Castlegar, BC. Serving the Kootenays and beyond.A purchasing manager screens you long before anyone picks up a phone.
Industrial and B2B website design for the shortlist you never knew you were on.
I build industrial and B2B websites from Castlegar, BC for manufacturers, fabricators, carriers, service contractors, and equipment yards. Your buyer builds a shortlist before you hear from them. Your capability list, your certifications, your lead time and your RFQ form decide whether you are on it.
Built for machine shops and fabricators, trucking and transport carriers, mining and forestry service contractors, equipment rental and sales, storage and laydown yards, and industrial suppliers who sell to purchasing managers and site supers rather than to walk-in customers.
The shortlist gets built before your phone rings
I treat an industrial site as the document a buyer forwards. The capability list, the spec sheets, the certifications, the equipment, the fleet and the yard all get published in the vocabulary procurement uses, so a stranger can qualify you without sending an email. The RFQ form then captures a request you can price the same day. Your estimator keeps quoting the way they always have. The website stops making them repeat themselves.
- 01
The screening happens without you in the room
Purchasing managers shortlist suppliers on a screen, usually alone, usually against a deadline. Anything your site cannot answer becomes a reason to move on. You never hear about the RFQ you did not get sent.
- 02
A spec sheet is trust you can hand over
The buyer rarely has the final say. They have to hand your capability to an engineer, a site super, or a controller. Give them a page they can forward and you have put your case in a room you were never invited to.
- 03
Lead time is the question behind every question
Industrial buying runs on schedules. Price matters, and a date that holds matters more. A published lead-time range wins the enquiry from the shop that makes people phone in to find out.
- 04
Certifications get checked, not admired
WorkSafeBC clearance, COR certification, ISO registration and insurance limits are boxes on a vendor form. Publish the ones you hold with the issuing body and the date, and vendor onboarding stops being a week of email.
- 05
The buyer and the user are two different people
Procurement wants terms, compliance and a paper trail. The site super wants access, tonnage, turnaround, and who to call at seven in the morning. A site that serves one of them loses the other.
What the first industrial build will have to prove
No industrial or B2B build sits in the portfolio yet. Here is the standard the first shop, carrier or yard will get.
What I put on a supplier site that gets specified
- 01
Capability, equipment, and what the floor can actually do
Machines, capacities, materials, tolerances and finishing, laid out by process. Photography of the real plant, captioned with what each machine does and the size it takes. This is the section that turns a stranger into someone who believes you can hold the tolerance.
- 02
Certifications, insurance, and vendor onboarding
WorkSafeBC registration and clearance, COR certification, ISO registration if you hold it, National Safety Code standing for carriers, liability limits and named insurers. Everything a compliance officer needs, published with dates, so approval never waits on a document request.
- 03
The RFQ path, built for how estimating really works
A quote request that asks for quantity, material, tolerance, revision, delivery date and the drawing file, with upload that handles a DXF or a PDF. Requests arrive structured, in the inbox your estimator already watches. Nobody has to learn a portal or keep another login.
- 04
Fleet, yard, and service area
For carriers, storage and equipment rental the questions are physical: truck configurations, deck sizes, tonnage, yard access, hours, gate procedure, and how far you run. Publishing those turns a vague enquiry into a booking, and a page per service area is how the towns you cover start ranking.
- 05
Getting found for the process, the part, and the town
Industrial searches are specific: a process, a material, and a place. I structure the site around those phrases, one page per real capability, so a search for the thing you do lands on the page that proves you do it. There is no guessing in that work, because your capability list is the keyword list.
The standard that comes with every build I ship.
- Capability pages by process, material, and service
- Spec sheets and technical documents published as real pages
- Certification and compliance wall with issuing bodies and dates
- RFQ form with structured fields and drawing upload
- Equipment, fleet, and yard pages with directed photography
- A page for every service area you actually cover
- Project write-ups a buyer can forward internally
- Secure forms, privacy policy, and CASL-ready email capture
- Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA, performance, and analytics baked in
Every unanswered spec gets paid for twice
A buyer with a deadline moves down the list. What your site leaves out costs them time and costs you the quote. The right column is the build decision that closes it.
No capability list a stranger can read
Costs them
They cannot tell whether you run the process they need, so they call the shop that says it out loud.
Costs you
You get asked for work you do not do, and skipped for work you are good at.
FixA capability list by process, material, tolerance and size, written the way a buyer searches for it.
