CHART MBR / SEC 160 / PUBLISHING
Turning a Teesside capability statement into web pages
The strongest document most Teesside industrial firms own is a capability statement nobody outside a tender process ever reads. Moving it onto pages is the cheapest search work available to this sector.
Where the material currently sits
Blocks a typical capability statement contains, each mapping to a page or a section.
FIXEDPage most firms give the whole document. One page competes for none of it.
MECHANISMInternal links a downloadable document contributes to the rest of your site.
MECHANISMThe block count describes the method used here rather than a survey of documents. Your own statement may hold more or fewer, and the mapping below works either way.
What a download costs you
A capability statement is written for someone who already asked. It assumes a reader who knows your name and wants the detail, which is the opposite of a discovery document.
Three disadvantages follow from the format. A document cannot be structured around a single query, cannot link into the rest of your site, and rarely earns a position for a competitive term.
MECHANISM AI assistants face the same obstacle from the other direction. Retrieval favours clean, extractable statements on pages, and a dense multi column document is close to the worst case for that.
The good news is that no new material is needed. The expertise is already written down and simply sits in the wrong container.
Six blocks and where each one goes
Open the statement and mark up the blocks below. Each block has a natural destination.
- The process list becomes one page each. Structural steel, process pipework, pressure vessels, platework, machining and site installation are separate searches with separate buyers. This block produces most of the new pages.
- The approvals block becomes an approvals page. State each scheme, the scope you hold and the material and thickness ranges covered. Write it as text rather than a strip of certificate logos.
- The plant list becomes a capacity page. Bay dimensions, crane capacities, machine envelopes and maximum single piece weight are what a contractor screens on first. A specification table reads better than a paragraph here.
- The sector experience becomes sector pages. Chemical and process, offshore wind, energy from waste, marine and rail each buy differently. Write only for the sectors you genuinely serve.
- The quality and safety section becomes trust content. Management systems, inspection regimes and safety record belong on a page a procurement lead can find without asking you for a document.
- The company overview stays where it is. This is the one block already served by an ordinary about page, so use it to carry location, history and the trading facts that must agree everywhere.
How each capability page should be built
Use the same shape on every process page. Consistency makes the set easier to write and easier to read.
- A plain first sentence naming the process, the materials, the place and the standard you work to.
- A specification block covering sizes, thicknesses, tolerances and capacity in figures.
- The approvals that apply to this specific process rather than to the firm generally.
- The sectors that buy this process from you, linked to the relevant sector page.
- An honest limits paragraph stating what you do not do, which saves everybody a wasted enquiry.
- A route to contact that a buyer with a live enquiry can use immediately.
Put the plain statement first and the positioning last. A buyer scanning six suppliers reads the top of each page and nothing else.
The material that should not be published
Publishing scope is not the same as publishing everything. Four categories stay out by default.
- Client names. Publish none without written permission, however proud of the work you are.
- Contract values and pricing. These damage your position in the next negotiation and help nobody choose you.
- Procedure documents. Publish the scope of an approval rather than the underlying qualification records.
- Anything under a confidentiality agreement. Check before publishing rather than after a client rings.
Describing a job without naming the client is usually acceptable and worth doing. A paragraph on a stainless pipework package for a chemical plant on Teesside carries real detail and names nobody.
What happens to the statement itself
Keep the document and change its job. Buyers still want something to attach to an email or carry into a meeting, and the statement does that well.
Link to it from the pages rather than hiding the content inside it. The pages do the discovery work and the document confirms it for someone already in a process.
Update both together. A statement claiming an approval the site does not mention creates the inconsistency that makes a careful buyer check everything else.
The retrieval reasoning behind all of this sits in the fabricator guide, and the rest of the cluster is indexed on the Teesside industrial guide.
Frequently asked questions
Should we delete the capability statement document?
Keep it and stop relying on it. Buyers still want something to attach to an email or take into a meeting, so the document earns its place as a leave behind. The mistake is treating a download as the published version of your expertise.
Is a downloadable document really invisible to search?
It is heavily disadvantaged rather than literally invisible. Search engines can read many documents, and those documents rarely rank, rarely link internally, and cannot be structured for a specific query. A page built for the query beats a document every time.
Our capability statement is confidential. What can we publish?
Publish the scope and hold back the specifics. Approval scope, process list, materials, plant capacity and sectors served are all publishable. Named clients, contract values, weld procedure documents and pricing stay out unless you have written permission.
Who should write these pages, us or an agency?
Both, in a deliberate split. I structure the page, research the wording buyers use and draft it, and your engineers correct the technical detail. Inventing tolerances, approvals or process detail would damage you with exactly the buyers you want.
How many pages does this usually turn into?
One per process you genuinely sell, plus an approvals page and a plant or capacity page. A shop selling four distinct processes typically ends with six or seven substantial pages. Thin pages split out for the sake of a count repeat the original problem.
Getting the first pages written
Marking up the blocks yourself costs an hour and shows how many pages you are looking at. Getting them written and reviewed is the work I do.
Direct line 07305 523333. One person answers and does the work.