SEO for Manufacturers Can Increase Your Leads for Years to Come

John SammonAuthor: John Sammon
Updated on 09/10/2023

In 2010, we opened our doors to help companies grow their business via search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. In fact, some of our very first SEO clients were manufacturing companies. Being located in the Midwest, we are surrounded by a variety of industrial companies operating in many different niches.

To this day, as we enter our 12th year of business, we continue to maintain a robust lineup of manufacturing clients, as we work to drive consistent, qualified leads and show a healthy ROI for companies working primarily in a B2B environment.

So how have we been able to help so many manufacturing companies over the years? Here is what one of our clients had to say for themselves:

“We have been working with the Sixth City team for about 6 years now and they have really helped us build our online presence. We work monthly hand in hand to come up with new campaigns and strategies. They are always thinking of new ways to generate leads and they are there for anything we need. They are also in the process of building our new website and I am so excited about the launch. It looks great! I love working with Sixth City and look forward to it for many more years to come!” – Sarah Wentz, Valco Valley Tool/Die

SEO Services for Manufacturing Companies That Will Help Your Business Increase Revenue

Manufacturing SEO Tips 2023In working with our first handful of retainer clients, we uncovered many tactics and strategies that quickly brought more relevant traffic, leads and sales from search engines from people looking for their services across the country. This success led to more referrals for our business, and we’ve continued to grow since that point in time by not only doing good work, but providing exceptional customer service.

Below, we offer guidance to help your organization’s SEO strategy in a variety of different ways. We aim to inform and educate you on common questions and challenges we’ve uncovered over the years. However, if you’re looking to partner up with an agency to help with your SEO efforts, please contact us using the form on our site – we’d love to talk with you.

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Frequently Asked Questions About SEO for Manufacturers

What is Manufacturing SEO?

Manufacturing SEO (search engine optimization) is a digital marketing strategy that is customized towards industrial companies to help them rank better on search engines. For manufacturing companies, the goal is to rank nationally, or even internationally, for products or services you produce and/or sell. A successful SEO campaign is completely customized to your needs and will bring customers to your website searching for your products or services with the goal of getting them to ultimately contact you.

Is SEO important for manufacturing companies?

We believe so, but if you want to see the numbers, here are a few stats that may help:

Manufacturing SEO Stats 2023

  • 57% of B2B marketers believe SEO generates more leads than any other strategy (Source: Gitnux)
  • 75% of people searching the internet never go beyond the first page of search results. (Source: Imforza)
  • 79% of manufacturers claim to have an SEO strategy. (Source: Industrial Sage)
  • 68% of manufacturing marketers link building is part of their SEO strategy. (Source: Industrial Sage)
  • 84% of people searching for services in the manufacturing industry say that they use the internet as their starting point in finding a company, components, and services. (Source: HubSpot)
  • On average, B2B buyers do roughly 12 searches while researching before engaging with a brand. (Source: Google)
  • As of 2022, organic traffic generates 69% of leads for manufacturing companies. (Source: Industrial Sage)

Is SEO the right fit for my business?

One of the best parts about SEO is that no matter what your niche is, it can offer great opportunities to draw people in that are looking for your products or services. A successful SEO strategy allows your site to become a vital marketing tool for your business, generating high-quality leads for years to come. If you need more convincing, check out some more compelling facts and statistics on SEO.

How do I know what keywords to target?

You’ll want to do some homework on this. The good news is that there are plenty of tools out there to help you assess opportunities. Here are three tools to look at:

  1. Google Keyword Planner – Requires signing up for Google Ads but doesn’t mandate spending money or running ads to see general search volume for keywords. If you run a campaign, you’ll get more specific data.
  2. SE Ranking – Signing up is a mandate to use this tool; however, they give you a 14-day trial to assess it. It’s worth the commitment, as you can put keyword phrases into their system and also get an idea of where you rank for that specific term (at a minimum). This tool will also allow you to track your keyword progress over time, which is an important aspect of assessing a long-term SEO campaign.
  3. Ahrefs – If you have an account, you can use their keyword explorer tool to help get a better idea of what different terms your competition is targeting and what gaps are between your sites.
  4. Google Trends – Shows search trends over time and peak times of the year for search volume

Manufacturing Company Keyword Research Tips

In SEO, you’ll want to be very careful about the terms you target. If you try to rank for manufacturing keyword phrases that are too broad, you could wind up either failing to draw the right audience to your website or to rank in general because of the competition level of those terms.

