TSG: Bilingual platform for precision grinding machinery
Client: TSG Co., Ltd. Services: Web design and development, Bilingual content architecture, Product catalog Duration: 8 weeks (bilingual rollout and the five-category product schema added 2 weeks to the standard 6-week web build) Tech: WordPress, Elementor, WPML, custom theme
The problem
TSG manufactures precision grinding machinery: internal grinders, external grinders, centerless grinders, super-finishing machines, ring-rolling machines. The buyer is a factory manager or a plant engineer who already knows what category of machine they need and wants to verify TSG's model-level specs, service coverage, and export capability before requesting a quote.
The existing site mixed four categories into one product list and had no clean path from "I need an external grinder" to "here are the three external grinder models you should compare." Export inquiries came in English through the contact page, but the English side of the site trailed the Korean side by several months and was not kept current. TSG wanted a bilingual build that the marketing lead could keep updated without a developer in the loop.
What we built
A bilingual machine-catalog platform structured around the buyer's category-first navigation.
- Five-category product tree: Internal Grinders, External Grinders, Centerless Grinders, Super Finishing Machines, Ring Rolling Machines
- Product detail pages with the machine specs a factory engineer actually reads (capacity, bed length, grinding accuracy, spindle speed, power)
- Request-a-quote button threaded through the navigation so the quote path is one click from any page
- Services page covering retrofit, installation, and maintenance (the three service contracts TSG sells alongside the machines)
- News module with entries the TSG marketing team updates directly. December 2025 entries at launch included the "$1 Million Export Tower" award and BUTECH 2025 exhibition participation
- Bilingual delivery (EN / KO) through WPML
How we built it
Weeks 1-2. Product data consolidation. TSG had spec sheets across five product families, each formatted differently. We built a master schema (same fields in the same order on every product page) before starting the build.
Weeks 3-4. Elementor + custom-theme build. Category landing pages, product detail pages, quote-request flow. Five-category tree wired into the main nav.
Weeks 5-6. Services page (retrofit / installation / maintenance), news module setup, internal training so TSG's marketing lead could post updates directly.
Weeks 7-8. WPML bilingual rollout, QA, launch. The December 2025 news posts went up shortly after launch, which confirmed the news module was working as expected for the client's own team.
Where it shipped
TSG's bilingual catalog is the export-facing surface the sales team now sends to international inquiries. Factory engineers land on a category, drill into a model, and compare specs against the two or three other models in the same family without leaving the site.
The news module carries the credentials precision-machinery buyers actually scan for. The "$1 Million Export Tower" award and BUTECH 2025 participation went up at launch, dated and in both languages. For a buyer evaluating whether TSG is a current, active manufacturer rather than a dormant catalog, recent dated activity reads as an answer to a question they would otherwise ask on a call.
The request-a-quote button in the main nav is the route most engineers take. The earlier site had a contact page reachable from the footer; the new placement turns the quote ask into a one-click action from any product page.
What we learned
Custom theme, not a page builder alone. TSG's marketing lead edits content frequently, and an Elementor-only build risks the wrong person overwriting the wrong thing. A light custom theme carries the load-bearing structure (nav, footer, product-page template) while Elementor handles the content body. Spec tables on machinery sites have to stay consistent across dozens of models; a template enforces that, a freeform page builder does not.
Request-a-quote is a navigation element, not a page. The first IA put the quote form on a dedicated page reachable from the footer. Nobody used it. Moving "request a quote" into the main nav as a button-styled item tripled form submissions in the first month. Factory engineers do not scroll looking for contact pages.
News cadence signals active manufacturer. Machinery buyers check whether a company is still shipping. A news module that shows an award and a trade-show participation within the last month is as effective as a capability claim in the hero. TSG's team runs this themselves now, and that is the point.
Stack
- WordPress. Precision-machinery sales cycles run long, and TSG's marketing lead needed to publish news, edit specs, and add models over years without a developer on retainer. WordPress is the lowest-friction CMS for that team.
- Elementor. Content-body edits without code. The marketing lead can rewrite a product description or swap a spec image directly.
- WPML for EN / KO delivery. Korean is the home market, English is the export market, and both have to stay in lockstep when specs change. WPML keeps the two locales linked at the post level so a model update in Korean flags the English version as needing review rather than letting it drift out of date (which is what happened on the previous site).
- Custom theme (product-page template, nav button). Technical buyers compare specs across models. A consistent product-page template (same fields in the same order on every model) is what makes that comparison readable. Page-builder-only sites tend to drift over time; a custom theme template holds the structure.
- Five-category product post type. Buyers shop by machine category first (internal vs external vs centerless). The category-first taxonomy maps directly to the buyer's mental model.
- News module with direct-publish editor. Awards, certifications, and trade-show participation are credibility signals in this industry. The editor lets the marketing lead post these the day they happen, not on the next agency invoice.
- Quote-form routing to TSG sales inbox. Single inbox, no CRM lock-in, and the routing is theirs to change.
Want something similar?
Machinery and equipment manufacturers where the buyer shops by category first and compares models second. Bilingual catalogs that the in-house team can keep current without a developer on retainer. See web design and development or email info@cclemang.com.
