SEO for Manufacturers

A Step-by-Step Manufacturers SEO Guide

Are you ready to attract more customers to your manufacturing business through organic search? Keep reading to learn how a targeted SEO manufacturer marketing strategy can help you get found by potential customers online.

In this guide you will learn:

Chapter 1
Intro to SEO →

Chapter 2
Keyword Research →

Chapter 3
On-Page SEO →

Chapter 4
Off-Page SEO →

Chapter 5
Best Practices →

Chapter 6
FAQs & Resources →

What is SEO for manufacturers?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website or web page’s visibility in search engines like Google and Bing.

SEO is crucial for manufacturers looking to attract more business, as the higher your website ranks in search engine results, the greater the chance potential clients or partners will find and engage with your business.

Think of SEO like the maintenance of your manufacturing operations.

Just as regular maintenance keeps machinery running smoothly, SEO ensures your website is ‘optimized’ to perform well in search results, making it easier for potential customers to find your products or services and drive more relevant traffic to your site.

A person searching for a manufacturer on Google may use a search query like “manufacturers near me” or “best [industry] manufacturer in [city name]”.

They may search for specific products or services such as “custom metal fabrication” or “OEM electronics supplier”. Or they may even include specific certifications or compliance requirements in the search query, such as “ISO 9001 certified manufacturer in [city name]”.

In order to benefit from SEO, you want your website to rank for these kinds of searches.

Why is manufacturer SEO important?

Here are some of the benefits of using SEO for your manufacturing business:

• Increased visibility: SEO enhances the visibility of your manufacturing website on search engines, making it easier for potential clients or partners to find you when searching for manufacturing services or products.
• Cost-effective: Compared to traditional advertising methods like trade magazines or direct mail, SEO is a more affordable way for manufacturers to reach a wider audience and generate leads.
• Targeted audience: SEO allows you to target specific keywords that align with your products, services, and industry. This ensures that your business reaches the right people, such as potential buyers, suppliers, and business partners.
• Local SEO: Local SEO helps increase your website’s visibility among people searching for manufacturing services within a specific geographic location. This is particularly valuable for manufacturers looking to connect with local businesses or clients who require regional services.
• Building trust: SEO helps your website establish authority with search engines and potential clients by providing relevant, high-quality content. This can build credibility in your industry, attract more inquiries, and foster a strong reputation for your manufacturing business.

How do search engines work?

Search engines work by crawling billions of webpages with their own web crawlers, known as search engine bots or spiders. These are then stored and saved in an index.

Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines)

The Google Search Essentials define the actions that webmasters can take to make their websites better indexable or crawlable.

Read them here: Official Google Guidelines

The guidelines are based on three central aspects:

1. Crawling – webmasters should support Google in finding websites.
2. Indexing – webmasters should help Google to classify and “recognize” the content.
3. Usability and user experience – webmasters should support the users of the websites in their use (usability and user experience).

Essentially, according to these Google guidelines,  a website should support the search engine in crawling and indexing and ensure a good user experience. 

Before you get started with SEO, there are a few prerequisites you want to check off first:

SEO Basics

At a bare minimum, you want to make sure you cover these basic standards before embarking on doing SEO:

• Website Speed – Have a fast loading site so potential customers don’t get tired of waiting for things to load.
• Mobile Friendliness – Make sure your site works on mobile as over 50% of users browse on mobile devices
• Analytics – Setup Google Analytics, Google Search Console & so you can understand what is and isn’t working.
• XML Sitemap – search engines use this to get your site’s URLs
• Robots.txt – tells search engine crawlers where they can (and where they can’t go) on your site.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of making website and server optimizations to help search engines to crawl and index your site more effectively (and therefore help to improve organic rankings).

Technical errors can hurt a website’s ability to rank. There are potentially a lot of errors, but here are some of the most common that will have the biggest impact when fixed:

• 404 errors
• Broken backlinks
• Poor URL structure
• Duplicate/thin content
• Poor internal linking
• Poor website architecture
• Missing metadata (page titles & meta descriptions)
• Missing H1 tags

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What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the process of identifying the words and phrases that people use when searching for specific products or services:

Once you understand the keywords your target audience is using, you can optimize your website to appear for these in search results.

Think of keyword research like a diagnostic tool for your manufacturing business. Just as a diagnostic test helps a mechanic understand the health of an engine, keyword research helps you understand what potential clients are searching for when they need manufacturing services.

