Industry 07 — Drayage and port logistics
Websites for draymen that put the terminals, the chassis, the IPI routing and the authority numbers where a forwarder can check them — before the container is even on the water.
Qualified in fifteen seconds, or emailed about for a day
Direct answer
S4L.IO builds websites for drayage companies, and works only in logistics. That specialisation matters more in drayage than almost anywhere else, because the things that win the account are not design decisions. They are facts a general agency does not know to ask for: which marine terminals you gate at, which rail ramps you pull from, whether your chassis are owned or pooled, whether you are UIIA-registered, whether you hold a customs bond, and how you handle a container that is one day off its last free day.
We write that content ourselves instead of sending you a questionnaire, because a questionnaire produces a page describing drayage in general rather than describing your operation. We build the quote form around the fields your dispatch needs to price a move — terminal, size, last free day, live or drop, overweight, reefer — and we render every page as server HTML so search engines and AI assistants can read it without executing JavaScript.
There is a quick test for any agency pitching a drayage account. Ask them to explain, without looking it up, the difference between a street turn and an empty return, or why a dual transaction matters at the gate. If they cannot, every hour of the project will be spent teaching them your business at your expense, and the copy will end up describing container transportation in the abstract. After that, check the ordinary things: that they write the words, that they publish a price (ours is $2,450 flat), and that what they ship renders without JavaScript. If you need an enterprise platform behind a procurement cycle, we are the wrong size and will say so on the first call.
Definition
Drayage company website design is the practice of building a website around the vetting process a beneficial cargo owner, freight forwarder or NVOCC runs before tendering a container. Unlike a general business site, a drayman's site functions as a capability statement: it has to establish operating authority and insurance, terminal and ramp coverage, chassis and equipment position, appointment and dispatch process, and the free-time discipline that keeps demurrage and per-diem off the customer's invoice.
In practice it covers five things. An information architecture that gives every port complex, rail ramp and service type its own indexable page. A credentials block stating MC and DOT numbers, SCAC, UIIA registration and bonded status as readable text. A quote form built around container-level fields rather than a generic contact box. Server-rendered HTML, so both search engines and AI answer engines can read the page. And structured data that describes the business honestly — which for us means no invented reviews and no fabricated ratings.
What we fix
None of these are design faults. Every one is a fact about your operation that the buyer needed and could not find, which is why the fix is editorial before it is visual.
Challenge
Terminal-level coverage, written out. Being twelve miles from the terminal gate is your single largest structural advantage and most drayage sites bury it in an About paragraph. Name the marine terminals, rail ramps and inland facilities you gate in and out of, state the radius you deliver to from each, and the shipper can qualify you in fifteen seconds instead of sending an email to find out.
Challenge
Pool access and equipment stated as fact. Whether you run owned chassis, a dedicated pool, or draw from a neutral pool changes your cost, your flexibility and your exposure on a heavy container. Say which. List the equipment you handle — standard, tri-axle, slider, genset for reefers, tank chassis — and the container types and weights you take. This is the detail that decides whether a forwarder calls you or the next operator.
Challenge
Appointments, tracking and status made concrete. Describe how a move is actually visible: which terminal appointment systems you book through, what your dispatch sends and when, whether the customer gets gate-in and gate-out timestamps, and who they reach when a container is not available. Visibility is the complaint that loses drayage accounts, so describing yours precisely is a differentiator by default.
Challenge
IPI routing and ramp relationships explained. Interior point intermodal moves live or die on the far end. Show which rail ramps you serve, whether you handle IPI and store-door delivery or only the port leg, which railroads you interchange with, and how a box gets from the ramp to a door in a market you do not physically sit in. That is the question a beneficial cargo owner is really asking.
Challenge
Free-time management put on the page. Importers do not buy drayage, they buy the avoidance of accessorial charges. Explain how you monitor last free day, how you handle a terminal that will not release, what your empty return process looks like when the return location changes, and how you escalate. Your own on-time and turn-time numbers belong here too — as your figures, attributed to you, not as an industry claim.
