Content Marketing World - billed as the largest gathering of content marketers - is happening right now in Cleveland. One thing attendees have heard over and over is how “Content is King.” When it comes to SEO for manufacturers, I couldn’t agree more. After all, how can you expect your site to rank for particular search queries if you don’t have content on your site dedicated to that query?
Unfortunately, manufacturers often struggle when coming up with ideas for content thinking that their products are boring. The fact is - there are multiple pieces of content you can develop to not only provide potential customers some valuable information to help them make a purchasing decision, but also give search engines more “signals” to help your site rank better.
A whitepaper is a great opportunity for you to educate a prospective customer about how your product or service can solve a particular issue. While whitepapers are a great source of content for your website, they can also serve as a way to collect contact information from potential leads by requiring them fill out a form in order to actually download the whitepaper.
Whitepapers are also great for sharing on LinkedIn and can help you and your company be viewed as authorities and thought leaders in specific industries.
You may know that your product is used in a really unique application, but people outside of your organization may not. Why not showcase it? Show people who are still deciding whether or not to use your company that the components you manufacture are used in iPhones, for example.
From a search perspective, having content on your site around past projects and applications is a great opportunity to rank for more long tail phrases, making it more likely your site appears when someone else is looking for a specific solution to their problem.
Is there a product similar to yours also available for a specific application? Be sure to point out the differentiators of your product and what makes it better than the competition. Does your metal widget last 20 times longer than your competition’s plastic one, yet only costs twice as much? Be sure to call that out.
This can also be a good opportunity to rank for some of your competitor’s terms. A project engineer looking for a plastic widget may end up on your site. Now’s your chance to show them that your metal widget can effectively replace the plastic one their company has been using for years and can end up saving them money in the long run.
Product spec sheets, CAD drawings and videos can be invaluable when when someone is researching the best solution to their problem. An engineer’s job can be made much easier if they are provided with a 3D CAD drawing of a product that they could easily bring into their design to see if it meets their specs.
Keep in mind who your target personas are and the types of content they are looking for in each stage of the buying cycle and customize your content to where they are at in the buying process.
We often hear “How much more can I say about blue widgets?” These are just a few examples of content pieces that manufacturers can use to not only provide solutions to searcher’s problems, but also give great content for search engines. After all, as Rand Fishkin from Moz pointed out at Content Marketing World on Tuesday, it’s just as important to create optimized content for users as it is for search engines. These pieces should satisfy both!
Do you have any other ideas you’d like to share? Leave them in the comments section!