A website written for the bank manager
History, key figures, a word from the CEO, an aerial photo of the factory. Nothing that says what you can machine, mould or assemble, in which materials and up to what dimensions.
Home / Industries / Manufacturing
SEO for manufacturers: get found by the right buyers.
In manufacturing, almost nobody searches for what you make. The people who search are buyers, engineers or production managers, with a specification and a budget already approved. A single one of these enquiries can open an account for years.
- Rattle your competitors.
- Overtake them.
- Protect you from their attacks.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroThe detail of this page
Your result, as seen by a buyer
A buyer types in the process they're looking for. Your site appears, third in line, with a title that says “Home” and a description about values. They don't know you do exactly what they need. Say it.
- An industrial marketplace · subcontracting.exampleStainless steel machining: find a subcontractorUpload your drawing, receive offers.
- A directory · industry-directory.exampleStainless steel machining companies in FranceThe list of workshops by region.
- Youyour-workshop.example
Home | Our companySmall-batch stainless steel machining: turning and milling to drawingA company on a human scale, strong values, recognised expertise.Stainless steel machining workshop, one-offs or small batches. Turning, milling, inspection. Quotes from your drawing.
Position 3. The words “stainless steel” don't appear in your title.
Fig. 1. Three results for a specific process. Two of them don't own a single machine. (The workshop could machine to a hundredth of a millimetre. The title said “Our company”.)
What this means for you. I turn your brochure website into pages per capability, with titles written in the buyer's words.
What is SEO for manufacturing?
SEO for manufacturing is the search optimisation of a manufacturer or subcontractor for professional buyers looking for a supplier, a process or a component. Searches are few, highly technical, and made from far away, sometimes from another country. The job is to turn a brochure website into a catalogue of capabilities: one page per process, per material, per application, with the capacities and evidence a design office expects.
The problem
Why a good manufacturer stays invisible.
The workshop's own names
Your pages use internal part numbers and range names. The buyer, who doesn't know them, describes their part, their material and their constraint.
A few clients make all the turnover
The order book rests on a handful of long-standing customers, kept up by the sales rep and trade fairs. If one of them changes supplier, nothing brings in the next ones.
An audit, for real
What I spot in thirty seconds on a manufacturing website.
The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number.
https://votre-societe.exemple
MECA-TECHCompany · Products · Quality · Contact
Industrial excellence since 1974
A company on a human scale, strong values, recognised expertise.
Download the brochureFig. 2. Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me.
- 1A title that says “Our company”The buyer is looking for a process: stainless steel machining, precision sheet metal, injection moulding. That's the word Google expects here.
- 2A “Products” menu sorted by internal rangesYour part numbers mean nothing to someone who doesn't know you. They search by material, by process, by application.
- 3A date and a superlativeNo buyer types “industrial excellence”. Write what you make, in what quantities, with what tolerances.
- 4A nice photo, without a word around itIt says nothing about the machine, the material or the tolerance. The design office wants to read that, and so does Google.
- 5All the detail locked away in PDFsGoogle reads them poorly and AI tools barely at all. Capacities must be written on the page.
What your customers type
How an industrial buyer searches.
Examples made up for illustration, not measured volumes. In manufacturing, real searches are even longer and stranger.
- 1“stainless steel precision sheet metal subcontractor small batch”
- The buyer describes a process, a material and a quantity. You need a page for that process, stating the materials worked, thicknesses, batch sizes accepted and the machine fleet.
- 2“custom food-grade cardboard packaging manufacturer”
- They search by application as much as by product. One page per market served, with its specific constraints and examples of work, answers better than a general catalogue.
- 3“silicone moulding or thermoplastic injection”
- This is an engineer torn between two techniques for their part. The manufacturer who explains the choice honestly is consulted next, because they've shown they understand the problem.
- 4“aluminium machining tolerance” followed by a value
- A purely technical question, asked at the design stage. A clear data sheet, written with your methods department, gets you into the project before suppliers are consulted.
- 5“aerospace certified rubber parts supplier”
- Certification is a deal-breaker criterion. Your approvals, standards and qualifications must appear on a dedicated page and on every relevant process page.
- 6“custom glass bottle manufacturer France”
- A foreign buyer searches in English, from their office. Without pages translated by someone who knows the trade, you don't exist for them.
What works
What works for a manufacturer.
One page per process, per material, per application
This is the heart of the work. A buyer combines these three angles in their search, and your site must offer a page for every combination that matters. We start with what you sell best, not with the full list.
Capacities in figures
Maximum dimensions, tonnages, tolerances, batch sizes, usual lead times. These are your figures, you know them by heart, and they're missing from most of the manufacturing websites I audit. A buyer who finds them knows within a minute whether to consult you, and you avoid out-of-scope requests.