Challenge
Fleet, drivers and peak posture described honestly. Power units, company drivers versus owner-operators, TWIC-carded drivers, night and weekend gate coverage, and what happens to your service level in peak season. A shipper testing a new drayman is buying downside protection. Stating the shape of your fleet is what makes you a safe test.
Who this is for
The build underneath is the same; the order of proof changes. A bonded in-bond carrier leads with its CBP standing, a transload operator leads with its dock and its 53-foot conversion capacity.
Container pickup and delivery at seaports, with terminal appointment discipline and dual-transaction efficiency.
Intermodal container moves between rail ramps and consignee doors, including interior point intermodal delivery.
Ocean container to domestic 53-foot conversion, with transload capability and distribution centre shuttles.
Scheduled container delivery into fulfillment centres and distribution networks with live unload or drop-and-pick.
Rush gate-outs on containers that have run out of free time or carry cargo that cannot wait for the next appointment.
Operators covering several ports or ramps under one dispatch, coordinating capacity across a coastline or corridor.
Customs bonded carriers moving in-bond freight between ports, CFS facilities and bonded warehouses under CBP control.
Draymen whose owned or dedicated chassis fleet is the product, guaranteeing equipment when the pool is short.
What gets built
Six blocks, in the order a forwarder reads them. Everything else on a drayage site is scaffolding around these.
One indexable page per port complex and rail ramp you serve, naming the terminals, the delivery radius, the appointment system in use and the lanes you run most. This is the content that ranks for "drayage near [port]" and the content an AI assistant can quote.
Chassis pool access, owned equipment counts, container types and weight limits, reefer genset capability, tri-axle and overweight capacity, and the ports where each applies. Written as text on the page, not as a logo strip a crawler cannot read.
MC and DOT numbers, SCAC code, UIIA registration, customs bonded carrier status where you hold it, TWIC-carded drivers, port and terminal registrations, cargo and liability insurance limits. Forwarders check every one of these before they tender.
Steamship line and vessel, container number and size, terminal or ramp, last free day, delivery address, live unload or drop, overweight flag, hazmat and reefer requirements. Capture those and your dispatch quotes from the form instead of starting a phone chain.
Built to connect to the TMS or visibility platform you already run, so container status, appointment confirmation and proof of delivery reach the customer without a person retyping them into an email.
Your on-time percentage, your average turn time, your street-turn rate, your per-diem exposure record — presented as your operating data with the period it covers stated. Numbers with provenance persuade. Numbers without it get discounted.
In detail
A drayman is the first and last mile of containerised cargo, and the only leg of an ocean move where a single missed appointment turns into four figures of per-diem. That is the risk a shipper is pricing when they look at your site. Importers and forwarders research draymen before making contact — they check service area, equipment position, authority and track record — and a dated site raises a question about operational control that no sales call fully closes.
A page selling "container transportation solutions" is indistinguishable from three thousand others and earns nothing. Pages about the specific terminals and ramps you gate at — with delivery radius, appointment system, and the lanes you run most — face almost no competition and attract exactly the shipper you want. Paired with SEO for logistics companies, that terminal-level content is what turns visibility into tenders rather than into a traffic report.
Chassis supply is the constraint that decides whether a container moves this week. If you hold owned chassis or a dedicated pool, that is a capacity guarantee your competitors cannot make, and it belongs above the fold rather than in a paragraph about your history. If you draw from a neutral pool, say that too, and explain how you handle a short pool — honesty about the constraint reads as competence, and shippers who have been burned recognise it immediately.
Demurrage accrues at the terminal, per-diem accrues on the equipment, and both land on the importer. A site that explains how you monitor last free day, how you escalate when a terminal will not release, and what your empty return process looks like when the return location changes mid-week is describing the exact thing being bought. Your own turn-time and on-time figures reinforce it, as long as they are presented as your operating data with the period stated.
