SEO for Manufacturing Companies is a Strategic Issue
In the last newsletter, I made the case that a customer-first perspective and thinking about whom you help and why you really help them are critical strategic questions for manufacturing companies. SEO is the ideal mechanism to force manufacturing leaders to think about these strategic questions.
Why SEO?
Because understanding your target audience’s search intent and how they gather information to solve problems is critical to a manufacturing company’s survival.
SEO forces you to think about changing tools, technology, and search options
How people gather information is critical to understand for manufacturing companies today. An online search is the beginning of the sales process. Even if a prospect heard about your company from someone else, saw an ad in a trade publication, or received a cold call from one of your salespeople the first thing they will do is go online and look at your website.
The more likely scenario is that they search, more often today using voice search on their phone, looking for answers to their questions. Desktop-only search is shrinking every day. Mobile devices are the way most people access the Internet and every day we see a new connected device including our cars, TVs, and personal assistants.
Websites are still the hub of online connection and communication for manufacturing companies but what makes up your website is definitely changing quickly. Business leaders must keep up with the expectations of buyers today. If your website is not credible - and the tools and designs you use are a huge signal that you are paying attention to what buyers want - then buyers will lose interest quickly and you will never get the chance to tell your story.
I constantly hear this from manufacturing leaders - if we get in front of qualified prospects we do very well. Today, getting in front of quality buyers means that you must have an online presence that they want to engage with, starting with your website.
If you are doing these things on your website you might want to consider updating it:
Please leave a comment below with your worst practice examples from manufacturing websites.
SEO requires a constant effort
SEO success requires leadership and discipline not to chase the shiny thing. The shiny thing is the cat chasing the laser pointer approach to marketing.
I get this one a lot too - I read an article that this <enter your favorite marketing trend here> is the way to go. Let’s do that.
SEO is doing not one thing once and giving up but doing a lot of things right for an extended period of time. If you think you can earn search rankings for the most popular topics in your industry by creating one web page or a few blog posts you will be disappointed.
There is no shortcut or black hat trick to magically jump to the top of the rankings. Any marketing person that says there is one is lying and will only take your money and leave you farther behind your competition.
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Search options change. Search engines now provide answers for local, voice, image, video, podcasts, shopping, and more.
Search results now include paid ads, featured snippets, link sets, news, maps, ratings, phone numbers and hours of operation, related search topics, and even search trend data for the search query you entered. Many times the searcher never needs to click any link to get the answer to their questions.
Are you thinking about any of the above ways people find information?
SEO builds long-term enterprise value
Creating enterprise value (EV) means solving for the long-term success of the organization so it delivers value to customers. Making the company more valuable to prospects and customers is the surest way to increase EV.
Making it easy to connect with and ultimately buy from your company grows the value of your business. This process starts with your website and your understanding of SEO because that is what your buyers want. If you think it is anything else you will see that reality reflected when you search for your company online - and are nowhere to be found.
The good news is that any manufacturing company can be successful with SEO. Manufacturers solve problems and deliver value to customers every day and these are the content fuel for online success.
Connecting what you do with who needs it is the work of SEO.
Please reach out if I can help you answer questions and see how SEO will help you reach your business goals.
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