For example, if you manufacture custom metal parts, keyword research might reveal that people are searching for terms like “precision metal fabrication” or “custom metal machining.” By optimizing your website with these keywords, you increase your chances of ranking higher in search results, attracting more leads looking for your specific services.

Why is keyword research important?

Keyword research is important for manufacturers because it helps to:

• understand what people are searching for when they are looking for manufacturing services, and to optimize their website accordingly.
• identify the specific needs and pain points of their target audience, which can inform the content they create and services they offer, ultimately leading to more conversion and better customer experience.
• identify the competition in the local area and understand what they are doing, so they can create a more effective SEO strategy.

What keywords are best to target?

Understand that there’s no “best” keywords, just those that are highly searched by your audience. With this in mind, it’s up to you to craft a strategy that will help you rank pages and drive traffic.

The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on:

• The level of competition you’re up against.
• Your ability to produce content that exceeds in quality what’s currently ranking.

How to do keyword research for your manufacturing business

To start keyword research: put yourself in your customers shoes.

What words, phrases and terms might they use in order to find solutions to these problems? These are the keywords you want to find and target.

Here is a simple process to follow:

Step 1) Make a list of broad topics

Create a list of general topics related to your business. These might correspond to product categories, services or anything you believe your target audience would be interested in.

For example, broad topics like:

• Industrial Automation
• Precision Manufacturing
• CNC Machining
• Metal Fabrication Techniques
• Custom Parts Manufacturing

Step 2) Expand topics into a list of phrases

Now you want to take those topics and expand them into a list of related phrases to target.

Imagine yourself as a buyer looking for your product or service and ask yourself: what would I type into Google?

Whilst keyword research tools are useful here, you can do this for free by Googling your keyword.

For example, Google “industrial automation solutions”, and you’ll see a list of related questions people ask (which you can answer with blog content).

These questions provide insight into what potential customers are searching for, allowing you to create content that directly addresses their needs and improves your chances of ranking higher in search results.

As well as related searches which may uncover other keywords to target:

Step 3) Analyze your keywords

Once you have a list of potential keywords, you need to gauge which terms are worth targeting.

You’ll need to use a keyword research tool here to pay attention to the following keyword metrics:

• Search volume
• Trends
• Search value over time
• Difficulty
• CPC
• SERP features

But most importantly, you want to consider relevancy and search intent:

Relevant keywords:

For relevancy, you want to ask yourself:

• Are these keywords relevant to my business?
• Do I have a chance of ranking for these terms based on the competition?
• Is ranking for these keywords going to have a positive ROI?

If you can answer YES to the above questions, chances are you have picked a relevant keyword

Search intent:

Search intent is the goal and purpose of a search query in Google. When someone searches for something, they are typically looking for more information before performing an action.

Search intent falls in four buckets:

• Informational – Searchers looking for information, they’ll use words like: how, what, why, when etc.
• Navigational – Searchers trying to find a specific site, they’ll use words relating to the service/product/brand
• Transactional – Searchers looking to purchase, they’ll use words like: buy, cost, pricing, cheap etc.
• Commercial investigation – Searchers researching prior to making a purchase, they’ll use words like: best, review, comparison etc

Not only is it important to select good keywords, but also to pick keywords you have a chance of ranking for.

If you want to rank for a keyword like “Best Industrial Safety Standards”, but your page doesn’t actually discuss or outline key safety standards relevant to manufacturing, you’re not aligning with search intent and may struggle to rank. Search engines prioritize content that directly addresses what users are looking for, so ensuring your page delivers relevant, in-depth information on the topic is crucial for visibility.

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What is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO describes specific elements of the pages on your website that you control, such as:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Header tags
• Internal linking
• Images
• Content

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is crucial for manufacturers because it helps ensure that their website is easily found and understood by search engines, increasing visibility and driving more traffic to the site. This can ultimately lead to more business opportunities and customer inquiries.

For example, if a manufacturer specializes in “custom metal parts” and this service is not prominently mentioned on the website, it will be less likely to appear in search results when someone searches for “custom metal parts” or related terms. However, if the manufacturer optimizes their website with “custom metal parts” as a focus keyword, it will be more likely to appear in search results, attracting more potential clients seeking this service.

Additionally, on-page optimization can improve the overall user experience of the website, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. A well-organized, easy-to-navigate site with clear calls to action like “Request a Quote” or “Contact Us for More Information” will be more likely to convert visitors into customers.

On-Page SEO Checklist

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What is off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO refers to specific actions done outside of your website, such as getting backlinks from other websites or social media.