Technical documentation
Data sheets, standard drawings, instructions, design guides. Published as readable pages rather than locked in PDFs, these documents rank for precise searches and prove your credibility better than any sales pitch.
Languages
As soon as you export, or could, English becomes a second way in, followed by the languages of your main markets. A machine translation of technical terms sends an engineer running; you need the exact trade vocabulary in each country.
The request for quotation
A buyer wants to send a drawing and get an answer. A form that accepts an attachment, states a response time and reaches the right person turns visits into quotations.
What costs dearly
Classic mistakes on a manufacturing website.
All the know-how in a PDF
The full catalogue can be downloaded, so it's more or less invisible. Google reads it poorly, the buyer doesn't open it on their phone, and you don't know who looked at it.
One “What we do” page to say everything
All your processes summed up in a few lines won't rank for any search. Each one has enough to fill a whole page, and your workshop manager could dictate it.
Secrecy by reflex
Nothing is shown, for fear the competitor is watching. They already know your machine fleet; it's the buyer who doesn't.
A website abandoned since the last trade fair
It was rebuilt for a deadline, then forgotten. The news stops dead, and visitors wonder whether the company still exists.
The method
The method, applied to a manufacturer.
I don't know your process better than you do, and I won't pretend to. What I do know is how a buyer searches, and how to get a workshop talking.
- The inventory. Processes, materials, markets, capacities: we list what you can do, then what's profitable.
- The vocabulary. We note the words used by buyers and design offices, in French and in your export languages.
- The pages. One per priority capability, written after an interview with the person who masters it.
- The requests for quotation. We follow each price request through to the order, to know which pages pay off.
One-minute test
Is SEO right for you?
Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you.
What it brings in
SEO you can count in euros.
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 150 searches a month for your process, 4% of visitors make an enquiry, one enquiry in three is signed (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €25,000 per client. Click-through rates by position are orders of magnitude, and they've been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Redo the calculation with your own figures
What your page could bring in
Ticket no. 10th · worked example- Searchesper month, for your process
- 150
- Estimated visitsclick-through rate: 1.5%
- 0
- Possible enquiries4% of visitors
- 0
- Possible customersone enquiry in three
- 0
Possible revenue€0
Close to home
Manufacturing in Charente.
Charente has a long industrial tradition. Around Angoulême, electric motors, paper and packaging have been made for a long time. Around Cognac, the spirits trade gave rise to a whole supply chain: glassworks, cooperage, cases and luxury packaging, geared towards export. In these trades, the buyer looks for a capability before an address, and your pages must describe it precisely.
Cognac's suppliers
Glassmakers, coopers, makers of cases and gift boxes: their clients are a few kilometres away, and also in other wine regions and other countries. The website must serve that second market, the one that doesn't know you yet.
Subcontracting around Angoulême
Electrical engineering, paper, packaging: for a workshop working with a few major customers, SEO is a way to make its capacities known to other buyers without hiring another sales rep.
Exporting from a rural département
Your German or American buyer doesn't need to know Charente. They're looking for a capability, in their own language, and they read technical pages before looking at an address.
Beyond Google
When the industrial buyer asks an AI.
Buyers and engineers use it for the rough groundwork. They ask: “which processes for a two-millimetre stainless steel part, in a batch of five hundred, and which subcontractors in France can do it?”. The AI explains the options, then gives names when it finds any. In niche trades it finds few, and that's an opportunity for whoever has described themselves properly.
It needs facts, not adjectives: processes, materials, dimensions, certifications, markets served, location. It takes them from your website, industrial directories, the trade press, trade fair pages and those of your industry bodies. The more these sources say the same thing, the better your chances of being picked up. This alignment work is tedious, and that's why your competitors often haven't done it yet.
Question put to an AIWhich French workshop machines stainless steel in small batches, with 3D inspection?
Answer
Three subcontractors describe this capability:
- Our client— machining workshop: small-batch stainless steel, turning and milling, 3D inspection described on a dedicated page.
- — engineering group, medium and large batches, several sites.
- — subcontracting directory, capacities not detailed.
Workshop websiteIndustry directoryTrade press
Fig. 3. Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description.
Three typical cases
Three manufacturing examples.
These three companies don't exist; they look like many others. They show where to put the first effort.
A precision engineering subcontractor
It works for a handful of major customers and would like to find others.
- Create one page per process, with materials, capacities and machine fleet.
- Publish its certifications and the sectors it's qualified for.
- Set up a request-for-quotation form that accepts a drawing.
A packaging manufacturer
Its catalogue is a PDF and its sales reps do everything else.
- Break the catalogue into pages, one per product and per market served.
- Write buying guides: material, printing, transport constraints.
- Translate the main pages into English, with the trade's vocabulary.
