Export Website Checklist: What Overseas Buyers Check Before Sending an RFQ

Why the website decides whether an RFQ arrives

An overseas buyer rarely sends a request for quotation (RFQ) to a supplier they cannot verify. Whether they found you through a trade fair, a directory, a cold email or a search, the next step is almost always the same: they open your website and look for evidence. If the evidence is thin, the RFQ goes to the supplier whose site answered their questions.

That is why we treat the website as the gate for export pipeline, not as a brochure. Our guide to export marketing for Indian companies explains the outreach side: how to choose a first market and reach procurement heads directly. This checklist covers what those buyers should find when they click through. It is written for manufacturers and exporters in the ₹20–200 Cr range who sell to importers, distributors, OEMs and EPC contractors abroad.

Work through the seven sections below, then use the full checklist table near the end to audit your own site.

1. Company identity and legitimacy

The first question a buyer asks is simple: is this a real company, and who is behind it? Answer it on every page, not only on the About page.

Show the legal entity, not just the brand

• Registered company name and full address in the footer and on the contact page, matching your invoices and certificates.
• Year of establishment, ownership and leadership with real names and photos. Buyers want to know who they will be dealing with.
• Factory location(s) with photos or a short video of the actual plant, not stock images.

Make contact routes look professional

• A company-domain email address rather than a free webmail account.
• Phone numbers in international format, with the country code, and the hours you answer in the buyer's time zones.
• A named export contact, with a LinkedIn profile that matches the website.

Mark it up for machines too

Add Organization structured data with your legal name, address, logo and sameAs links to official profiles such as LinkedIn. Google's Organization structured data documentation lists these properties. It helps search engines connect your website, profiles and directory listings into one entity.

2. Product and specification pages

Buyers search and compare by specification, so a single "Products" page with a grid of photos is not enough. Give each product family its own page, written for an engineer or a procurement manager.

• Specification tables in HTML text: materials and grades, dimensions and tolerances, finishes, applicable standards. Text can be read by buyers, translation tools and search engines. A table embedded in an image cannot.
• Downloadable datasheets as a supplement, not a replacement, for the page text.
• Applications and industries served, so a buyer can see their use case.
• Customisation options: what you can make to drawing, and what information you need to quote.
• Packaging and labelling options for export shipments.

3. Capacity, quality and certification proof

An importer is taking a risk on a new supplier. Your website should reduce that risk with evidence they can check.

Capacity

• Installed capacity per product line, and the main machines or processes you run.
• Typical lead times for samples and for production orders.
• Countries you already ship to, listed only if true and only if you are comfortable naming them.

Quality control

• Your QC process from incoming material to pre-dispatch inspection.
• In-house testing equipment and whether you accept third-party inspection.

Certifications page

List every relevant certification with the issuing body, certificate number and validity date, and link to a copy or the registry where buyers can verify it. Buyers in different markets look for different standards, so group them by what they cover: quality management, product safety, food safety, environment, social compliance. Remove expired certificates promptly; an out-of-date certificate is worse than none.

4. Commercial terms that pre-qualify buyers

You do not have to publish prices to be clear about how you trade. Stating your terms filters out poor-fit enquiries and makes the good ones more complete.

• Minimum order quantity (MOQ) per product family, or a range.
• Incoterms you quote, for example ex-works, FOB from a named Indian port, or delivered terms.
• Sample policy: whether samples are free or paid, and the typical turnaround.
• Payment terms you usually accept.
• Export documentation you routinely provide with shipments.

5. The RFQ form and what happens after

A generic "name, email, message" form produces vague enquiries. An RFQ form should collect what your sales team needs to quote:

• Product or specification, with a file upload for drawings.
• Quantity and frequency (one-off or recurring).
• Destination country or port, and preferred Incoterm.
• Required certifications or standards.
• Target delivery date.

Then make the follow-up visible. Send an automatic confirmation that says who will reply and by when, and only promise a response time you can keep across time zones. Track enquiries by market and product in your CRM, so you know which pages and campaigns produce real RFQs.

6. Speed, mobile and international set-up

Many buyers will first open your site on a phone, often on a slower connection, from a country far from your server.

Speed and stability

Google's Core Web Vitals are a practical target. According to web.dev, a good experience means Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, assessed at the 75th percentile of page loads. Compress images, avoid heavy sliders and auto-playing video on product pages, and serve the site over HTTPS.

Languages and regions

English is the working language for most cross-border B2B buyers, so get the English right first. If you add other language versions, follow Google's guidance: link equivalent pages with hreflang annotations, including an x-default fallback, and, as Google's multi-regional site guidance says, avoid automatically redirecting visitors based on the language you think they speak. Let buyers choose.

7. Being found in Google and AI answers

Buyers increasingly ask AI assistants to shortlist suppliers as well as searching Google. The basics are the same for both. Google states in its documentation on AI features that a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear as a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that no special files or markup are required.

• Put product, capability and certification details in crawlable HTML text, not only in PDFs or images.
• Answer the questions buyers ask, such as MOQ, lead time and standards, in plain sentences that can be quoted.
• Keep your company name, address and phone identical across the website, LinkedIn and directories.

If you want help getting named in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers, see our generative engine optimization (GEO) service.

The full checklist

Use this as a working audit. Mark each line yes, partly or no, and fix the "no" items in the first three sections first; they are the ones buyers check before anything else.

Common mistakes we see

• The PDF-only catalogue. The whole product range sits in one large PDF. Buyers on mobile will not download it, and search engines see a thin page.
• Stock photography. Generic factory images make buyers wonder what you are hiding. Real photos, even imperfect ones, build more trust.
• "Contact us for details" everywhere. If every answer requires an email, many buyers simply contact a competitor whose site answers it.
• Certificates without detail. A row of logos with no issuing body, number or validity date cannot be verified.
• A site built for domestic buyers only. Rupee-only references, no Incoterms and no international phone format signal that export is an afterthought.

Fixing these is usually a matter of content and structure, not a full redesign. If you are planning a rebuild anyway, our B2B website design service starts from this checklist, and our export marketing work connects the site to direct buyer outreach.

Frequently asked questions

Sources