The eight pages a logistics website needs
Most freight websites have a homepage, a services page and a contact form. That is three pages doing the work of eight.
Most logistics websites I audit have four pages: home, about, services, contact. Occasionally a news page whose newest item is from 2021.
That structure is why the site produces nothing. One services page listing air, sea, road, customs, warehousing and courier cannot rank for any of them, and it cannot answer a buyer’s question either.
Here is the structure I would build instead. Eight page types, in the order I would create them.
One: a page per service
Not one page listing everything. One page each for airfreight, sea freight, road, customs clearance, warehousing, and anything else you genuinely sell.
Each page needs the same skeleton: what it is, who it suits, how you do it, what you need from the customer, transit or lead times, and a quote route. Six hundred to a thousand words of substance.
This is the single highest-return change on most freight websites, and it is a copywriting job more than a design job.
Two: lane and corridor pages
A page for each lane you want more of. Manchester to Dublin. UK to Nigeria airfreight. Far East consolidation into Felixstowe.
These are the pages a buyer with a live shipment finds, and they convert better than anything else on the site because the match is exact.
Do six properly rather than sixty from a template. A page that says nothing specific about the lane is worse than no page.
The page that wins the enquiry is almost always the most specific page, not the best designed one.
Three: proof, in a form buyers can use
Case notes rather than case studies. One shipment, what the problem was, what you did, what it cost or saved, and the numbers involved.
Three of these, each tied to a different service, does more than a testimonial carousel. Name the client if they allow it, anonymise the sector if they do not, and keep the specifics either way.
Four: a credentials and compliance page
The page procurement sends to their compliance team. It should carry, in text:
- Memberships and accreditations: BIFA, IATA, AEO, FORS, ISO certifications, GDP, TAPA.
- Insurance levels and liability basis.
- Standard trading conditions, downloadable.
- Registered address, company number, VAT number, EORI.
- A named contact for compliance queries.
Almost nobody has this page. It removes a week of email exchange from every tender you enter.
Five: an about page with people on it
Real photographs, real names, real roles, and a paragraph each. Years in the industry matter more than job titles here.
Link every person to their LinkedIn profile, and make sure the profiles are filled in before you do. Freight is bought from people and this is the page where the buyer decides whether they want to deal with yours.
Six: a careers page that works all year
Recruitment is half of what a logistics website gets used for and it is usually an afterthought.
Current vacancies, what it is actually like to work there, shift patterns, training and licence support, and a route to apply that does not require a covering letter. For driving roles, be specific about the work: tramping or day shift, curtain or reefer, nights out.
Seven: a quote page that asks the right questions
A contact form asking for name, email and message wastes a round trip. Ask for what you need to quote:
- Origin and destination.
- Mode, or unsure.
- Commodity and any hazardous or temperature requirement.
- Weight, dimensions, pallet or container count.
- Incoterm, or unsure.
- Target date and frequency.
Six fields with sensible defaults will not deter a serious enquirer, and it lets you respond with a number rather than a question.
Eight: somewhere to publish
A blog or insights section, updated monthly, answering the questions your customers ask on the phone.
Its job is not traffic for its own sake. It is the proof of life that a cautious buyer looks for, and the place your LinkedIn content can point to.
And on every page
A phone number in the header. An email address that reaches a person. Opening hours, including whether anyone answers out of hours, which for freight is a genuine differentiator.