If you start to experiment with the SEO research websites listed above, here are a few things to search for and possibly target:

  • [product or service] company
  • [product or service] distributor
  • [product or service] supplier
  • [product or service] manufacturer
  • [product or service] for [x] industry
  • [product or service] for [x] products

The search terms can be singular or plural, too. Adding descriptive words to the products or services may result in keyword phrases that have lower search volume. However, the goal with any search campaign is to gain visitors who are hyper-relevant and in a buying mode. A far more specific search (i.e. someone contacting you to say something like, “I’m looking for a company to do some copper fabricating with a CNC machine”)  typically means it’s a better potential prospect for your business.

My competitors aren’t active in digital marketing, so why should I start?

We’ve found that the industrial industry is a late adopter of digital marketing, and the primary purpose of manufacturing company websites is to serve as a portfolio you can refer potential customers to when talking to them. Your competitors’ lack of activity is an opportunity for you.

Another thing to consider is your competitors in the search engine landscape. The competitors that you closely watch may not be the ones you have to battle for position on search engines. Try doing a few searches for products you make or services you offer. Note who is ranking both organically (listings below the paid ads) and who is running ads on these terms via Google Ads. That will give you more of an idea of where you truly stand in Google’s eyes.

Where do I start?

Researching SEO can be intimidating, especially if you are just starting out. You’ll quite often find a mix of recommendations that talk about recent changes to search engine algorithms and established best practices. It’s enough to make your head spin, because just there’s so much to take in.

For most companies in the manufacturing industry, the best place to start is your website and the content on it. Search engines like sites that publish content regularly because it helps them understand if you are an authority on a topic or a series of topics. A topic can be considered one of your products or services. Here are a few areas of your website where you could consider adding content or creating new pages if needed:

  • Add content to your homepage. Here are things to expand upon on this page:
    • What makes your company different? In manufacturing, it’s usually the expertise, years in business, customer service, how quickly you can get them your product, and the level of customization of the product that you offer.
    • The history of your company
    • Your team and leadership
    • Photos of your facility/team
  • Add your phone number to the top-right corner of your website header (across the site)
  • Include a link to a “contact us” page in copy across the site. It’s also key to include it in the main navigation of your website (you’ll get bonus points if you have a form on there)
  • Create an “about us” page and post pictures of the leadership at your organization. If one of your differentiation points is your expertise, this will be critical
  • Create new pages for each individual type of product or service that you offer. Quite often, we see companies list all of these things on one page. We recommend creating individual pages for each product and service because it’s much easier for a search engine to find and rank a page if it has a specific content focus on it. It also improves the probability that someone will contact you because their search has led them to a page with hyper-relevant content.

A lot of our site is product specifications and data. How do you go about adding more content to those pages?

We have a great in-house staff of copywriters who have extensive experience working with a range of clients and crafting copy for sections like these. Our writers have backgrounds in marketing, journalism, communications, and other fields that give them a creative boost to ensure that your content can be optimized strategically.

What types of manufacturers can you help?

Over the years, we have worked with a wide range of industrial companies in various niches. From tank manufacturers to metal parts distributors, our experience has helped us learn the ins and outs of various businesses in the industry. We can help companies in fields such as:

How Our Manufacturing SEO Services Get You More Leads

Incorporating an SEO strategy into your marketing efforts can reap great rewards, but our company can also correct many issues websites face, which hurt their search presence, and in turn negatively affect their traffic and lead generation.

Common issues that manufacturing websites often face include:

  • A site that is not mobile-friendly or compatible on all device types
  • Key pages not targeting keywords that match user search intent
  • A site missing an SSL certificate (a non-HTTPS URL)
  • Pages with slow load times
  • Missing calls to action, which are essential for generating a user response
  • No way to contact the business
  • Lacking conversion or goal tracking in Google Analytics

By utilizing our team of marketing experts, you can eliminate these issues and start to see a significant boost in both your SEO traffic and conversions.

