Defining Local SEO and Why It’s Important
Along with marketing automation, email, trade shows, social media, and other tactics, search engine optimization (SEO) helps to round out a complete marketing strategy. However, SEO is one of the most important because it stands to provide increasingly greater benefits to your business over time.
For metal fabricators and related manufacturers, which historically have lagged behind other industries in this area, SEO must receive higher priority and investment — particularly with local search. You might wonder why local SEO for metal fabricators matters when you’re focused on customers nationwide, or even globally.
It’s helpful to clarify that there are two ways to approach this: 1) SEO that targets the area(s) in which your business is physically located, and 2) SEO that targets areas where you have opportunity for growth. Both are important to the success of a local SEO effort. Here, we’ll explain these two areas and how they stand to impact your metal fabrication business.
We recently explored SEO for metal fabricators at a high level — check out that overview to understand what goes into SEO programs.
Understanding the Impact of Local SEO for Metal Fabricators
1. SEO for Your Physical Location(s)
Consider this: as of mid-July 2024, the keyword “metal fabrication near me” was being searched on average 11,300 times per month (according to data from Moz). Variations of these search terms — steel fabrication, welding, sheet metal fabrication, etc. — were also being searched thousands of times per month. Clearly, the interest for metal fabrication at the local level is significant.
Google uses location data along with the keyword to deliver results, and when you rank well for the service or product that’s combined with “near me,” your opportunity to win those clicks is strong. Of course, there’s more to ranking for metal fabrication than simply optimizing for “near me,” so it’s important to have a robust SEO strategy around metal fabrication that reflects Google’s experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness framework.
Keys to success:
- Claiming your Google Business Profile and ensuring its completeness
- Ensuring Google Maps data is up-to-date and accurate
- Optimizing your site for local search
- Winning backlinks from other local sites
2. SEO for Target Markets
While growing local search is important, you likely are also seeking customers in other parts of the country. Targeting these areas through localized search will be essential for winning searchers in those areas. But how do you rank well in multiple markets outside of your primary location? If you have multiple production facilities or warehouses, winning searches in these locations will also be important for your business.
While you could use paid search advertising to win clicks in these areas, it’s often more costly to go that route than simply creating organic content assets that target searches in those areas. Organic content will continue to perform month after month, with only the single upfront investment of having it created. Paid search ads will have a significantly higher cost and will only produce results for as long as you’re willing to pay that cost.
Keys to success:
- Creating pages that target organic searches for your locations
- Creating pages that target for areas that you’re looking to do business in
- Backlinks from sites serving your target markets
Build a Revenue Growth Machine for Your Metal Fabrication Business
The above is just a sampling of the many ways that you can implement local SEO for your metal fabrication business. And as we already mentioned, local SEO is just one component of a larger program. It’s important to balance local SEO efforts with your greater goals. If you don’t have expert resources in house, working with a reliable, third-party partner will help you hit the ground running and leverage the knowledge of experienced professionals who have been building and managing programs like this for years. This helps you maximize time to impact and reap the rewards of your program sooner.
Remember, SEO itself is just one aspect of a larger holistic marketing and sales strategy. It’s important to combine inbound marketing practices such as SEO with outbound marketing practices to reach prospects in multiple ways and ensure your organization has the best chance possible to drive new revenue and achieve its growth goals.