SEO is one of the most important marketing tactics for companies in the B2B space. For this reason, it is also one of the most used tactics. For manufacturing companies, we can simplify the way we look at the target demographic for SEO campaigns: People are either searching for you, or they’re not.

If they are searching for you, they have a need or a problem that has to be solved. If they are not searching for you, you can use other tactics to make your company relevant when the time comes that they need your capabilities.

More than ranking at the top of the search engine results page, SEO is about getting the attention of qualified leads for your industrial business.

For contract manufacturers like you, it can be more challenging to get leads because your target market is also always the target market of other contract manufacturers.

What can you do? You must use all available tools, resources, and strategies to make a disruption in your industry and get the attention of your target demographic. Maximize the organic ways your marketing team can help your sales team with SEO content marketing for your website or with a simple Google My Business listing—a cost-efficient, low-effort, and time-saving strategy to get your business found.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is just one of the many ways to get discovered by prospective customers for free. What’s great about this is that it’s the quickest way to be found on Google search results and Google Maps, which is where most of new customers are searching.

GMB is a simple tool that will allow your contract manufacturing company to connect with your customers at the top of the funnel.

How Google My Business (GMB) Works

Google My Business listings appear on the SERP as a box containing information about a featured business that is most relevant to the query. Providing your customers with the basic details of your manufacturing company, Google My Business lets you connect and engage with customers by letting them know how to know more about you with the displayed contact information, website, and other media.

On the other hand, Google My Business can affect your company’s reputation through customer reviews. In the same way, reviews allow you to learn more about your customers’ perception of your business.

Why is GMB Important for Manufacturers

Google My Business plays a significant role in how your potential customers can find your contract manufacturing company online.

Helps in Growing Your Brand

For the most obvious reason, Google My Business increases your visibility on the Google search engine and Google Maps results. It’s an organic approach to SEO that’s easy to set up and provides straightforward information.

Furthermore, reviews, regardless if they’re positive or negative, help shape the perception of your manufacturing company’s brand. GMB makes review management easy by allowing you to see the latest comments and reply to them.

While you can’t delete low ratings and negative reviews, you can use the tool to address your customers’ concerns or take note of the things that they deem necessary to further strengthen your manufacturing company’s capabilities, reputation, and customer relationship management.

Provides Up-to-Date Information About Your Business

Being at the top result in your industry, a GMB listing can suggest a call-to-action to customers by highlighting an industrial company’s contact information. A quick preview about your company can spark enough interest to entice people to click on the number, email address, website, or the attached media in the listing.

With our web design agency resources, we have the teams in place to handle all aspects of your website and GMB listing to make sure that it will get organic traffic and be ready for your marketing campaigns.

How Google My Business Improves SEO

As Google My Business gives the option of adding your location and even pinning it on Google Maps, it will be easier for locals or people in your area to find you. You can also add keywords to your business description to further improve your ranking.

Be careful, though, as GMB implements guidelines to avoid the abuse of this free tool. For example, you cannot add keywords to your business name if they are not part of your official name, as this will result in you getting flagged or banned. This means that you can’t put “Texas Plastics Manufacturing – Best Plastics Manufacturer” if you’re only registered as the first three words.

When setting up your Google My Business listing, you will find multiple fields where you can place key details. Make use of the available fields to insert proper keywords and highlight important points about your company.

How to Set Up Your GMB Listing

What makes Google My Business even better is that it’s easy to set up, edit, and manage. Here’s how you can build your business profile:

1. Sign into Google using your business email address
2. Use this link to start adding your business
3. Enter your business name and business category
4. Agree to add your location
5. Add your exact address, so customers know where to visit
6. Add a pin on your location
7. Select if you also serve customers outside the vicinity of your location
8. Add your service areas to help bring in relevant customers
9. Add your contact details (Telephone, mobile number, and website)
10. Select if you want to get updates and recommendations for your business
11. Choose a method of verifying your address. Most of the time, this is by sending a postcard with a code via mail
12. Add your business hours
13. Choose if you want customers to message your business on Google for free
14. Add your business description. Use this space to let people know more about your business in 750 words
15. Add photos of your store. Google suggests focusing on display units to showcase the range of your capabilities
16. Claim free advertising credits, which you can use for Google ads

The tool is so convenient that you can add or remove details by editing your profile anytime. To learn more about setting up your Google My Business, the Google My Business Help Center has some resources to help you navigate the product.

How to Access Your Own Google My Business Page

For your prospects and existing customers, they can find your GMB listing on the right side of the results page when they key in your business name. It can also appear as one of the listing results if people are searching for services, products, or keywords related to your business or industry.

You or your marketing team can access the business listing by going to the business account dashboard. Here you can see a preview of your listing and the reviews people leave behind. Through your account, your GMB page is easily editable, so you can make changes and update your information any time that you want.

How to Optimize Google My Business Using Videos, Images, and Testimonials

Like any other SEO tactics, your main focus, even for your GMB, should be getting content in front of people to entice them to click and set an appointment with your contract manufacturing company sales team. Still, it’s all about brand awareness and content.

Adding videos, images, and testimonials to your Google My Business page will give you the opportunity to showcase all the capabilities of your manufacturing company and cultivate interest.

How to Integrate GMB into Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Again, GMB is just one marketing tactic that sales and marketing teams in the manufacturing industry can utilize today.

A well-rounded marketing plan brings into play the different facets of marketing to support your sales team, but an even more well-rounded marketing plan makes use of organic tactics to save and utilize.

Be sure to choose an agency that will maximize your SEO efforts, so the results trickle down to all facets of your marketing strategy—social, content, email marketing, even cold calls, and cold visits.

There is no singular tactic to drive traffic and increase revenue, especially for manufacturing companies, but optimizing Google My Business is a good place to start.

As the leader in industrial marketing, MFG Tribe has been helping Industrial companies from $2 million – $3 billion dominate their competition with the most aggressive marketing tactics that work in today’s competitive environment for over five years. Our strategy adjusts based on what’s most effective for YOUR company, and we only work with industrial companies. If you’re looking to set up your marketing efforts with the Industrial Marketing leader, schedule a discovery call today.