The Ways Our Approach to SEO Helps Manufacturers

Here are some of the tactics we consider and implement when crafting custom SEO strategies for manufacturers:

Evaluate Top Landing Pages

We will go into your Google Analytics profile and see which pages on your website get the most traffic, convert the best, and have the most room for opportunity. From there, we can revamp page copy, add additional keywords, internally link pages together, and more.

Address Product and Service Pages

We often see manufacturing websites that have little to no page copy on their most important pages, whether it’s because they never had the time to write content, had limitations in how the website was built, or they just weren’t sure what to write. Part of our process includes making sure these pages are optimized properly.

Check Your Local Presence

Have you claimed and optimized your local listings on Google and Bing? Even if you are a national company, making sure your business information is properly displayed not only on your website, but across citation websites, social media, and your Google Business Profile is an essential SEO tactic.

Assess Data Sheets and PDFs

As a business that needs to value the technical aspects of your products, from their size to their range of abilities, you are likely linking to various PDFs that your company creates for your product line. But did you know there is no way to track PDF views in Google Analytics? Not to mention, PDFs don’t give customers the ability to contact you. Ensuring that we address issues like this is a top priority of our strategy.

Take Time to Build Quality Links

Having a strong backlink profile is essential in the eyes of Google. Our strategists have experience crafting link-building strategies that will give your site a boost from quality websites.

Refresh Your Metadata

If it has been a while since you updated the metadata on your website, give these titles and descriptions a makeover to include more keywords and more appealing copy can bring more users to your site.

Identify and Track Your Top Keywords

Do you currently know where your website ranks on search engines such as Google? The answer may not be what you think it is, since Google’s personalized search algorithm often interferes with most search queries. We will work with you to identify what terms you wish to rank for and utilize reliable software that helps us track your website’s ongoing progress in ranking.

Create Useful Content to Help the Sales Process

Your sales team is likely asked a lot of redundant questions, like ordering info, shipping queries, and everything in-between. One great way we can help alleviate that is by creating a frequently asked questions page that users can have as a tool to get the info they need quickly, which will ultimately save you the hassle.

Design for Conversion

Our team has the ability to make strategic design and development changes to your website that will turn website visitors into customers. From adding pops of color to changing the location of your web forms to be “above the fold” of the page, there are numerous things we can implement to improve your pages from a conversion standpoint.

Establish Proper Goal Tracking

Even if you already have Google Analytics connected to your website, you could be missing out on key data by not having proper goal tracking in place. Our team can enable goal tracking across web forms, phone numbers, and even purchases to help you better analyze your website and marketing efforts.

“The Sixth City Team is truly knowledgeable about how SEO works and love what they do. They are natural teachers, excited to share what they know. The recommendations and information we got from them were super helpful in improving our site’s rankings and a few other things.” – Miranda Berner, Berner Air Curtains

Why Invest in SEO for Your Manufacturing Company?

We understand that deciding to invest in a reliable agency is a big decision, and we realize that you may have worked with other agencies in the past that couldn’t produce results. Here are some things about our agency that may help with your decision:

  • We’re Focused on Measurement and ROI – Simply stated, if we aren’t helping to generate more sales for your business, then we aren’t doing our jobs. Our ultimate goal is to prove a return on your investment in our SEO services.
  • We Can Help You Get Lead Source Data – We have developed a unique process that allows us to get more detailed information from your form submissions and phone calls that can help you assess the success of the work we are providing.
  • We’re Experienced in B2B Marketing – We know that most manufacturers operate with a business-to-business focus, and our experience in doing SEO for other clients and similar industries helps us know how to target and appeal to your ideal customers in professional fields.
  • We Have an In-House Team – One of the biggest things that makes our agency different is that we are completely in-house, meaning we do not outsource any of our work. This not only helps us build better client relationships, but also increases the quality of the work we do for your business.

The Types of SEO You Should Be Familiar With

There are four popular branches of SEO that we utilize in our 100% custom manufacturing marketing campaigns:

  1. On-Page SEO
    This includes everything you can control and change on a webpage, including page copy, keywords, internal linking, headers (H1, H2s, etc.), metadata, and photos.
  2. Off-Page SEO
    As you can guess, off-page SEO includes everything you do for SEO outside of your website. This includes link building, managing local citations, optimization of local profiles, and more.
  3. Technical SEO
    Technical SEO encompasses aspects of your on-page SEO, such as ensuring your photos are sized properly and optimized, and also factors in the structure of your website, redirects, canonicals, user experience, and overall site speed.
  4. Local SEO
    Local search engine optimization isn’t relevant to most businesses in the manufacturing industry, but it is still good to understand what it is. Local SEO refers to specialized tactics to improve the local rankings of businesses that have a local focus (such as gyms, dentists, contractors, etc.). This can include optimizing their local profiles, getting backlinks from other local businesses, and more.

