Anyone who has built and launched a website has likely encountered an oft-repeated acronym: SEO (search engine optimization). And while you might not have ever done SEO yourself, you've benefited from it in the past: Every day, search engines like Google employ complex algorithms to sift through more than 400 billion web pages and deliver the most relevant results.
Website owners like you use SEO techniques and strategies to get their websites to the top of the search results for relevant user queries. But SEO is not a one-time endeavor — Google and other search engines change often, and ongoing SEO ensures your website stays in front of the people you want to reach. Just as a physical storefront requires regular maintenance and updates to stay competitive, your website needs ongoing SEO to remain visible amidst the ever-changing digital landscape.
The ABCs of SEO: What is Ongoing SEO and Why Does It Matter?
Don't let the techy jargon intimidate you. HubSpot — considered one of the gold standards for SEO and digital marketing advice — defines SEO as simply a collection of strategies and tips that "expand a company’s visibility in organic search results'' and help "drive more visitors to the company’s website, increasing their chances for more conversions which leads to more customers and more revenue."
SEO Connects the Search Engine Algorithms With Your Website's Content
Regardless of your website's goal or industry niche, all SEO techniques have one thing in common: They look at ways to optimize your website's content, keywords, and links to help search engines rank your website higher in the search results when someone searches for something related to your keywords, content, or brand name.
According to HubSpot, SEO needs to address the key factors that all search engines use to determine the value of your website's content — and therefore how high in the search results your website or specific landing page should appear:
- The intent or meaning behind why someone is searching for a specific term or question
- The relevance between what someone searches for, and the content on your website
- The quality of your content (for instance, a website about physical exercise written by certified personal trainers is deemed by Google to be higher quality than a website where the articles are written by non-experts)
- The performance of your website, such as how long it takes a page to load and whether it works well on mobile devices
Static SEO Versus Ongoing SEO: Why It Matters to Stay Fresh and Keep Your SEO Updates Current
As users' web behavior changes and technology evolves, search engines proactively adjust their algorithms.
If you aren't conducting ongoing SEO maintenance and upgrades, a well-optimized website today can quickly become obsolete tomorrow, causing your search rankings to drop and attracting fewer organic visitors. Google itself updates its algorithms several thousand times per year, including significant "major" changes every few months that dramatically change how it crawls and ranks content. For example, Google's infamous Panda update changed how it ranked how-to lifestyle content on the Internet, causing one major content publisher to lose a whopping $6.4 million of traffic and advertising nearly overnight.
How Ongoing SEO Influences Your Website Strategy
Staying abreast of changes to SEO techniques and strategies provides important guidance to your content, marketing, and overarching website strategy. For example, it can dictate or influence:
- How much content you publish, and the content's format, length, and focus
- How you incorporate other forms of media on your website, including images, video, and audio
- How you organize content on your site, including landing page layouts and your site's navigation
- What keywords and target users your website focuses on
Embrace the Power of Ongoing SEO
Caroline Forsey, an expert in thought leadership and marketing content, looked at the survey results from more than 400 of the world's leading web analysts to predict the biggest SEO trends of 2024. According to her data, some of the top changes in SEO strategies this year include:
- A heavier emphasis on expertise, meaning the content on your website should come from experts in your related field (including bylines and author bios that demonstrate the author's credentials and experience on the topic they're writing about)
- A renewed emphasis on first-person, credible content, especially as more websites generate high volumes of low-quality AI content (Google itself has announced upcoming changes to tackle low-value articles created by AI)
- A priority on websites that are deemed trustworthy, such as e-commerce sites with well-rated customer service, or content sites that do a good job of citing trustworthy research and statistics
- Bonus points on content that is creative and original and doesn't simply rehash content found on other sites
Of course, these SEO trends will inevitably change every year, and ongoing SEO will keep you competitive no matter what Google, Bing, and other search engines do. No matter your website's industry or content strategy, ongoing SEO requires that you:
- Focus on keeping your content fresh and high quality, including new blog posts or regularly refreshing and updating old product descriptions or articles
- Conduct keyword research often, since the terms or phrases that your core audience uses will evolve over time
- Maintain your website's overarching performance, such as mobile-friendliness as mobile devices evolve, and page load speed
- Build a diverse portfolio of high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites within your niche, which may include outreach campaigns, getting others in your industry to write guest blogs, and participating in online forums or communities
- Keep on top of technical and performance metrics, such as scanning your site for broken links (and fixing the links you uncover) and using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates
- Stay on top of algorithm changes so you can adapt your SEO strategy in real-time
Some website owners think of SEO as the first step of their promotional strategy. But it's less a first step, and more an ongoing journey to ensure you, your brand, and your content stay relevant in such a competitive atmosphere. Whether you choose to go it alone and take a DIY approach to SEO, or you choose to consult with a digital marketing and SEO agency, check in often and make sure your SEO evolves as the world around you evolves.
The past year has practically ensured that a website is a necessity for any business, even for manufacturing companies, as the vast majority of business interactions and sales have shifted to online.
In an increasingly digitally connected world, where more potential customers are looking online to do research and make purchase decisions, a manufacturer’s website needs to stand out from the competition, engage with website visitors and generate high-quality leads.