Certifications live in a filing cabinet
Costs them
A buyer with a compliance box to tick has to email you to find out what you hold.
Costs you
Vendor onboarding stalls, and the supplier who published theirs gets approved first.
FixA certifications page naming what you actually hold, with the issuing body and the current expiry.
Lead time is a phone call
Costs them
They are building a schedule and cannot commit to a date nobody has given them.
Costs you
Estimators lose an afternoon a week to calls a published range would have answered.
FixTypical lead time by job type, stated honestly as a range, with a note that it moves with the shop load.
The contact form asks for a message
Costs them
They paste a description, forget the drawing, and wait a day for you to ask what is missing.
Costs you
Two rounds of email before you can price anything, on every enquiry that comes in.
FixAn RFQ form that asks for quantity, material, tolerance, delivery date and the drawing file in one pass.
Nothing shows the yard, the fleet, or the floor
Costs them
A site super sizing you up cannot tell whether you handle the tonnage or the truck access.
Costs you
You get judged on a stock photo while the real plant sits there being your best argument.
FixReal photography of the equipment, the bays, the yard and the fleet, captioned with what each machine does.
The capability page a buyer forwards
Every industrial supplier has a capability list. It usually lives in a PDF someone made for a trade show years ago, or in the owner’s head. I turn it into real pages: one per process, material or service, each stating what you run, the sizes and tolerances you hold, the volumes you are comfortable with, and the industries you already serve. Written that way, the page answers the search a buyer types, and it survives being pasted into an email.
The spec sheets and the certifications sit beside it as pages rather than downloads. A material grade, a tolerance, a COR certification number and a WorkSafeBC clearance all get verified before you can be approved. Published, they carry you through vendor onboarding while the other shop is still hunting for the file. Then the RFQ form asks for quantity, material, tolerance, delivery date and the drawing, so the request that lands in your inbox is one you can price.
- One page per process, material or service, with sizes and tolerances
- Spec sheets published as pages, so search and buyers can both read them
- Certifications named with the issuing body and the current date
- An RFQ form that collects a quotable request on the first pass
WorkSafeBC, insurance, and the paperwork a buyer asks for
A site in this category is judged on more than looks. These are the obligations and reassurances I build in by default, so the business stays credible and protected.
WorkSafeBC standing, stated accurately
Buyers verify clearance before they issue a purchase order. I publish your registration and clearance status in plain language with the date it was current, and I never state a standing you do not hold. If a certificate lapses, the page says so rather than quietly aging.
COR and ISO claims kept to what you hold
A Certificate of Recognition through the BC Construction Safety Alliance and an ISO 9001 registration are both verifiable, and both get checked. I name the issuing body, the scope and the expiry, so a compliance officer can confirm it without emailing you.
Carrier and safety code details, for the fleets
If you run commercial vehicles, your National Safety Code standing, carrier profile and insurance limits belong where a shipper can find them. Stating them clearly shortens vendor approval and keeps an enquiry from stalling at the paperwork.
Drawings, quotes, and confidential files
An RFQ often arrives with a drawing the customer considers proprietary. Uploads run over an encrypted connection into storage you control, with a stated retention practice, so a buyer sending a print knows where it lands and who can open it.
Consent rules on business-to-business email
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation applies to business-to-business email too, and the old implied-consent window has closed. Forms capture and log express consent, identify your company as the sender, and carry a working unsubscribe on every send.
Accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA
The Accessible British Columbia Act keeps moving in one direction, and public-sector and large-industry buyers now ask about accessibility in their vendor questionnaires. I build to WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard navigation, contrast, labelled forms, and alt text on every capability photo.
Want this standard on your site?
One conversation, no pitch deck. Tell me where the business is stuck and I will tell you what I would build.
What a build like this costs.
A focused presence site starts with the Trailhead: $2,000, or $189 a month on Own It Monthly. Plenty of businesses in this industry need exactly that and nothing more.
Bigger jobs usually land at $6,500, or $609 a month on Own It Monthly
The Engine · typical timeline 4 to 5 weeks
Most industrial suppliers work several towns and several trades at once. The Engine carries the capability pages, the spec-sheet library, the certification wall and the RFQ path, plus a page for every service area you cover. A single-process shop can start smaller. Dealer logins, parts portals and customer accounts push the build into Empire territory, from $10,000, scoped per project.
