Search engine optimization isn’t an easy concept to get into. If it were, everyone would be using it expertly without needing any help from experts or blog posts like this one. All websites would rank number one, all ads would lead to near-constant conversions.
Unfortunately, that’s not how the web works. What it means is that if you want to stand out among competitors, you have to have a special knowledge of how SEO works. Not only that, but how SEO works for your industry.
That’s why manufacturing and industrial SEO are different from traditional SEO. Because unique industries need a unique touch.
What’s different about industrial SEO marketing?
Companies in the industrial and manufacturing sectors have offerings that are typically complex in nature. This is one of the factors that makes the SEO needs of an industrial manufacturing company unique. It’s not the only one, either. Others include:
- Longer sales cycles that require more nurturing than you’d need in consumer B2C relationships
- Executives and players with buying power that can be reluctant to adopt new trends due to existing comfort with traditional word-of-mouth, referral, and directory-based marketing techniques
- The prioritization of fact-based content versus emotion-based content
- Keyword lists that have larger numbers of low-volume, high-specificity keywords due to niche industry needs
What’s the same when it comes to traditional and industrial SEO marketing?
The goal of all search engine optimization is the same, no matter the industry or prospect. This goal: bring traffic to a company’s website that leads to conversions. The best way to do that is by ranking well on search engines. In fact, did you know that Google has published a study that found that 71% of B2B buyers begin their buying journey through research on search engines?
Your goal will be to take this common focus and learn how to address it while heeding the unique needs of an industrial or manufacturing company. For example: because industrial SEO is attracting prospects that will be interested in a longer buying cycle, the type of content promoted by keywords will need to accommodate that need. B2B big spenders don’t want fluff pieces, they want industry-relevant articles that can be forwarded to the boss who can approve spend.
Where do I start with industrial SEO for my business?
You can start by conducting an SEO audit of your website. We’ve published a post that guides you through the process of conducting one, which we recommend reviewing after this post. A SEO audit is going to give you a look at what is and isn’t working for your website at present.
After you get a better idea of where you stand currently, you can start taking future-facing steps, like:
- Creating more well-written, shareable, keyword-driven content
- Making sure your website is easy to navigate, especially on mobile devices
- Using a keyword strategy that reflects the needs of your own niche industry
- Building backlinks and interlinking within your own pages to keep prospects interacting with your pages and content
- Updating the metadata on your pages (title tags, meta descriptions, H1s) to reflect your updated keyword lists
- Learning more about Google AdWords and how SEO isn’t only about organic inbound traffic
- If you need more bandwidth or expertise, hiring a digital marketing company that focuses on manufacturing and industrial SEO
What makes industrial SEO marketing different, overall, is the expertise it takes to succeed in a competitive, niche space. You’re already taking the right steps toward doing right by your business just by reading this post.
If you’d like to dig deeper into the techniques it takes to stand out online as an industrial company, you can contact our team at Windmill Strategy. Otherwise, you can always check out our expansive blog archive to learn more on a variety of relevant topics.