One central tenet of a successful website is user experience and every element and style on your website needs to address this. That is why most of the website trends for 2021 address greater user experience.
Here are seven must-have’s manufacturer’s will want to include on their website this year.
1. Product Organization
The most highly visited pages on manufacturing websites are the product pages. Most visitors who come to your product pages already know what you are manufacturing and are looking for more information about your products.
Make it easy for potential customers to find your product pages. Establish a strong linking structure so users can navigate to these pages from multiple access points on your website, or create prominent, eye-catching CTA’s (call to action) to get users to click through, and place them strategically in your main navigation.
Here's an example of well-organized products in a clear navigation:
It is vital to provide powerful product filtering and search capabilities that enable buyers to find products based on their requirements.
Online catalogs become more robust in the new year. With the right product management platforms on your website, products are organized based on how sourcing professionals, engineers, and your buyer personas search online.
2. Product Information
Providing all the information about your product is vital to enable effective sales. Buyers who visit your site need answers to their questions about your products quickly and easily. They also expect product information to be delivered in various formats such as 3D CAD drawings for engineers and downloadable technical spec sheets.
In addition to detailed product specs, high-quality product imagery is a must for manufacturers to display their products. With more potential customers researching products and shopping online, quality product photography is the need of the day.
Too many manufacturing websites are still using relatively outdated graphics and imagery with small photos that don’t show the specific details buyers are looking for.
Fortunately, last year saw a move towards bigger detailed photos. And this trend continues in 2021 with a greater expansion towards showcasing products in innovative ways such as through 3D models and animation, and 360-degree views.
Product photos need to be clean and uncluttered. Use bright colors to show off the product, and have a hint of natural elements, or use human elements such as a pair of hands showing how your product works.
In 2021, products will feature as design elements on a webpage, creating a more synergistic look between the product and the website.
3. Customization of Products
Manufacturers are noticing that powerful product configuration tools are a game-changer offering differentiation, greater user experience, and elevated sales. In 2021, this trend continues to dominate in both B2C and B2B markets.
Websites that offer product configuration tools set themselves apart and gain a competitive advantage, which also makes the purchasing process much easier. It enables potential customers to configure and visualize products in 2D or 3D, and access real-time pricing and quote of configured products.
Here's an example of how users can configure a product to meet their needs:
4. Clear Navigation
Simple, clear navigation is a must for manufacturing websites to help visitors navigate towards the products and information they are looking for. Different navigation types enhance user experience and support the website visitor’s journey towards conversion and sales.
One trend cropping up in website design is hidden navigation or the use of hidden menus. It is a more intuitive form of navigation where a menu shows up on a webpage as a visitor takes some form of action. This can be when they scroll down a page, hover over certain areas, or click an icon.
Hidden menus give an uncluttered look to websites and offer more room for other content. It also works well when websites are viewed on smartphones, thus ensuring mobile responsiveness.
In 2021, web audiences are ready to explore fresh ways of interacting with common website navigation elements such as menus, banners, and footers. These are the areas where web designers will experiment and deliver new ways of navigation and web browsing.
5. Inclusivity and Accessibility Features
There is a growing trend to make websites more accessible for people with disabilities, thus increasing the reach of the website. But inclusivity and accessibility are more than a trend and are a necessity for any good website.
There are certain elements, which need to be incorporated into good web design to improve accessibility such as creating strong color contrasts between text and backgrounds, adding functional alt tags to images, ensuring the website is keyboard friendly for easy navigation, and clearly labeling form fields rather than using placeholder text.
These trends evolve and continue in 2021 so that every website visitor can access and navigate manufacturing websites with ease.
6. Comfortable Color Combinations
As more people spend time online, web designers have taken it upon themselves to create websites that are easier on the eyes. Cue in the ‘Dark Mode’, which grew in popularity in 2020, and is expected to continue into 2021.
Web designers will continue to use colors that are easy on the eye and will experiment with subtle, simple designs and cool natural colors that are comforting and relaxing.
Other color trends for websites that will deliver accessibility and comfort include colors that blend into each other (gradients), color blocking that uses organic shapes rather than fixed boxed shapes, and saturated colors against paler hues.
7. Interactive Web Elements
Interactive elements on websites have become increasingly popular, and this trend continues into 2021 to engage with potential customers more organically. For manufacturers, these elements can be in the form of calculators, assessments, or polls that offer interactivity and provide value to website visitors.
Micro-animations are another popular form of interactivity that are triggered when a website visitor takes some action such as scrolling down, clicking an icon, or hovering over an element. For manufacturers, these micro-interactions can be used to explain product features or help visitors navigate through the website, thus increasing brand awareness and engagement and making your website more appealing.
Today, potential customers turn away from outdated websites as it sends the wrong message to them about your reputation and trustworthiness. Whether you are building a new website or updating your old one, it’s important to incorporate the latest website trends so that it looks new, secure, and trustworthy, and helps you stand out from the competition.
Does your company website have any of the items listed above? If not, reach out to us today so we can help you incorporate these features to your site to set you apart from your competition.