SEO for Manufacturers: Definition, Benefits, and Top Tactics

What Is Manufacturing SEO?

Manufacturing SEO is the process of making changes to a manufacturing website to increase its visibility in organic search results. This can help it rank (appear high in search results) for keywords related to your company.

For example, your target keywords might include “plastic manufacturers,” manufacturing services,” or “clothing manufacturer.”

When people see your listing in organic (unpaid) search results, they may click through to your website. This can increase traffic that might turn into leads and sales.

Manufacturing companies can handle SEO in-house. Or work with an agency partner to develop an SEO plan.

Why Is SEO Important for Manufacturers?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an effective way to drive website traffic that can translate into leads and sales.

Here are some of the primary benefits of SEO for industrial manufacturing companies:

Increases Visibility

When your webpages rank near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), more prospects notice your business. Especially if you appear enticing features like rich snippets or People Also Ask (PAA).

For example, when you search “how much does it cost to manufacture clothing,” Seam Apparel appears in both the top result and the People Also Ask section.

By creating and implementing a dedicated manufacturer SEO strategy, your webpages can show up for more search terms that are relevant to your industry.

Enhances Brand Authority

Creating SEO content that answers common questions about manufacturing topics can establish your brand as an industry authority.

And not just in the eyes of searchers.

Google values content that’s high quality and created by trusted experts. This is why Google’s Search Quality Raters use Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) signals when evaluating websites that show in search results.

Keeps Marketing Costs Low

Unlike paid ads, clicks on organic search results are free. This is why SEO is one of the most affordable and accessible digital marketing tactics available.

Your manufacturing business might very well use both paid and organic marketing channels—and to great effect.

But earning more leads organically can lower customer acquisition costs in the long term. And it can increase your return on investment (ROI).

SEO for Manufacturers: 9 Best Practices

Here’s an overview of SEO techniques to help you optimize your manufacturing website:

1. Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research involves identifying relevant search terms that your target audience uses to search for products or services like yours.

Keywords can range from exact references to what you offer (“furniture manufacturer”) to questions that searchers may have when considering manufacturing services (“cost of manufacturing a [product]”).

Ideally, you should optimize every page on your website for a unique keyword (including relevant variations of that keyword). This way, you maximize the number of relevant keywords your site can rank for.

For example, O’Neal Manufacturing Services has a separate webpage for each of its manufacturing capabilities.

Each page provides an opportunity to target a different keyword. Like “steel fabrication” and “laser cutting”:

To find relevant terms to target, you can use a tool like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

Start by typing in a term related to your business, selecting your target country, and clicking “Search.”

You’ll see a table of keywords related to your seed keyword.

When choosing keywords, pay attention to the following columns:

• Volume: The average number of searches the keyword gets each month. Ranking for keywords with higher search volumes can mean more eyes on your content.
• Keyword difficulty (KD %): How competitive a keyword is to rank for. The higher the number in this column, the more challenging the keyword is to rank for.
• Intent: This is the true meaning behind a user’s query. In other words, what they want to learn, achieve, or find.
• Cost per click (CPC): The average price advertisers pay for each click on their ad that’s triggered by that keyword. A high CPC can be an indication of a valuable (but often competitive) search term.

Some manufacturing keywords may have low search volumes, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. It might indicate that searchers are motivated to take action.

For example, the keyword “tube laser cutting service” only gets 30 searches per month. But it has a high CPC of $13.34.

If advertisers are willing to pay that price, people searching for that keyword are likely further along the marketing funnel. Which means ranking for this keyword organically could be a great opportunity.

To keep track of all the keywords you want to target, click the box to the left of a keyword (you can select multiple keywords at once). Then, click “+ Add to keyword list.”

To create a new list, click “Create new empty list.”

Next, give the list a name. Then, click the checkmark to create the list. This will also add the selected keywords to the list.

You’ll use these keywords in the content you create (more on how to do that soon).

2. Understand Search Intent

Search intent refers to what searchers are actually looking for when using a keyword. Understanding this can help you create relevant content that’s more likely to show up in search results.

For example, searchers might want to get specific information about a manufacturing process. Or they may be ready to purchase manufacturing services.

Search intent is separated into four primary categories. Here’s an overview of each:

• Informational: Users who want information or answers to their questions
• Navigational: Users who are looking for a particular website or business
• Commercial: Users who are researching products or services
• Transactional: Users who want to make a purchase

Knowing the search intent of a keyword can help you create content that meets the user’s needs.

