SEO For Manufacturers: The Complete Guide

Of course, unless you have an in-depth marketing background, chances are, you’re not all too familiar with SEO, its purpose or why you should be focusing on it. The good news is that we’ve created a complete guide to SEO and how it can benefit your manufacturing business.

Key Talking Points:

SEO stands for “search engine optimisation” - this means optimising the pages of a site towards how a search engine, such as Google or Bing, orders and prioritises websites. Search engine optimisation is a commonly employed marketing practice that ultimately helps to increase the total number of high-quality, relevant traffic to your website and, in turn, boost sales and profitability.

When you run an online business - or have a website that complements in-person sales with online sales - you’re operating in a saturated marketplace. Chances are, there are other businesses out there who offer the same or similar products and services to your own and they’re going to be targeting the very same customers you want to secure.

When potential customers type keywords or search terms into Google or other search engines, they’re likely to click on one of the first pages that appears on page one of Google’s search engine results page and buy with that manufacturer.

It’s extremely important that your page is the one that appears at the top of the search results.

High ranking pages result in more traffic (people visiting your website), more people browsing your products and more people buying with you, helping to generate profit and pushing your business’ success.

As we’ve highlighted above, SEO for manufacturers is absolutely essential for guiding potential customers to your manufacturing website and securing their business, rather than allowing them to stray into the hands of competitors.

By securing the customers first time round, you then gain the opportunity to impress them with your products and services and build customer loyalty, securing their business going forward. You can also find that these customers will leave positive reviews on your local Google My Business listing, or recommend your business through word of mouth to other buyers.

All in all, the purpose of manufacturing SEO is to drive more relevant traffic to your manufacturing website, which as stated previously, will help not only increase potential leads but also position your manufacturing website ahead of the competition, at the top of Google's search engine results and more importantly, in front of your target audience.

The more you look into search engine optimisation, the more complex you’ll realise this process is. Google and other search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to ensure that users are finding the content they are looking for, meaning that you need to utilise a whole array of unique and constantly evolving SEO strategies to remain competitive and consistently secure those top spots in the search engine results. You’re going to find yourself engaging with everything from tailored digital marketing strategies to innovative web design and more

Here are a few areas of focus to get started with.

On-Page and Off-Page (Technical) SEO

SEO is commonly broken down into two key categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

  • On-page SEO - this form of SEO helps you to optimise individual web pages on your website to rank higher in search engine results and generate more relevant traffic. It focuses on the content of the pages and HTML source codes (also known as HyperText makeup language which is used to create pages on a website).
  • Off-page SEO - off-page or “off-site” SEO, on the other hand, is a series of actions you can take outside of your own website to positively impact your rankings, such as link building. This will help your website climb the search engine results relevant to the products you sell.

When you get involved in on-page SEO, you will find yourself really looking through the content of your site, as well as adding new, high-quality, SEO focused content to your website, making use of keyword research to include relevant keywords within your written website content.  You should also make sure that the title tags on your web pages are relevant, that the meta descriptions for all of your website pages are optimised effectively and that you add appropriate alt text to images.

When you start to focus on off-page SEO, you should look to create a high-quality organic backlink strategy. Natural backlinks are formed when a website references a web resource such as a URL, an individual web page or a directory. However, it's important to remember that Google prefers websites that have backlinks from credible sources - in other words, don't pay for your backlinks.

The image above highlights an example of on-page SEO work that we have previously done for our client, Advanced Seals & Gaskets.

Page Loading Speed and Mobile Friendly Web Design

The speed at which your web page loads can have a huge impact on SEO. Search engines know that users want to load and access content quickly whenever they visit a site. This encourages them to keep using the search engine, so it’s in the search engine’s favour to list websites that contain pages that load quickly first. Ideally, your page should load in less than 5 seconds, as this makes it 25% faster than the majority of other websites on the internet. If your page loads in 2.9 seconds, it’s faster than 50% of other pages. A loading time of 1.7 seconds will place you faster than 75% of other pages, while a load speed of 0.8 seconds will ensure your page loads faster than 94% of other pages out there.

Mobile-friendly web design is another important area of focus. Search engines are also aware that a huge number of people browse the web from their mobiles, so they will often place mobile-friendly pages higher in results. Having a mobile-friendly site creates a better overall user experience for mobile users while also seeing search engines, such as Google, potentially rank your website further up on their search engine results page.

Create an Effective Content Campaign

Any manufacturer focusing on SEO should have a comprehensive and effective content campaign. Content marketing can have a positive impact on SEO for manufacturers. It’s important that you create a campaign that will provide your users not only with ongoing exposure to your brand and constant encouragement to engage, but also provide the users with informative and educational content that provides the web user with answers to any potential question they may have.

Higher engagement levels will alert search engines that people are spending more time on your site, showing them that you are providing quality content and increasing your search result ranking.

Prioritise Keyword Research

Keywords really are a major player in search engine optimisation. These are what people use to find the products you’re selling, so you need to make sure that the words and phrases that people are using to search for your products are the same ones being used on your site. This will allow search engines to line up intent and content, placing you higher in the search results of people actively seeking your products or services.

Utilise Local SEO

Another factor within SEO for manufacturers is local SEO. Many businesses now operate on a national and even international scale but, it’s still important to make the most of local search engine optimisation.

Local SEO is an additional marketing technique that can be used by both B2C and B2B businesses to reach more potential customers who live within the local area where a business operates. By following and applying the best local SEO practices, businesses will have the ability to improve and enhance the performance of their local business listings on search engines such as Google and Bing.

Optimising your business listing is considered to be one of the most powerful and effective ways to enhance the performance of local search engine optimisation. Ensuring that business information, products and services offered are kept up-to-date as well as posting regular business updates.

From our West Midlands based marketing agency we offer a range of marketing services, including expert SEO services. If you're interested in improving the Google rankings for your website and improving the content on your site, then don't hesitate to get in touch! We have decades of combined experience in SEO and web design which can help your business flourish on the web.

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