SEO Advice For Industrial Websites
Everyone wants to have a website that shows up at the top of a Google Search, after all that is how new customers find you, right? Many professionals want to see their website show up at the top, but aren’t sure exactly what it is that helps your website beat the competition. Industrial Mash has some tips that ANYONE can do to help improve how their website shows in the rankings. It’s a science that is affected by many variables, but every change you make can bump your site up towards the top and in time, Google and other search engines will recognize your site as being a valuable research, and you could end up at that coveted #1 position!
Content is King
Content is the single most important thing you can put on your website. A website with little or poorly written content is useless to both visitors and search engines. You should always design a website with your visitors in mind, not search engines. Give your visitors something they’ll want to read and make them want to come back. Where you place the words is actually important- text near the top of the page is read more and more important to spiders, as are keywords at the beginning of the paragraphs and in the headings of each page.
Show Them In Pictures
A balanced combination of images and text provides a better experience for your visitors and if done properly, can still provide search engines a good idea of what’s on your website. When you use an image, be sure to add alt tags. These are the image tags (the text that appears when you roll the mouse over an image). Your keywords should be used in the image, as well as in the name of the image file. So for example, if you have a page on your site about ball bearings, with a picture of the ball bearings, your image should be saved as “ball-bearings.jpg” and not “image2.jpg”.
Give Them A Map
We’ve talked about the value of Google Analytics, but you should also have a Google Webmaster Tools account as well. With Google’s Webmaster Tools, you can submit a sitemap to Google. A sitemap is a map of your website that tells Google how to crawl your website and where to find your content. You can create a free sitemap (easily!) here.
Socialize It
We preach the value of social media here at IM, and we stand by it when it comes to SEO. Your Twitter and Facebook pages have a valuable impact on where your site and company show up on search engine rankings. For example, when you just posted a tweet about industrial safety equipment with a link to your website and someone does a real time search on Google for “industrial safety equipment”, your Twitter account and a link to your website will show up. Google and other search engines are placing more value on websites with social media accounts. This shows companies are putting more effort into creating a valuable online presence and your site is more likely to rank higher with these in place.
SEO is a journey that can be difficult to navigate, but small steps can make a big difference. Ultimately, showing your customers that you’re a valuable resource in your industry is the best way to build your presence online. Do this and the search engine rankings will likely follow. In the meantime, take a look at some great industrial websites optimized for SEO.