule, named place and edition, for example “FCA [named place] Incoterms 2020”. Incoterms 2020 is the current edition from the International Chamber of Commerce.
• The payment methods you accept
• Your sample policy
• How you handle complaints and returns

You do not need to publish prices. You can write “price on request” and show everything else a buyer needs to plan.

A page-by-page plan

A small site with these pages is enough to start. The last column shows which checks each page supports.

Checks 8 and 9, a secure site that works on phones, apply to every page.

What not to put on your website

• Invented clients, logos, testimonials, awards or numbers. Use a client’s name or logo only with their permission and only if it is true.
• Certificates you do not hold, expired certificates, or certificates issued to another company.
• “FDA approved” for a company that is only registered.
• Big claims with no proof, such as “the best”, “number one” or “world’s leading”. Say something specific and checkable instead.
• Stock photos or competitors’ photos presented as your own factory or products.
• Text copied from other websites. It tells a buyer nothing about you, and Google’s helpful-content guidance asks whether a page offers original information.
• Prices or delivery dates you cannot keep.
• A free email address as your only contact.

Test your website for free

The Exporter Buyer-Ready Score checks a website against the 13 points above and gives a score out of 100, with the fixes that win the most points first. It reads the public home page and up to five other public pages, such as contact, about, products, quality and shipping or terms.

These points are as of 8 November 2026 and may change. A score of 90 or more is “Excellent”, 75 or more is “Good”, 60 or more is “Needs work”, 40 or more is “Poor”, and below 40 is “Critical”.

What the score can and cannot tell you

• It is VENOVIQ’s own checklist for how easy it is for a foreign buyer to understand and contact you. It is not a Google ranking factor or a buyer standard.
• It reads visible text only. It does not read text added by JavaScript, PDFs, images or pages behind a login, and every result says so.
• It cannot tell whether a claim is true. “Named: ISO 9001” means a buyer can see it. It never says a certificate is real.
• It uses fixed rules, not AI, so the same page gives the same answer every time. It does not judge your products, prices or business, and it does not promise orders.
• It does not judge grammar. For English, it measures the share of common English words and notices pages that are mostly not in English.
• It does not save your results and it never sends email.

For more checks, try the Website SEO checker, which shows any page the way Google does, and the 3-Second Skim Test for what a busy buyer reads in three seconds. When you are ready to reach buyers, read our guide on how a Sialkot exporter finds buyers in the USA and Europe.