SEO Tips for Industrial Companies in 2022

SEO Tips for Industrial Companies in 2022

By Stella Russel, guest blogger

Does the industry affect SEO? This is a fundamental question to answer because it may seem like SEO is universal, no matter what your website is about. While that is correct to some extent, there are also substantial SEO differences from one industry to another. This is mainly because the essential ranking component of SEO is content. Since content will depend on the nature of your business, it becomes clear that industry does play an important role. With that in mind, we want to talk about SEO tips for industrial companies in 2022 and how they can help you reshape your business!

Machine gears symbolizing SEO tips for industrial companies in 2022.

Define Your Targeted Audience

As a B2B company, your targeted audience is not the same as for B2C businesses. The entire business model is entirely different, and you need to consider that when doing SEO.

One of the best ways to approach this process is to try to imagine your perfect customer. Ask yourself, what would you like to see in a client?

This is a good starting point, but it is not the only step. Once you have outlined your ideal client, try to look at your business from a client’s perspective. What would you, as a client, want from an industrial company? Many businesses fail to present their offers properly, which is one of the top deal killers for B2B buyers.

Once you understand the needs of the business and the needs of the customer, you can develop a specific customer profile that you need to target with SEO.

How to Define the Right Keywords

The industrial industry has its own set of important keywords. Once you define your targeted audience, determining the keywords will be much easier because you already know what the clients want.

Although, there is a word of caution here. We need to explain the definition of “knowing what the client wants”. Your client may want a few different things when it comes to a B2B industrial business. That is why you will need to define a range of their interests.

Let us say you are selling some machinery. For example, your clients might want to:

  • purchase a machine;
  • inquire about the use of a machine;
  • differentiate various types of machines;
  • learn how to maintain machines;
  • find repair services;
  • maybe even resale machines;

This is your range of customer needs and the base for creating keywords. Each of these points may be a different targeted group of customers.

When it comes to actual keywords, you need to create both short-tail and long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords are very useful but also harder to come up with. This is mainly because other companies in the industry use the same keywords.

On the other hand, long-tail keywords that usually consist of three to five words are more precise. You can specifically formulate the way clients search for a specific product.

Furthermore, long-tail keywords can also include the location and specific intent of the client.

Here are some SEO tips for industrial companies when coming up with keywords:

  • An example of a short-tail keyword might be industrial machinery.
  • And an example of a long-tail keyword might be industrial machinery for sale Cleveland.

In the second example, you are clearly defining the product (industrial machines), the type of service (purchase), and the location (Cleveland).

Use Videos to Boost Your SEO Efforts

Search engine optimization is just one step in creating a perfect buyer’s journey. This is how a client will discover your business. Since we all know how important first impression is, you want to ensure that it impacts the customer.

One way to do this is through the power of video. It is no secret that people watch video instructions much more than read them. Furthermore, a video does not require 100% attention, meaning the user can listen to it while doing other stuff. Another huge benefit, especially for industrial companies, is that a video perfectly explains how machines work, the maintenance process, and so on.

You can improve the buyer’s journey and boost your SEO efforts by implementing videos. Google simply loves the use of videos. Just remember to include your keywords in the video titles.

Do Not Forget About Meta Descriptions

Metadata is a crucial element of SEO. When a user does a search query, they get a link to a page and a short description of that same page. That is a meta description. It is a brief summary of what users can expect when they click the link.

A meta description should be punctual, concise, and engaging. It should directly tell the customer what to expect. The best tip is to keep it short and sweet, so you inform your clients and, at the same time, intrigue them. The meta description should help them decide to click on the link.

Make Sure That Your Website is Technical Without Errors

Even though SEO and digital marketing play a crucial role in advertising, it is equally important that your website is up and running without any issues. Slow loading speed or 404 errors are the quickest way to lose clients.

Also, websites that load fast rank much higher on Google. That is because the backend code is written correctly, and all the elements are optimized to improve the loading speed.

You Must Have a Mobile Version of Your Website

This should go without saying, but you need a mobile website version. This is the first thing that Google checks, and mobile websites rank higher than desktop versions.

Furthermore, clients use smartphones more often and need a mobile version.

