SEO For Manufacturers And Industrial Companies In 2021: Is SEO Worth It?

5 Steps Manufacturers Can Do To Increase SEO Traffic

There are a ton of ways you can boost your website up in search rankings. Each manufacturing company is different so finding the right mix of best practices takes some experimenting.

Below are a few basic SEO best practices we recommend if you’re just stepping into SEO — but for a more in-depth, technical guide download our complimentary SEO planner, “How to Increase Your SEO Traffic in Just 30 Days.”

1. Track Your SEO Success

Before starting any content strategy it’s important to sign up for Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Thomas WebTrax. Use a combination of these SEO tools and you’ll be able to track the performance of your SEO strategy. The number one metric to track when starting your SEO journey is organic traffic. By curtailing your strategy to boost this metric, you’ll begin to see your ranking on search engines improve.

Google Search Console is a platform that acts as an interface between a site owner and the Google search engine. As such it offers invaluable data, tools and monitoring capability not available elsewhere.

You can also access data from the Search Console on other applications through linking other Google products e.g., Google Analytics and Google AdWords. The API allows you to also integrate CTR and traffic statistics as well as links in other web analytics tools.

Google Analytics allows you to specifically analyze the user behavior on your website and is essential in evaluating the success of your SEO endeavors. The analysis options range from very simple to very complex. Google Analytics tracks the users on your website. To activate the tracking, you must add the respective Google Analytics code snippet on every page.

Thomas WebTrax was designed as a lead generation tool that highlights firmographic and demographic data on your anonymous users, instead of just website metrics. Using Thomas WebTrax and Google Analytics together will optimize your website and continually replenish your sales pipeline with leads.

It goes beyond the analytics, by tracking the buyer throughout the journey from the Thomas Network to your website to when they pick up the phone to call you.

2. Carefully Choose Your SEO Keywords

Keyword research helps you identify keywords that appeal to a target audience and expand the reach of your content. Using keyword research tools helps you identify what kinds of content users are looking for on any given topic. Always make sure to prioritize time for keyword research.

When selecting keywords, you should also keep the purpose of your website in mind. Opt for transactional keywords if the main intention is sales, or informational keywords if your website aims to provide readers with important information. Simple, basic industry descriptors such as “metal stamping” or “injection molding,” will be very competitive. Instead, develop long-tail keywords more specific to your work like your location or the industries you’re targeting. Make sure you do your keyword research and use keywords that appeal to your target audience.

In today’s increasingly competitive landscape, industrial marketers are creating complex digital marketing campaigns to boost lead generation. Pay-per-click advertising, for example, is quickly becoming an integral part of a full and successful SEO strategy, as competitors improve their SEO.

Here are a few recommended tools to help you research keywords:

3. Review Your Redirects And Identify Broken Links

Server relocation can make it necessary to temporarily redirect certain URLs. These redirects (status code 302) ensure that Google retains the old URLs in the index, enabling users to access the older URLs even after server relocation. You should only use a 302 redirect for a limited time period.

For permanently redirecting a URL, use the status code 301, which permanently redirects the old URL to the new URL. Part of the link juice is also passed on in the process.

But what about those pesky 404 errors?

When a user visits a URL that can’t be found on a server, their browser shows them error code 404 (file not found). When this happens, it not only creates a negative user experience but also interrupts search engine crawling. If search engines find too many 404 errors on your website, they take it as a sign that your website is not properly maintained. But more often than not, 404 errors occur because of broken links.

In other words, you’ve inserted a link somewhere on your site that goes to a landing page no longer exists. This often occurs when the destination URLs have been changed or written incorrectly. Make sure to periodically check for any broken links on your website (especially after a relaunch or small URL changes).

Here are a few online tools to help you find 404 errors across your site:

Not sure what a 404 error is and how it can hurt your marketing? For all the basics you need to know and how to fix a 404, check out What Does A 404 Error Mean?