Manufacturing Companies We’ve Helped Through SEO

valco
tykma logo
shini usa logo
cutting dynamics

In our work with these businesses and many others, we have accrued the experience needed to effectively increase qualified leads and website traffic for companies within many unique manufacturing sectors.

Our SEO Success With Manufacturing Companies

Here are a few of our case studies with current and former clients that prove just how powerful SEO can be.

TYKMA Electrox

We provided a custom SEO strategy with a heavy focus on targeted keyword research, alongside a website redesign for this client. Comparing September 2017 to February 1 through March 2 of 2014, we were able to:

  1. Improve overall traffic by 402%
  2. Boost organic traffic by 50%
  3. Improve monthly leads by 314%

Shini USA

For Shini USA, from a mix of PPC, design for conversion, and SEO that included keyword analysis and content optimization, comparing year over year, they received:

  1. 28% more monthly website visits (1,464 vs. 1,142)
  2. A 632% boost in SEO traffic (564 vs. 77)
  3. A 129% increase in monthly leads (39 vs. 17)

Valco Valley Tool & Die

When we started with Valco many years ago, they had just launched a new website and were experiencing major traffic losses. With our SEO help, a year later, their numbers were very different:

  1. We increased visits per month by 114% (2,910 vs. 1,362)
  2. Monthly online inquiries surged by 543% (135 vs. 21)
  3. The overall conversion rate rose from 1.54% to 4.6%

We Do More Than Just SEO for Manufacturing Companies

A complete campaign from a successful manufacturing marketing agency doesn’t just stop with search engine optimization. For industrial companies, it means reaching out to customers in new ways and making it easier than ever for them to find what they need, request parts, create custom orders, inquire about capabilities, and more.

Our company can also provide:

  • Website Design and Development
    One of the best ways to help your website convert higher is through a fresh look and design. We have years of experience designing custom websites for specific industries that cater to their preferred customers’ needs. Best yet, we work with you step by step through the phases of planning, designing, and launch.
  • Pay-Per-Click Marketing and Management
    Running a successful paid campaign can be extremely difficult. With our in-house staff of PPC experts, we can deliver custom landing pages, well-written ads, and precise keyword and location targeting to ensure your ads get in front of your ideal customers on Google, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets.
  • CRM Consulting/Marketing
    Do you use a customer relationship management system such as HubSpot or PipeDrive? As CRM experts, we can assist you in setting up workflows, organizing leads, and much more to help your sales team keep up with the leads we bring in through our marketing services.
  • Social Media Management
    For manufacturers, social media marketing can be a great way to get the word out on new products, services, and any special events going on in your company, such as attending trade shows. Our team will write posts, schedule them, and conduct maintenance on your social media accounts on your behalf.
  • Email Marketing
    Supplementing our SEO services, we are trained in working with various email platforms such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot, and more. From designing a template to match your brand to writing monthly newsletters, we can help you email your current customers, distributors, and more.
“I’ve worked with Sixth City Marketing for multiple years now for my PPC and SEO needs. They have consistently delivered a high-quality product, are professional, and deeply care about their customers. They listen to my business needs and work with me to help my business grow. I’ve seen a massive improvement in the quality of leads, website visitors, and click-through rate. My website has experienced immediate positive results from suggested website changes, with increased forms completed, increased phone calls, and increased pages per visit. Other PPC companies I’ve worked with just waste ad spend, while Sixth City Marketing makes use of every penny.” – Jennifer Hristovski, SprayWorks

Contact Our Manufacturing SEO Company Today

When it comes to search engine optimization services, no one does it better than Sixth City Marketing. With a deep understanding of the industry and what it takes to reach customers and give them exactly what they need, we promise to take your business to new online heights.

To learn more about our SEO agency, our offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, or what we can accomplish for your company, be sure to contact us today.

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