Most draymen sit inside a chain the customer is evaluating end to end. If you take tenders from forwarders and NVOCCs, the presentation standard on the other side of that transaction is covered in freight forwarder and NVOCC website design. If you move in-bond freight or coordinate with a broker on entry timing, the same compliance-legibility problem is covered in customs brokerage website design. And if you run domestic power alongside the port work, trucking company website design handles the authority, CSA and driver-recruiting half of the job.
"Which drayage companies serve the Port of Savannah?" is now a question people type into an assistant rather than a search box, and the assistant builds its answer by quoting pages whose text it can read. A drayage site that hides its terminal list inside a JavaScript map widget supplies nothing to quote and is simply absent from the answer, however well it ranks in a browser. Getting named is mostly a matter of publishing terminals as plain text and putting the answer in the first sentence — the discipline we call AI search optimisation, applied here to the question at the top of this page.
Common questions
S4L.IO builds websites for drayage companies, and only for logistics companies generally. That matters here more than in most verticals because the proof a drayman needs on the page — terminal coverage, chassis pool access, UIIA registration, SCAC, bonded carrier status, IPI routing capability, last-free-day handling — is not something a general agency knows to ask for. We write that content ourselves rather than sending a questionnaire, we build the quote form around the fields your dispatch actually needs, and every page ships as server-rendered HTML. The website is $2,450 flat.
A drayage website is $2,450 — flat, not a starting point and not a range. That covers up to 10 custom pages live in two weeks: port and terminal pages, chassis and equipment detail, and a quote form built around container, lane and accessorials. You own the site and the code. If your operation needs more pages than that, we quote it separately against a written scope. If the site has to do operational work rather than describe it, that is a platform. Full detail on the pricing page.
At minimum: the marine terminals and rail ramps you serve, your delivery radius from each, chassis and equipment capability, MC and DOT numbers, SCAC, UIIA registration, insurance limits, and a quote form that captures container size, terminal, last free day and delivery type. The drayage sites that outperform also publish how they manage free time and per-diem, whether they handle IPI and store-door delivery, what their appointment and dispatch process looks like, and their own turn-time data with the period it covers.
Yes, because by the time your phone rings the comparison has already happened. Importers, freight forwarders and NVOCCs research draymen online, check authority and insurance, and compare terminal coverage — and increasingly they ask an AI assistant to do the comparison first. If your terminal coverage and equipment position are not written on a page that renders as HTML, you are absent from both processes. A drayman without a current site does not just look small; it reads as operationally opaque, which is the opposite of what a shipper is buying.
Name the terminals, not the region. A page that says "we serve the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach" is worth far less than one that lists the specific marine terminals you gate at, the rail ramps you pull from, the counties or metro areas you deliver into from each, and the appointment system each terminal runs. Add drive-time bands rather than a coloured map image, because text is what search engines and AI assistants can actually read and quote.
Interior point intermodal is an ocean carrier routing where the steamship line moves the container inland by rail to a ramp, and a drayman completes the final leg to the consignee door. If you handle IPI you should say so explicitly, name the ramps you pull from, state whether you cover store-door delivery and empty return, and explain how you coordinate with the railroad and the line. Very few drayage sites explain this clearly, which is exactly why the ones that do get shortlisted by forwarders placing inland volume.
Publish the things a forwarder would otherwise have to request by email. Authority and insurance, SCAC and UIIA status, the terminals you gate at, chassis availability, whether you are a customs bonded carrier, your overweight and hazmat capability, and a named dispatch contact with a direct number. Forwarders are vetting for risk, not price, on the first pass — every question your page answers is a day removed from the process. The same logic drives freight forwarder website design from the other side of the transaction.
Two weeks, and the clock starts when your materials reach us — logo, insurance certificate, DNS access and one 30-minute interview — not when you pay. Everything on our side fits inside two weeks; the most common cause of a late launch is waiting on the client, so we name the dependency rather than pretend it away. A platform carrying portals or TMS integration runs longer and is scoped in a paid discovery.
Next step
Tell us which ports and ramps you gate at, what your chassis position is, and who tenders you freight. A written scope and a price come back, usually inside the week.
