A purchasing manager hears your name from a supplier she trusts. She has a part that needs a new source. Before she calls anyone, she opens your website on her phone, between meetings.
She sees a photo of the building, a line about quality and service, and a menu with eight items. She cannot tell, quickly, whether you do the process she needs, in the volumes she buys, for an industry like hers. She closes the tab and moves to the next name on her list. You never hear about it. No form was filled in. From your side, nothing happened.
Most owners judge their website the way they judge a brochure: does it look professional, is everything on it? A new buyer judges it the way a stranger judges a sign on a highway. Do I understand what this is, and is it for me?
The question is not "is our website good?" It is "would someone who has never met us get it in one minute?" We keep finding that companies with excellent work fail this test, not because the work is unclear, but because the first screen was written for people who already know them.
Three suggestions
1. Show the homepage to an outsider for 60 seconds
Pick someone who does not work at the company and does not already know the business well. Give them the homepage on a phone if you can. Sixty seconds, no tour, no "scroll down a bit." Then close the page. You will be tempted to explain. Don't. The useful information is what they took from the page, not what you can add in the room.
Do this next week: Book fifteen minutes with one outsider. Time the minute. Resist the urge to narrate.
2. Ask who it's for, what you make, and why to trust you
After the page is closed, ask only a few questions. Who is this for? What do they make or do? Why would you trust them?
Listen for the gap between what they said and what you meant. "They make high-quality parts for industry" is not a pass. A specific process, a type of customer, and a reason to trust you is closer.
Do this next week: Write their answers down, in their words, before you discuss them with anyone at the company.
3. Fix what they get wrong first
The instinct is to rewrite the whole site. That's usually the slow way. If they couldn't tell who it's for, name the industries and part types at the top. If they couldn't tell what you make, put one plain sentence there, in your customers' words. If they had no reason to trust you, add one piece of proof they could actually check.
Fix the first thing they got wrong. Then run the minute again with someone new.
Do this next week: Make one change to the first screen, the one that would have helped your outsider answer correctly. Don't wait for a redesign.
How you'll know it worked
Run the same 60-second test with a different outsider after the change. If they can tell you who it's for, what you make, and why a buyer might trust you, the first screen is doing its job.
A question for your peers
When a new buyer finds you through someone they trust, what do they see in the first minute, and who in your company has actually checked?