4. Make Your Website Design Mobile-Friendly

Websites built more than five years ago likely have poor user experience and outdated technology, which isn’t good for anyone — especially those searching on mobile. Older websites that don’t respond to mobile device usage and aren’t optimized for search engine algorithms are getting left behind and simply won’t produce any positive lead generation results. Think back to the significance of the millennial generation we mentioned earlier and how they’ve been influencing online trends and the industrial customer buyers’ journey.

57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site, so it’s important to optimize your website not only for viewing on a smartphone, but tablets, and notebook computers too. Partner with an industrial marketing expert who can make immediate updates to put your website in the best position to get found by potential customers.

“As a marketing department of one, it has been really helpful to have Thomas around to help with our marketing strategy as opposed to making it up as we go,” said Jeff Collins, Partner at Renown Electric. Renown is now ranking on page 1 of Google and driving qualified traffic to its website.

💡 Thomas Tip: Get a free SEO audit with our Digital Health Check and learn how you can improve your website presence. Degreed engineers support our SEO experts so we have the right team to promote your manufacturing business.

Responsive website design is paramount in today’s increasingly connected, digital world. In fact, a non-mobile-friendly site design can seriously damage your SEO ranking. As internet users turn more to their smartphones and other mobile devices and less to their actual computers, search engines are doing what makes the most sense: prioritizing mobile experiences.

This means that your website’s mobile face is as important, or even more important, than its desktop face, so make sure your design is optimized for all types of devices. Whether visitors are using a tablet or a desktop computer, your website should be intuitive, engaging, and easy to use.

5. Update Your Website With New Content

One quick way to optimize your website for SEO is to update your website! That means posting content regularly, at least monthly, to keep search engines interested; and working to expand and improve your backlinks. A clear sign that your website needs to be updated with new content is if you only have one page. More quality website pages mean more opportunities for Google to scan your website for relevant keywords to rank your website higher.

Create pages that add real value for your visitors, providing them with directly useful information, tips, or troubleshooting like:

Guide To Heat Treating Deep Drawn Stamped Components
Plastic Injection Molding Solutions For the Medical Industry
Types Of Products Used In Various Electronic Applications

See Examples: 11 Content Marketing Ideas For Manufacturers

Images are a prime opportunity for boosting rankings. Give the images of your shop floor and industrial products SEO-rich file names and alt-tags; since users can search for images, these file names and tags can be very helpful to your overall SEO strategy. Plus, image-driven SEO for manufacturing companies can work especially well when using images of widgets.

Unsure of what kind of content your industrial site needs to drive traffic and generate leads? Here are 11 Manufacturing Content Marketing Ideas (With Examples!)

SEO For Manufacturers: How To Get Started

Although we’ve covered the basics of SEO and what it means for your online presence, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to optimize your website — SEO is just one component of a successful digital marketing strategy. There’s also a lot to still learn about, like onsite vs. offsite SEO and how incorporating video marketing into your lead generation strategy also impacts SEO.

When brainstorming content ideas, smart manufacturing marketing experts follow a standard content planning process of keyword research, relevance, and topic discovery. This planning involves figuring out what type of content should be created and how organic competitors are doing to best boost your SEO traffic.

To make sense of it all and add more value to your online growth strategy, contact us today. If you don’t have time to manage your website and SEO but want to get found by more qualified buyers, that’s okay! Our marketing team is supported by degreed engineers and can do all the heavy-lifting for you.

We’ll begin with a free Digital Health Check to see how you can compare against competitors and show you what tactics you need to get in front of qualified B2B buyers.

“Thomas saw our blindspots that we didn’t know existed and filled them with data and technology to help us to fuel our sales and marketing efforts,” said Brad Godwin, CEO of E2Global, Inc. “The leads generated are qualified and real. It has been a seismic shift away from traditional sales to having a real digital footprint globally. The amount of quality leads being generated is too many to mention.”