SEO agency · B2B manufacturers
SEO for B2B manufacturers. Found by buyers looking for what you make.
An industrial buyer or an engineer isn’t searching for your name. They’re searching for a process, a material, a capability, often in English, even in Quebec, and sometimes months before requesting a quote. A manufacturer’s SEO means answering those precise searches: product and capability pages written in your buyers’ words, data sheets Google can read, a complete site in each language, and tracking that goes all the way to the request for quote.
- Your accounts and your content in your name
- Visits and inquiries measured, not just rankings
- One team for SEO and Google Ads
I recommend Kasvu Digital to everyone for consulting services related to our website’s search engine optimization […]. François and his team are very professional, and it is a pleasure to discuss strategy with them. Thank you again for your support and collaboration over the past 7 years!
Translated from French
Sebastian StrozynskiGeneral Manager, PharmaCos MachineryOur SEO experience goes back to 2013: more than 300 SEO campaigns (content, pages, link profile), a few of them for manufacturers. The steps of an engagement are described by our SEO agency for small businesses. Selling to other businesses mainly changes three things: the buyer’s words, the language of their searches and how long they take to decide.
How does an industrial buyer look for a supplier?
With the words of their problem, rarely with those of your catalogue. They type “filling machine for viscous liquids”, “stainless steel sanitary conveyor” or “5 axis aluminum machining subcontractor”. Your documents, on the other hand, often speak in model names and internal codes. A good product page bridges the gap: it names the problem, the application, the material and the standards, then the model that addresses them.
These searches are few, but each one can come from a company ready to buy. And several people read your pages for the same purchase. The engineer checks the specifications, the buyer compares suppliers, management approves. Each of them needs to find their answer: data sheet, capabilities and certifications, industries served.
What they actually type
- filling machine for viscous liquids
- stainless steel sanitary conveyor
- 5 axis aluminum machining subcontractor
Why does a manufacturer’s SEO play out months before the request for quote?
Because the decision starts well before the form. The engineer documenting a project fills in nothing: they read, download a data sheet and note your name. By the time the request for quote arrives, the supplier list may already be set, without you.
The pages that count at this stage explain: how to choose between two processes, which tolerances are realistic, what to plan for commissioning. They compare ways of doing things, never competitors. And your demand follows your customers, their budgets and their projects more than the seasons: so SEO is judged over a year, not a month.
Your data sheets and your bilingual site: what does Google see?
Google can index PDF files. A data sheet on its own, however, doesn’t tell the buyer who you are, or how to request a quote. We create a page for each product or capability, which restates the key specifications in text and offers the data sheet as a download.
Language matters too. Even in Quebec, industrial buyers search mostly in English: according to our Google Ads benchmarks for Quebec, “cnc machining” gets 1,900 searches a month in the province, “usinage cnc” only 140.
Yet the Charter of the French Language requires that your catalogues, brochures and similar documents available to the public be drawn up in French, regardless of the medium, and that no other version be made available on terms more favourable than the French one (s. 52).
So your English pages for export are added to your French pages, without replacing them. Each language has its complete pages, linked by the tags that tell Google which pages are language versions of the same page. To find out how the section applies to your documents, the Office québécois de la langue française or your legal counsel can answer you.
Sources: Google Search Central, indexable file types; LégisQuébec, Charter of the French Language, s. 52; Google Search Central, localized versions
A page Google can read
What should a capabilities page include?
It’s the page the engineer, the buyer and management read together, each for a different reason. It’s built in this order: a title that names the capability in the buyer’s words (“5-axis machining of aluminum parts”), the applications and industries served, the materials and tolerances, the standards and certifications (ISO, sanitary standards), the downloadable data sheet, then a request for quote that accepts a drawing as an attachment.
One page per capability beats an “Our services” page that lists them all: Google then knows which search to show it for, and the buyer finds the answer without digging. Customer cases fit in without naming anyone if your agreements require it: the application, the problem solved and the specifications are enough.
Which mistakes hide your products from Google?
- A catalogue available only as a PDF, or hidden behind a form.
- Pages titled with model names no one searches for.
- A partial French version: the home page translated, the products in English only.
- An “Industries served” page that lists sectors without showing a single concrete application.
Two problems come up often with the clients we’ve served, across every industry: pages whose content is injected with JavaScript and stays invisible to Google (a catalogue built this way disappears from the results), and almost no links from other sites to yours, even though your suppliers, your associations and your distributors could provide them.
Your Google Business Profile, on the other hand, matters less than for a contractor or a clinic: Google reserves it for businesses that receive customers or travel to them, and a buyer of machined parts rarely searches “near me”. Keep it accurate for searches of your name; the bulk of the work is on your pages.
What should you measure when a sale takes months?
Quote requests first, product page by product page, with the technical drawing attached when the form allows it. Next, the signals from the research phase: data sheet downloads and capability page visits, tracked in Google Analytics. Search Console shows the searches that lead to each product, and the country they come from, which separates your export markets from the noise. All these accounts are in your name.
The last link belongs to your sales team: which requests became orders. If your quotes are still prepared in Excel, see our custom applications for manufacturers. And to find out quickly which products attract buyers before writing their pages, a campaign can serve as a test: see Google Ads for industrial B2B companies.
What you see every month
- Search Consolethe searches that lead to your pages
- Google Analyticsvisits, forms and tracked calls
- Your teamthe inquiries that became contracts
B2B manufacturers
Frequently asked questions.
What an engagement costs, its minimum term and who owns your accounts are explained in our SEO agency’s frequently asked questions.
Our customers are mostly outside Quebec. Do we still need a French website?
The Charter of the French Language requires catalogues, brochures and similar documents available to the public to be in French, regardless of the medium (s. 52). So your English version is added to the French one. For SEO, it’s also an advantage: each language has its own pages, its own searches and its own buyers. Your legal counsel or the Office québécois de la langue française can clarify what applies to your documents.
Does Google find our PDF data sheets?
Yes, Google can index PDFs. But a data sheet on its own is a poor answer to a search: it presents neither the company nor how to request a quote. A page per product, with the data sheet as a download, gives Google and the buyer what the PDF is missing.
Can we do SEO without naming our customers?
Yes. If your confidentiality agreements prevent you from naming your customers, we can describe the application, the industry, the problem solved and the technical specifications without naming them. That’s also what the buyer is looking for: a case that resembles their own.
Do we need a page for every product in our catalogue?
No. Start with the product families and capabilities you want to sell more of, then add product pages where the searches exist. Hundreds of nearly identical pages, generated from the catalogue, help neither the buyer nor your SEO.
Who writes the technical content?
We do, based on your data sheets, your catalogues and your answers to our questions. Then you choose your role: review and approve each page before it goes live, or hand us the work from start to finish. The content written during the engagement belongs to you.
Let’s start with your products
Let’s talk about the buyers you want to reach.
Prepare just one thing: the list of products or capabilities you want to sell more of, and the markets you’re targeting. You’ll leave with the pages to create first and the languages to cover. If SEO can’t bring you those buyers, François will tell you. The first conversation comes with no commitment.