You can quickly find the search intent of a keyword with Semrush’s Keyword Overview tool.

Just type your keyword into the text box, select your target location, and click “Search.”

Look for the box labeled “Intent” to see the keyword’s search intent.

The keyword “cost of manufacturing clothing” is informational. Which means users are looking for more information about how much clothing manufacturing costs.

Google is unlikely to rank a service page for this term because users aren’t ready to purchase yet—they’re still in the research phase.

But a blog post that breaks down clothing manufacturing costs and explains it thoroughly has more potential to rank for this keyword.

Like this article from Canadian clothing manufacturer Gabe Clothing:

Make sure to evaluate intent for each of the keywords you identified in the previous step. This way, you can create the type of content that’s most likely to perform well for each keyword.

3. Create Useful Content

High-quality content that’s informative and useful is more likely to rank in top positions for your target keywords. And that goes for landing pages, product/service pages, case studies, and blog posts.

For example, electronics manufacturing company Celestica regularly publishes informative articles about manufacturing supply chains.

When creating content, remember that Google looks for the following quality signals on webpages (among other things):

• Includes original research, reporting, or analysis
• Is relevant to the user’s search intent
• Aligns with the website’s primary topic areas
• Includes up-to-date and accurate information
• Offers original thoughts and ideas (does more than reiterate competitor content)
• Includes links to relevant, authoritative sources
• Is free of spelling and grammar errors

Remember, the more content you create, the more opportunities you have to connect with your target audience.

So, consider creating a content calendar to stay organized and maintain a consistent publishing schedule.

4. Apply On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your webpages to help them rank higher. It involves adding keywords, incorporating internal links, using logical URL slugs, and more.

Use a tool like Semrush’s On Page SEO Checker to confirm that your pages follow on-page SEO best practices.

Start by entering your domain and clicking “Get ideas.”

Choose your target country, add the pages you want to get ideas for along with their target keywords, and click “Collect ideas.”

You’ll get a list of potential categories for improving your SEO. Click the blue number next to “Content Ideas.”

You’ll see a table with pages organized by priority.

Click on “# ideas” in the “Content” column.

If the tool detects any issues with your content, it will recommend changes. Such as:

• Improving readability
• Creating more detailed content
• Enriching your content with semantically related keywords

Follow the recommendations in the list to improve your on-page SEO. And repeat the process for all key pages on your website.

Now, let’s go over some of the most important on-page elements you need to optimize in more detail:

Title Tags

Google may use your page’s title tag as the clickable hyperlink of your page when it appears in search results.

Title tags should be, at most, around 60 characters long to avoid truncation (or 600 pixels). And they should include the keyword you want the page to rank for.

For example, manufacturing company Accurate Metal Products includes “plasma cutting services” in this title tag:

Meta Descriptions

A meta description briefly summarizes what a page is about. It can display under the title in search results.

It should be around 120 characters long at most to ensure it doesn’t get truncated in mobile results (or 680 pixels). It should give users some information about the page’s content.

You should also include your target keyword (or a variation) in the meta description and include a call to action (CTA) that entices users to click through to the page.

For example, custom parts manufacturer eMachineShop includes the keyword “plasma cutting services” in its meta description. Along with enticing details to encourage clicks:

Heading Tags

Heading tags define headings and subheadings on your pages to create a structure for your content.

Each page should have only one H1 tag (this is the page’s headline or title). In most cases, it should be the same as or close to your page’s title tag.

Use H2-H6 tags to indicate the main sections of your content. Naturally include related keywords or subtopics in them where relevant.

For example, manufacturing and fabrication shop Plasma Cutting Services uses keywords related to “plasma cutting” in H2s on its webpages:

URL Slug

URL slugs are the end portion of your pages’ URLs. Adding keywords to them can help Google and users understand the content on each page.

It’s also best to keep them short, and to make the language as logical as you can.

Internal Links

Internal links are links that point to other pages on your site. They can help Google discover new pages, show the relationship between your pages, and help users navigate your site.

For example, Lincoln Electric has a pillar page for plasma cutting fundamentals. It links to relevant pages about plasma cutting on their website:

When adding internal links, follow these best practices:

• Only link to relevant pages
• Use anchor text that describes the content of the linked page
• Don’t overdo it when adding links to body copy—too many links can affect readability and look spammy

5. Ensure Your Site Is Crawlable

Google needs to be able to crawl (find) your pages before it can index (store) them in its database. Only then will Google consider ranking them for relevant manufacturing keywords.