The honest answer depends on what you actually need, not on a package name. Start with the free check-up or the contact form, and I will book a proper 45-minute consultation with you, no pressure either way.
Comparing options right now? What a website should cost breaks down how to read any quote, and who actually owns your website covers what you keep if you ever leave, on any platform, including mine.
Trade directories, supplier portals, and word of mouth does the plumbing. KMD wins the decision.
A listing proves you exist. A buyer needs to know what you can make, how fast, and whether procurement will approve you. That part nobody else will write for you.
Directories, marketplace listings and approved-vendor portals carry your name, your phone number and a category. They are how a lot of industrial work still gets found, and they are worth being in. None of them holds a drawing, a tolerance, a certification date, or a reason to pick you.
What a listing or a vendor portal actually gives you
- Your name, category and phone number beside every competitor
- Vendor onboarding forms, once somebody has already chosen you
- A category page you share with fifty other suppliers
- Referrals that arrive with no information attached
Where the upgrade actually pays off.
- 01
Publish the capability list so a buyer can qualify you at eleven at night without emailing anybody.
- 02
Turn spec sheets and drawings into pages, so search can read what today sits locked inside a PDF.
- 03
State a lead-time range and win the enquiry from the supplier who makes people call to find out.
- 04
Collect a quotable RFQ on the first pass and cut two rounds of email off every job.
- 05
Photograph the real plant, the fleet and the yard, because the equipment is the argument.
Answers for the owner who quotes all day
Nobody buys industrial parts off a website. Why do I need one?+
The purchase happens on a purchase order. The shortlist happens online. A purchasing manager with three suppliers to find will check every one of you before the RFQ goes out. The site is the qualifier that decides whether you get asked to quote. On The Kootenay List, the register of 5,836 Kootenay businesses I built and maintain, the industrial and B2B categories hold about 490 businesses, and depending on the category between 55 and 64 percent of them have no website at all.
How much does an industrial or B2B website cost?+
A focused presence site starts with the Trailhead: $2,000, or $189 a month on Own It Monthly, which is $2,268 all in. Most industrial suppliers land in the Engine at $6,500, or $609 a month, which is $7,308 all in, delivered in 4 to 5 weeks. Dealer logins and customer portals move the build into the Empire tier, from $10,000, scoped per project.
Can the RFQ form handle drawings and large files?+
Yes. The form takes PDF, DXF and image uploads over an encrypted connection, and the request arrives in your inbox with the quantity, material, tolerance and delivery date attached. Your estimator opens one email instead of chasing three.
We serve half the province. How does that get handled?+
With a page per service area, written properly rather than town names swapped into a template. Each one covers what you deliver there, the travel or freight reality, and the work you have already done in that region. That is the Full Coverage add-on, $1,200, and it comes included in the Engine.
Do I have to publish my prices?+
No, and most fabricators should not. Published rates suit shop-rate work. For quoted work the honest version is a lead-time range, a minimum order if you have one, and a fast RFQ path. Buyers do not expect a price list. They expect to know whether it is worth sending the drawing.
Can it connect to our ERP or quoting software?+
The site feeds the systems you already run rather than replacing them. RFQs can route to email, to a shared inbox, or into your quoting tool where an integration exists. I scope that in the first conversation, because the answer depends on which software you are on and what it exposes.
Our buyers are engineers. Will this look like marketing fluff?+
It should not, and that is a writing decision. The pages get built on numbers, materials, tolerances, capacities and dates, in the vocabulary your customers use. An engineer reads a spec page and either believes you or does not. Adjectives lose that argument every time.
How do you handle certifications that expire?+
Every certification is published with its issuing body and current date, and you can update it yourself from a phone. A stale certification page is worse than none, because a compliance officer reads an expired date as a company that stopped paying attention.
Is it fast on a phone in a yard with bad signal?+
That is the real test, so I build for it. Static pages, compressed images, no heavy scripts, and a phone number that dials with one tap. A site super standing beside a truck should have your capability page in a second or two on two bars.
Who builds this
I am Brett, the person behind Kootenay Made Digital. I plan, design, and build every site myself from Castlegar, BC, so the person you email is the person doing the work.
Founder, Kootenay Made Digital · Castlegar, BC
Get specified before the RFQ goes out
Somewhere this week a purchasing manager is deciding which three suppliers get the RFQ. A site that publishes your capability list, your certifications and your lead time is how you make that list from a town they have never driven through.