Case Study: SEO for Manufacturers

I've recently been doing SEO work with an Inclinometer and Spirit Level Vial manufacturer, Level Developments.  A successful & growing business that has clients ranging from the small specialist to global blue-chip, they have ambitions to further establish themselves as a global specialist for their industry.

As with all SEO projects I do, we started at the beginning with a visit to the factory to understand better the business & its objectives.  That understanding helped me to do relevant research, and for the company & I to agree relevant objectives; targeting; changes to make; and how we measure the effect.

Research

The company already has a very search-engine friendly website - including well structured pages and URLs - and a healthy Google PageRank.  Nonetheless, research showed that:

a) in the various niches for Spirit Levels & Inclinometers, there's a big difference in search volume between singular (eg "Inclinometer" = 50,000 searches / month) and plural ("Inclinometers" = 5,000 searches / month)
b) different search terminology is used by "outsiders" - potential customers who don't know the acronyms & short-hand names used within the industry

Objectives

Spending time with the business owner made it clear where their priorities lie - priorities which weren't reflected in the structure or targeting of the website as it stood (the downside of being a successful business means more time doing the work, less time to look after the website)

Targeting

We agreed to change the targeting priorities of the website:

a) on a business level, to the industry niche that's become more profitable, with more growth potential
b) on an SEO level, to the higher volume search volume keywords

Changes

At a site level, we updated the HTML structure to put the content higher in the page order. At a page level, we produced a summary of proposed changes to:

- page URL
- page title
- page headings
- Image URLs & alternative text
- link text, for the main navigation & in body copy

We also updated the meta descriptions, to encourage more click throughs.  We discussed the changes to make sure we were maintaining the meaning of each page, and agreed updates to make for each.

Measurement

This is important on two levels - to learn what's working (or isn't), so that we can replicate / change; and to prove the work is good...!

To this end, we installed Google Analytics - and rather than the standard page-by-page installation, we're using jQuery to handle it, because:

- many contacts from the website are via email rather than contact form - using jQuery allows us to attach Events to email clicks & track which keywords are driving them
- there are many PDFs on the site, as this is a technical industry where specification is key & users want something to download & study offline, so jQuery attaches Events to downloads, and we can track what products are generating most interest

Further analysis of Google Analytics has also shown us:

- which countries are underperforming relative to expectations (high bounce rates, low contact rates, low conversion rates) - so we've been planning how to address these
- which pages have high exit rates - so we've been strengthening call-to-action & retention where necessary

Next Steps

With the site now as optimised as it can be (for the company's current objectives), we're concentrating on the key SEO factor - link building.  Together with the business, we're following a structured plan for link building with relevant directories on a country-by-country level; suppliers; customers; and forums

It's a great example of how a business with a proactive attitude to growth can get engaged with SEO and reap the rewards.

Labels: search-engine-optimisation