How manufacturers can get more enquiries from Google and AI search

Ask most factory owners where their orders come from and the answer is "references, IndiaMART and old customers". Ask where they lose orders and the honest answer is usually "we do not know". This guide is about closing that gap: being found by buyers who search before they call, and knowing which searches turn into orders.

Who actually searches before calling#

Overseas importers get the attention, but for most manufacturers they are only one of several buyer types:

• Indian companies and plants. Procurement managers and maintenance engineers shortlist vendors after looking them up online, now often with an AI tool open too.
• Specifiers. Design consultants and EPC contractors hunt for datasheets and approvals, and whichever brand they find tends to end up in the drawings.
• Dealers and channel partners. A distributor adding a new line will search for makers to represent. Such searches are uncommon, yet each can mean years of orders.
• Maintenance and repeat orders. People type a part number or model name. When a trader's listing outranks the maker, the repeat sale walks away.
• Importers abroad. Sourcing teams line up Indian makers against suppliers from other countries, on Google and in AI answers.
• Public sector. Tenders and the GeM portal decide these orders, so search plays little part.

What is changing in how buyers search#

Two shifts matter for manufacturers.

Google now answers before the links. For many searches, Google shows an AI Overview above the results. Gardner Business Media's 2025 Industrial Buying Influence survey asked buyers which result types they like most: the AI Overview made the top two for 26 in every 100, compared with 8 in every 100 a year before. When an AI summary appears, Pew Research found people clicked an ordinary result on 8% of visits, against 15% without one. Being named inside that answer is becoming as important as ranking below it.

Buyers still trust unpaid results. Nearly half of the buyers Gardner surveyed (47 in 100) favour unpaid listings, while only 13 in 100 favour paid ads. Only 6% said they trust AI answers directly, and 55% check them against other sources. Your own website has to back up whatever the AI says.

Where enquiries are lost#

Between a buyer's first search and a purchase order sit six moments: the search, the shortlist the results suggest, the website visit, the enquiry, the quote and the order. Four gaps cause most of the losses:

1. Not found. A rival ranks or is named in the AI answer for "[product] manufacturer in [city]", and you are not.
2. Not trusted. The buyer lands on a page with no specifications, certifications, capacity, minimum order or lead time, and goes back to the search results.
3. Shared lead. Buyers on marketplaces commonly send one request to several sellers, which pushes every reply towards the lowest price. IndiaMART alone listed 8.4 million supplier storefronts in the April to June 2025 quarter.
4. No record. Nobody writes down where the enquiry came from, so the owner cannot tell which marketing works.

The pages that win enquiries#

Pages that answer a buyer's checklist do better on Google and are easier for AI tools to quote. For each main product line, one page should state:

• What the product is, the sizes or grades you make, and the standards it meets (ISO, BIS, CE, API or others)
• Your capacity, minimum order quantity and typical lead time
• The industries and kinds of customers you supply, with names where you are allowed to use them
• A downloadable datasheet a consultant can attach to a design
• The places you deliver to, and whether you export
• A short FAQ with the questions your sales team hears every week
• A clear enquiry form and WhatsApp button

Add separate pages for the searches that bring buyers: "[product] manufacturer in [city]", "[product] for [industry]" and "[product] vs [alternative]". Our guide to schema markup for AI search explains how to label these pages so Google and AI tools read them correctly.

Link searches to orders#

This is the step most manufacturers skip, and it is the one that turns marketing from a cost into an investment.

1. Ask every buyer how they found you. Put the question on your enquiry form, and ask it on every phone call.
2. Log every enquiry, including phone, email and WhatsApp, with that answer.
3. Mark each one quoted, won or lost, and add the order value when you win.
4. Review monthly: enquiries, orders and order value by source, next to what you spend on each channel.

After a few months you will know, from your own data, how many orders come from Google and AI compared with marketplaces and referrals.

Doing it with WebVisiblity#

WebVisiblity's Google Visibility tracks your Google position every week for the searches your buyers type, in India or any market you sell to, and shows whether Google's AI answer names you. Live AI Monitoring adds what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity say. The enquiry form and log record how each buyer found you, and a monthly report shows orders and order value by source. See how it works for manufacturers.

Sources: Gardner Business Media, Buyers are turning to AI for product research (2025 Industrial Buying Influence survey; sample size not stated) · IndiaMART, Q1 FY2026 results · Pew Research Center