SEO Tips for Industrial Companies in 2022 Made Simple

And there you have it. There are many ways to improve your SEO efforts, but these SEO tips for industrial companies in 2022 will make your life easier. Understand that SEO is a process that requires constant audits and maintenance. With that in mind, take your time to do it the right way!

 

Stella Russel is an experienced blogger and copywriter. For the last six years, she’s been writing articles for various clients, mostly in the field of online business development, SEO and digital marketing. In her free time, she likes to travel and experience new cultures.

 

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The State of SEO In Industrial Marketing

Today, most industrial marketers understand that their company’s website entails more than a nice-looking, professional site that is informative and responsive. SEO is an important component to generate traffic to your site and shouldn’t be neglected.

SEO is a constantly growing and evolving marketing tactic. Industrial marketers must optimize pages for key words and build links, and today, more than ever, make high-quality content available for improving search engine rankings. Search engines are continually changing and upgrading their algorithms, creating almost a mystique about when it comes to the best tactics to employ.

GlobalSpec recently set out to find out how industrial marketers feel about SEO. It conducted a survey examining the challenges, spending and content production processes.

According to the survey results of industrial marketers:

  • 72% actively produce content for SEO purposes in their organizations
  • 57% do not have any employees dedicated to SEO
  • 45% expect their spending on SEO to increase over the next 12 months
  • 19% are unsure of which SEO strategies work

A summary of the results is illustrated by GlobalSpec’s “The State of SEO in Industrial Marketing” infographic. The in-depth survey is available for download here.

Want more info about SEO in industrial marketing? Read blog post SEO Checklist or listen to podcast SEO in Manufacturing: 3 Things You Need To Be Doing.

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3 Ways PR Can Contribute to Your SEO Strategy

By Andrew Poulsen, PR Technician, Sonnhalter

You can have the most beautiful website to ever exist, or have a smooth e-commerce system that buyers will love, but if they don’t find you, is it worth it?

First and foremost, make sure you’ve got your site setup with SEO in mind. Create the appropriate tags and optimize your other settings… especially make sure your site is turned ON for search engine indexing.

After that, strengthen your SEO with content and PR. At Sonnhalter, PR encompasses traditional public relations and media relations, as well as social media and content strategy and development. Generally speaking, PR elevates your brand. When your brand is elevated, your search engine rankings benefit.

Here are just three ways that PR can contribute to your SEO strategy: (more…)

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Relevant Social Media and SEO

Today we have a guest post from Rachel Kerstetter, our PR Engineer, about the evolution of social media and SEO.

logo4wIn our B2T niche, as well as in the general B2B market, we use the word “relevant” frequently.

When it comes to B2T social media, quantity does not equal quality. Quality social media engagement can’t be measured in simple number of followers or likes. The relevance of those follows and likes is where we find the quality.

It can be hard to keep up with current SEO tactics that will land you on the first page of Google search results since the algorithms change every day, but as social media continues to grow, SEO is getting easier because it’s no longer optimizing for search engines that will land you on page one of Google.

Social engagement is becoming the new SEO. One of the many benefits of being involved in social media that I explain when we create social strategies is improving search visibility.

I was reading, “6 Reasons Social Media is Critical to Your SEO” on Social Media Today and Stephanie Frasco explained the concept so well when she wrote about the old SEO strategy of link building,

“Think about it – why did Google ever allow links to determine which websites ranked above all the others? The answer is simple: links were like “votes” for your website. The more votes you get, the better off you are. So SEO companies started building links (aka “votes”) manually[…]The idea behind links as a ranking factor is a very good idea, but since it’s become so easy to manipulate, Google has been forced to turn to social media channels which do the same thing but are much harder to manipulate. Link building was always about social proofing.”

The shift toward social search is an excellent opportunity to market more efficiently. Connecting with people (even in business-to-business social media, the decision-makers are still people) won’t have constantly changing algorithms because people have been communicating in similar ways basically forever. Social media is simply taking the natural, conversational form of communication that history shows taking place in the gathering places (think the Greek agora or the city coffee shop) and put it online, where it’s easier to be involved with the conversations that are relevant to you.

You can read the rest of Stephanie’s article here.

