The verdict in three sentences
An international mining buyer looks at your website before inviting you to tender, and the first things they look for are your injury frequency rate, your ISO certificates and quantified references. A well-built French and English website costs, as a 2026 order of magnitude, 40,000,000 to 90,000,000 GNF in Conakry (roughly 4,600 to 10,400 USD), with an 8 to 12 week timeline. The real risk is not the budget but a generic brochure site with no HSE evidence, which gets you dropped at supplier prequalification.
What mining buyers actually check
Bauxite operators in Boké, Kamsar, Fria and Kindia run procurement processes aligned with international standards. Before qualifying a contractor for drilling, ore haulage or heavy equipment maintenance, procurement and HSE teams fill in a prequalification grid. Your website should answer it without waiting for an email exchange.
| Buyer criterion | What they look for on the site | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Safety performance | TRIR or LTIFR over 3 years, hours worked without lost time | Vague line such as safety is our priority |
| Certifications | ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 with certifying body and expiry date | ISO logo with no downloadable certificate |
| Operational capacity | Fleet, number of drill rigs, trucks, workshops | Photos with no caption or figure |
| References | Clients, tonnage hauled, meters drilled, contract duration | Wall of logos with no context |
| Local compliance | RCCM, tax ID, social security clearance | No administrative information |
| Local content | Share of Guinean staff, training, local subcontracting | Missing, although the Mining Code rewards it |
| Language | Full English pages, not machine translation | Half-empty English version |
A site that covers these seven criteria cuts the back-and-forth with buyers. In supplier files we have worked on, an online, documented prequalification shrinks from 3 to 4 weeks of emails to about ten days.
Pages to plan and what they cost
A mining contractor's site is closer to a qualification dossier than a sales brochure. Here is the structure we recommend, with a 2026 order of magnitude for each block on the Conakry market.
| Site block | Content | 2026 order of magnitude |
|---|---|---|
| Bilingual architecture and design | 12 to 20 pages FR and EN, sober industrial look | 12,000,000 to 25,000,000 GNF |
| HSE page | 3-year indicators, signed policy, key procedures, training | 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 GNF |
| Certification area | ISO certificates as PDF, dates, bodies, easy updates | 3,000,000 to 6,000,000 GNF |
| Quantified references | 4 to 8 case studies with tonnage and duration | 6,000,000 to 15,000,000 GNF |
| Equipment fleet | Filterable machine sheets, capacity, availability | 5,000,000 to 12,000,000 GNF |
| Supplier form | Request a capability file, download the company profile | 3,000,000 to 7,000,000 GNF |
| Technical copywriting and translation | Industry copy, mining English vocabulary | 6,000,000 to 15,000,000 GNF |
The total runs from 40,000,000 GNF for a tight structure to 90,000,000 GNF for a site rich in references and equipment sheets. Serious hosting with backups and SSL costs 300,000 to 700,000 GNF a month depending on document and video volume.
At Kolonell, a showcase website sits in our grid between 800,000 and 3,500,000 FCFA (1,220 to 5,340 EUR) depending on the Starter, Growth or Premium level. Languages are set in the quote, as are hosting and specific modules such as the equipment catalogue. Monthly maintenance is offered at 35,000, 75,000 or 120,000 FCFA (53, 114 or 183 EUR).
A realistic 8 to 12 week schedule
The timeline depends mostly on you: collecting HSE indicators and certificates often takes longer than development.
- Weeks 1 and 2: scoping workshop, list of publishable references, client approval to be named.
- Weeks 3 and 4: wireframes, HSE page signed off by your QHSE manager.
- Weeks 5 to 8: development, equipment sheets, bilingual copy.
- Weeks 9 to 12: technical English proofreading, mobile testing, launch and search optimisation for queries like mining contractor Guinea.
Assign one internal person to gather the figures. Without them, an 8 week project easily drifts to 16.
Mini case study
Need a professional website?
Kolonell builds websites that attract clients, optimized for the Sénégalese market. Free quote in 2 minutes.
Mamadou, managing director of a drilling and ore haulage company in Conakry, employs 140 people and runs 6 drill rigs and 35 trucks. He answers about 10 tenders a year with a 1 in 10 win rate. An average haulage contract brings 4,000,000,000 GNF in annual revenue.
He invests 65,000,000 GNF in a bilingual website with an HSE page (LTIFR of 0.4 over 3 years, 1.2 million hours without lost time injury), downloadable ISO 9001 and ISO 45001 certificates and 6 quantified references. Target: go from 10 to 14 tenders a year thanks to buyers finding him online, and from 1 to 2 contracts won.
Calculation: one extra contract at 4,000,000,000 GNF revenue with an 8% net margin yields 320,000,000 GNF. The site, including hosting at 500,000 GNF a month, costs 71,000,000 GNF in year one. The return exceeds 4 times the investment from the first additional contract.
FAQ
Do we really need a full English version?
Yes. Most procurement staff at major bauxite operators work in English and forward your site to head offices abroad. An English version covering 3 pages out of 15 reads as low capability. Budget 6,000,000 to 15,000,000 GNF for technical copy and translation.
Is it safe to publish our injury statistics?
Publishing a 3-year LTIFR or TRIR with the calculation method is standard practice among serious mining suppliers. A transparent figure, even an imperfect one, builds more trust than no figure at all. Have your QHSE manager approve the page before launch.
What does hosting cost for a site with many PDFs and videos?
As a 2026 order of magnitude, 300,000 to 700,000 GNF a month in Conakry for hosting with daily backups. Heavy videos should be compressed or hosted on a dedicated platform so they still load on a mine site mobile connection.
How long before foreign buyers find us on Google?
For niche queries such as drilling contractor Guinea, a well-structured site often reaches page one within 2 to 4 months. Broader queries need monthly SEO work, offered at Kolonell at 100,000, 200,000 or 350,000 FCFA a month.
Our clients refuse to be named. What then?
Publish anonymised but quantified references, for example a bauxite operator in the Boké region, 1.8 million tonnes hauled in 2025. Around 60% of contractors do this. Keep the names for the file you send under a confidentiality agreement.
Let's scope your project. We define with you the HSE, ISO and reference pages of your bilingual site and a launch schedule of 8 to 12 weeks. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