Adding internal links is a good way to ensure crawlability, but many factors can impact the crawlability of your website.

To ensure Google can crawl and index your website, use Semrush’s Site Audit tool.

Enter your URL into the text box and click “Start Audit.”

You’ll need to configure your settings (although you can keep most of them at their defaults).

Then, click “Start Site Audit.”

When your audit is complete, look for the section labeled “Crawlability.” You’ll see a percentage that indicates how effectively your pages can be crawled.

Click “View details” to see any specific crawling issues in more detail.

View the “Crawl Budget Waste” report section.

This shows factors that impact your crawl budget (the resources search engine bots devote to crawling your site.) It also shows the issues that can prevent search engine crawlers from discovering all your important pages.

Make the changes recommended in this section to resolve potential crawlability issues.

6. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Google uses mobile-first indexing—meaning it prioritizes the mobile version of your site for crawling, indexing, and ranking. So, your industrial website should be mobile-friendly to increase your chances of ranking.

There are a few tactics you can use to ensure a mobile-friendly website, but we recommend using a responsive design at a minimum. That means your website adapts to the user’s device (e.g., desktop, mobile, or tablet).

Do that and then follow these mobile-friendly best practices for your manufacturing site:

• Use short paragraphs and sufficient white space
• Include structured data (code that provides search engines with more information about your pages)
• Optimize your site speed

7. Earn Backlinks from Reputable Sites

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. And they can improve rankings because they show your website is trusted by other sites in your industry.

Increasing the number of high-quality backlinks to your site can improve its overall authority and ranking potential.

A high-quality backlink is one that:

• Comes from a trusted, reputable website that has industry relevance to yours
• Uses anchor text that’s relevant to the content on the linked page
• Is included naturally on the page

To get more backlinks, use a tool like Semrush’s Link Building Tool.

Just enter your domain name in the text box, then, click “Start Link Building.”

Next, you’ll be asked to provide some additional information about your website. This lets the tool recommend the most relevant prospects for link building.

Start by entering the manufacturing keywords you want your website to rank for.

Next, add your competitors and click “Start Link Building.”

When the report is ready, click “View prospects.”

You’ll see a list of potential websites you can contact for link building.

These websites are linking to your competitors, so they may be willing to link to you as well. Especially if you’re able to suggest a relevant piece of content their audience is likely to find valuable.

Check the boxes next to prospects you’re interested in and click “To In Progress” to add them to your outreach list.

Under the “In Progress” tab, you can find contact information for your outreach targets. Click “Contact” to reach out to them directly from the tool.

Then, craft your pitch and send the message right from the tool.

When writing pitches for link building, follow these tips:

• Introduce your website and why you’re reaching out
• Suggest a useful piece of content on your website that the website could link to
• Describe how the content will bring value to their audience

8. Increase Local Visibility

Local SEO involves optimizing your webpages to appear in local search results. Like “metal fabricators denver” or “plastic manufacturer new york city.”

It can also help you appear in the Google Map Pack when users search for products or services in their areas.

Optimizing for local SEO involves some different techniques compared to traditional SEO, including:

• Creating and optimizing your Google Business Profile
• Including your physical address on individual pages you want to rank for local searches
• Getting citations in relevant business directories (like Yelp and Angi)

9. Track Your Progress

It’s important to track the impact of your SEO. So you can analyze what works and adjust your approach to deliver better results.

Google Search Console is a free platform that tracks key SEO-related data about your website. Such as:

• Organic clicks: The number of searchers who click on your page in SERPs
• Organic impressions: The number of times your page is shown to users in SERPs
• Click-through rate: The percentage of users who see your result and click through to your website
• Average ranking position: The average ranking position where your results appear

For more targeted tracking, use a tool like Semrush’s Position Tracking to monitor the performance for your most important keywords.

Start by entering your domain into the text box. Then click “Set up tracking.”

Configure your settings and click “Start Tracking.”

Position Tracking will start tracking your ranking positions for the keywords you added. It’ll also send you weekly alerts notifying you of any changes.

All these key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you determine what content is most effective. And which keywords are helping you reach your target audience.

Improve Your Manufacturing Website’s SEO

SEO for manufacturers involves a mix of traditional SEO best practices, technical optimizations, and more targeted local SEO.

A toolkit like Semrush can help you perform all of your SEO research and content tasks in one centralized location.

Sign up for a free trial to get started.