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SEO Checklist

SEO is as important as the messages you’re trying to deliver. Today, we have a guest post from John Miller, President of Salient Software who’s been developing websites and SEO programs for the B-to-B space since the mid 90s. SEO rules change all the time (thanks to Google) and you need to continually keep up on the latest ways to stay ahead of the curve. John outlines some typical areas you need address. Enjoy.

People have been increasingly turning to the Internet to find what they need ever since Al Gore fostered the creation of the “information superhighway” in the earlier 90s.

While newspapers, magazines and yellow pages are disappearing, the number of websites has been increasing. In the early 90s, there were just a handful of websites, however, that number has now grown to 266,848,493 sites at last count (Dec 2010).

People are now carrying handheld computers disguised as phones, they carry tablet PCs, have the Internet piped into their TVs and DVD players and have desktop computers sitting at home.

People find content using Search Engines, using one or more of the 2000 search engines that currently exist. Google and Bing are the top players in the market today, followed by a number of general and specialty search engines that cater to narrow topics and vertical markets.

What does this mean to a website owner?

Start by spending less advertising dollars on traditional media, and then look to the Internet. Most businesses have websites which is a big leap from even 5 years ago, however, if someone is searching for the products and services you offer, will they find you?

Google and other search engines are very good at returning your website if someone knows the name of your business. They have made a special effort to assure you top billing when searching for businesses by name. If that’s all you need, then you don’t need to pay much attention to search, it is already working for you.

However, if you want people to find YOUR website when searching for your products and services, then chances are that search isn’t helping you at all.

In fact, it’s deliberately working against you. Google has built an empire ($175B market cap) by charging companies for top billing on search results.

It’s also true that any given a search for a generic product or service is likely to return in excess of 10 million web pages.

Given this back-drop, how can you get noticed?

Well, you can pay Google $.50-1.00 or more (depending on the popularity of key words and phrases) per click and have an ongoing tab that will cost you thousands each month. If you take that road, you will get your top billing in Google, but what about Bing, Yahoo, Altavista and the like? You will need to pay them too!

Or, you can choose Search Engine Optimization which modifies your site so your products and services have a much more likely chance of showing up in Page 1 – 3 of the search results.

What is Search Engine Optimization and How Does it Help?

No doubt you have noticed that some company websites frequently show up at the top in the “free” (called organic) search results much more often than other websites. This is no accident, someone spent a good deal of time and effort to make their company’s site rank higher with the search engines. This process is called “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO).

SEO is the way to bring the traffic and new customers to your website. If your site is not optimized for Search Engines, then those customers will go to someone else’s website. It’s a simple as that.

 Here are the areas typically addressed for SEO:

  • Keywords and key phrases – based on your products and services and based on what people are actually searching for, create a list of keywords and phrases that will lead people to your site. This list becomes your “Trophy” keywords and is then used for evaluation and updating everything else related to your site.
  • Site structure and content – a single website page can only rank well for 1 or 2 Trophy words, hence, check the structure of the site to see if it complies or alter the structure to comply.
  • Domain name – if the domain name echoes the product or service you are selling, it will raise your rank in Google and other search engines. You can have multiple domain names for a single website.
  • Other Websites Linking to Yours? – the more links to your site, the better. Check to see who is linking to you, perhaps you can work out a deal with other website owners.
  • Wiki and Blogs – have you noticed that Wiki entries often appear at the top of the free listings? Find Wiki entries that relate to your products and services and edit them – make sure you mention your own special “twist” and/or trade name. That will bring people to your site.
  • Social media – make sure you are taking full advantage of Social Media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and the like. The more your website is mentioned “elsewhere,” the higher your Google rank.
  • Sitemap? – does your site have a sitemap? There are two kinds, an internal sitemap for search engines and one for “people.” Make sure you have both.
  • Search Engine Submission – once changes have been made to your site, use a reliable submission service to submit your site to as many of the 2000 search engines as possible.

SEO is an expense, but costs less than the Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., ads in the long run. A website is like a “garden,” you look at it frequently and “tend” it to remove weeds or replant crops. With SEO, you run reports to see how your site is ranking with respect to your Trophy words. Then, make adjustments to the site to enhance your ranking. 

When was the last time you looked at your SEO?

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