What is link building?

Link building is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks (also known as “backlinks”) to a website with the goal of improving SEO. Common link building strategies include content marketing, building useful tools, email outreach, broken link building and guest posts.

Why is link building important?

Link building is important for manufacturers because it helps to increase the visibility of a website on search engines. Google, for example, use links to a website as a way to determine the authority and trustworthiness of a website.

The more high-quality links that point to a website, the more likely it is to be considered an authority in its field and be given higher rankings in the SERPs (search engine results page).

This increased visibility can drive more traffic to a website, which can lead to more clients for your manufacturing business.

Additionally, link building can help establish a manufacturing business as a reputable and trustworthy provider in its industry, which is essential for attracting new clients and business opportunities. High-quality links from reputable websites in the manufacturing sector can signal to potential clients that a company is well-respected and an authority in its field.

Link building can also increase referral traffic to a website, where visitors are directed to the site through a link from another trusted platform. This can help raise brand awareness and reach new audiences who may not have discovered the website otherwise.

In summary, link building is important for manufacturers because it boosts visibility, builds reputation and trust, and drives more referral traffic to the website, leading to more business and potential clients.

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Manufacturing SEO Best Practices (+ 4 Tips)

4 Actionable manufacturer SEO Tips

Here are some things your business can do to begin the process of developing a good manufacturing marketing strategy.

1. Add relevant keywords
2. Optimize for local searches
3. Start blogging
4. Earn links

1. Add relevant keywords to your website

People looking for manufacturing services often search for specific products or solutions, such as custom parts or precision machining. Long-tail searches may have lower search volume, but the traffic they bring is often highly targeted and more likely to convert into real business opportunities.

For example, instead of just optimizing your website for broad terms like “manufacturing” or “industrial services,” you could focus on long-tail keywords like “custom metal parts in [your city],” “precision CNC machining in [your area],” or “plastic injection molding in [your state].” These more specific terms can help attract clients who are looking for exactly what your business offers.

2. Optimize your site for local searches

If your SEO plan doesn’t use local SEO to target specific areas, you’ll likely miss out on some great leads. Adding the name of your town and nearby towns to your website copy is the easiest way to get better results.

But don’t forget about things on your site besides writing copy. You should also add places to the titles and URLs of your pages.

Also, make sure that your business is listed on Google Maps and local directory sites. This will help your business show up more in local searches.

3. Start writing useful content

The main goal of manufacturers SEO is to get more customers by making your website more visible in Google.

One way to do this is by creating a blog. If you write a blog offering insights on manufacturing processes, industry trends, or tips on improving production efficiency, you’ll attract interested readers and potential clients. As your traffic grows, so will your search rankings, and businesses looking for manufacturing solutions will view your company as a reliable and knowledgeable resource.

4. Earn quality links

How high your site ranks in search results for keywords and phrases related to your business depends on how many and how good the links are to it. This means that you need to get good links if you want to keep your rankings.

You can do this by making good content and reaching out to bloggers and leaders in your field to ask them to share it. This will not only help you move up in search results, but it will also make your manufacturing business look like a leader in the field.

Backlinks are a very important part of SEO for manufacturers. They are like a vote of confidence for the content you put out. Because of this, links are one of the most important ways that search engines like Google decide how to rank pages.

How does manufacturing SEO work?

SEO for manufacturers means making sure that your website is optimized for both search engines and users. This makes your website more visible in relevant and organic search results.

Optimizations include:

• on-page SEO
• link building
• technical SEO review
• content audit
• local citation audit

Why do manufacturers need marketing?

It helps you differentiate your business from competitors.

Your clients are your customers. A marketing plan not only helps you identify your target market but also communicates why they should choose your manufacturing services over others.

A solid manufacturing marketing strategy should attract new clients, retain existing ones, and increase awareness of your products or services. The primary goal is to drive potential clients to inquire or request quotes, ultimately boosting sales and business growth.

How long does manufacturing SEO take?

Typically, manufacturing SEO takes at least six months to deliver results.

In some cases, businesses may start to see results like increased traffic, phone calls, and appointments, in faster time frame than this.

Although typically 6 months is a good benchmark as SEO is a long-term strategy vs. a short-term strategy like PPC.

How much does SEO for manufacturers cost?

Prices for manufacturer website SEO depend on multiple factors, but the average cost for manufacturing SEO is $1500 – $5000 per month.

If you’re looking to partner with a consultant or manufacturing SEO expert, the average rate is $100 – $300 per hour.