An SME that already exports a little
Orders come in from abroad by chance, and it would like them to stop being a matter of chance.
- Identify the countries enquiries already come from and the words they use.
- Build a version of the site for the first market, not for five.
- Get mentions in that country's trade press and directories.
In practice
What you get.
- A map of your processes, materials and markets, ranked by profitability
- The buyers' vocabulary, in French and in your export languages
- Capability pages written from interviews with your teams
- A request-for-quotation form that accepts drawings
- Tracking of price requests, from first visit to order
Pricing
How much does an SEO consultant cost?
The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation.
- The size of the site: ten pages or ten thousand
- The competition on your queries
- What you can do in-house, and what needs producing for you
- The pace you want
Fancy a game?
Insert a coin.
A brochure website that hasn't changed in ten years is a set of undead pages. Grab the piece, slide it into the slot, and watch them fall.
Slide it into the machine
ZOMBIE SERP
INSERT COINSLIDE THE COIN INTO THE SLOT
Credit: 0
Fig. 4. Sixteen seconds. Five of the undead, including an article from 2014.
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
Who you're talking to
Your SEO consultant: a business owner, not just an SEO.
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
Manufacturers: what you ask me before we start.
Do our buyers really use Google?
Many start there, if only to draw up a first list or check a name heard at a trade fair. We can see it together: I look at what comes up for your own capabilities, and who holds the spot. If nobody is searching, I'll tell you and we'll go no further.
The search volumes are tiny. Is it worth the effort?
That's precisely what makes the maths work. Few searches, so few serious competitors, and a value per order that bears no comparison with a shop's. We judge the result by the number of serious requests for quotation, not by the number of visits.
We can't show our clients' parts.
That's common, and we work around it. We describe the type of part, the material, the difficulty and the solution without naming anyone or showing the drawing. We can also photograph demonstration parts made for the purpose.
Who's going to write about our processes? Nobody here has the time.
Nobody on your side writes. I interview the head of the workshop or the design office, I ask a buyer's questions, and the page is written from that interview. They proofread it for accuracy, and that's all we ask of them.
Should we translate the whole website?
No. We first translate the capability pages relevant to export, into one language, and see what comes back. A few pages translated by someone who knows the trade beat a whole site run through machine translation.
We're already in industrial directories and at trade fairs. Isn't that enough?
It's still useful, and I won't tell you to stop. But in a directory you're one line among others, and a trade fair lasts a few days. Your website works the rest of the year, and there you're on your own.
Should we display our certifications and approvals?
Yes, on a dedicated page and on the relevant process pages. For many buyers, it's the first filter. You give me the exact, up-to-date list; I neither invent nor interpret it.
Our sales cycle lasts a year. How will we know whether SEO helped?
By recording where each request for quotation comes from as soon as it arrives, then following it through to the order. After a few months, we know which pages bring in serious enquiries. The revenue comes later, and we then trace it back to its source.
Have you worked for technical companies before?
Yes, large accounts as well as SMEs, in trades where the buyer is a specialist. I don't claim to know your process; I know how to organise technical knowledge so that it gets found. Your teams keep control of the substance.
Our website has just been rebuilt. Do we have to start all over again?
Almost never. We keep the design and the platform, and add what's missing: capability pages, capacities, the form. If the redesign broke URLs, we start by fixing them.
See also
Other industries
ConstructionJewelleryDigitalSmall businesses & SMEsPlumbersElectriciansRoofersBuildersSolar panelsHeat pumpsAir conditioningJoinersPrivate clinicsHair removal centresAesthetic medicine and surgeryLocksmithsPool buildersKitchen fittersEnergy renovationOpticiansHearing aid specialistsAccountantsLawyersRemoval companiesLandscapersRestaurantsBarsCaterersEvent agenciesCoachesHypnotherapistsSophrologistsBeauty and hair salonsGarages and body shopsEstate agentsProperty surveyorsDriving schoolsNotariesArchitectsFuneral directorsHotels and B&BsBathroomsPainters and decoratorsTilersConservatories and pergolasCarpentersFacade specialistsStoves and fireplacesAlarms and CCTVGyms and studiosBrokersPhotographersWines and spiritsCar dealershipsTraining providersRecruitment agenciesCleaning companiesSoftware publishersFloristsBakeries and patisseriesWine shopsTravel agenciesCampsites and outdoor accommodationPrintersCommunication agenciesHauliers and logistics firmsWellbeing practitionersNaturopathsWellbeing massage practitionersYoga teachersWellbeing training providersSophrology schoolsHypnosis schoolsCoaching schools
Support services
SEO consultant in Charente
30 minutes · video call · with me
Be the one they remember.
Together we look at where you stand on Google and in AI, and what should change first.
Book a callFig. 5. A K. (The landscape was missing one.)