Let’s talk about how to choose the right manufacturing SEO agency.
Over the last five years, I’ve rolled up my sleeves and worked with B2B manufacturers across the board — from copper piping suppliers to CNC manufacturers and fume extraction specialists. These aren’t flashy startups or TikTok brands.
They’re the kind of businesses that keep industries running — quietly, reliably, and with damn good precision.
Along the way, I’ve had more conversations than I can count — with business owners, marketing managers, and operations leads — all asking the same thing: How do I know which SEO agency to trust?
Some of them came to me after wasting money on agencies that promised rankings and delivered nothing.
Others brought horror stories: content that read like it was written by a robot, backlinks from spammy sites, “strategy decks” that gathered dust.
And some were just tired — tired of the jargon, the guesswork, the lack of results.
After seeing how most SEO agencies operate — and fixing the mess they leave behind — I’ve learnt a thing or two about what actually matters.
I’ve learnt what a good SEO agency looks like, what bad ones always get wrong, and why most of them aren’t driving real leads or revenue — just ticking boxes and sending pretty reports.
So, if you’re a manufacturer trying to find an SEO partner who actually understands your business — who knows the difference between a lead and a look — this guide is for you.
I’m going to walk you through five things to watch for when choosing a manufacturing SEO agency. Everything you need to make a smart decision.
5 factors you can use to choose a manufacturing SEO agency
1. Is their SEO strategy chasing traffic — or bringing in qualified leads?
This one’s big. Maybe the biggest.
Most manufacturing SEO agencies are obsessed with traffic.
They’ll build you a plan that’s designed to bring as many people to your site as possible — even if 99% of those people have no interest in buying from you.
They’ll point to rising visitor numbers in their monthly report and call it a win.
But here’s the truth most won’t admit: traffic doesn’t pay the bills. Leads do.
I’ve seen it happen to CNC manufacturers more times than we can count.
An agency builds out blog posts around high-volume, low-intent terms like what is cnc machining or how does a lathe work.
Sure, those keywords might drive a few hundred visitors a month — but most of those visitors are students, researchers, or curious DIYers.
Not buyers. Not decision-makers. Not the kind of people sending over CAD files and asking for quotes.
The people who are buying? They’re typing in keyphrases like:
- custom aluminium parts supplier uk
- short-run cnc machining with fast turnaround
- iso 9001 cnc milling company
Not glamorous. Not high-volume. But laser-focused. And loaded with buying intent.
If your SEO strategy isn’t prioritising these kinds of keywords — the ones that match exactly what your ideal customers are searching when they need a supplier — then you’re spinning your wheels.
Here’s the part that most agencies get wrong:
They assume more traffic = more sales.
But in manufacturing, volume means nothing without intent.
Your buyers aren’t reading blog posts for fun. They’re solving specific problems.
They need suppliers they can trust. They’re hunting — and when they search, they search like it.
That means your SEO agency needs to:
- Build a keyword strategy based on commercial intent, not just search volume
- Prioritise landing pages and service pages over generic blog content
- Track actual conversions — RFQs, form submissions, phone calls — not just rankings
- Be able to connect the dots between a keyword, a page, and a lead
Ask them:
– How do you decide which keywords to go after first?
– Can you show me examples of keywords you’ve ranked for that led to actual leads?
– Do you track which pages convert — and adjust strategy accordingly?
Because if they’re still focused on bringing more people to your site — instead of bringing the right people — you’ll end up with a nice-looking traffic graph and an empty inbox.
And in this business, that’s not strategy. That’s a waste of time.
2. Do they actually build the pages that bring in leads?
Here’s how a lot of SEO agencies work:
They run a few reports, draft up a spreadsheet with 300 keywords, throw in a handful of generic “content briefs”… and then hand the whole thing off to you like they’ve just delivered something valuable.
It looks impressive. It feels strategic. But let’s be honest — it’s mostly smoke.
We’ve seen it happen over and over again with CNC manufacturers.
Agencies hand them endless keyword lists packed with broad, high-volume terms like what is cnc machining— the kind of phrases students or hobbyists are searching — while completely missing the commercial intent terms like precision cnc turning uk or aluminium parts supplier that bring in leads.
And when it comes to content? They don’t build anything.
They either expect your team to write hundreds of pages — which, let’s face it, never happens — or they offer to write them at a premium that makes no sense for your margins.
This kind of approach creates the illusion of momentum. But nothing ever gets published.
No pages get ranked. No enquiries come in. It’s all talk — no machines running.
A good SEO partner handles implementation.
They don’t just suggest what content to make — they roll up their sleeves and build the thing. Proper service pages. Optimised product categories. Useful technical content that actually speaks to procurement managers and engineers — not just Google’s algorithm.
So when you’re choosing an agency, ask:
– Do you create and publish the content yourself?
– Who’s writing it — and have they written for manufacturers before?
– How do you decide what to prioritise first?
If all they’re offering is keyword lists and PDFs, don’t be fooled.
Strategy without execution is just theory.
You need someone who gets their hands dirty — and gets results.
3. What area of SEO do they focus on the most?
Here’s something we’ve seen far too often in manufacturing:
An SEO agency walks in, runs a technical audit, flags a bunch of issues — metadata, alt tags, broken links — and makes a big show of fixing it all.
Then they shift gears into link building, chasing backlinks from generic blogs or directories that have nothing to do with your industry.
Months go by. Your website’s a little cleaner.
Your “domain authority” is up. But guess what? You’re still not getting leads. No new enquiries. No RFQs. Nothing.
Why? Because all that effort was spent polishing the frame, not building the engine.
Look — technical SEO and link building do matter. But only when they’re used to help your site rank for keywords that bring in actual business. They’re support acts.
The main event is this:
Getting found for the things your ideal customers are Googling when they’re ready to buy.
If your agency isn’t laser-focused on identifying high-value, high-intent keywords — and creating pages designed to rank for them — then they’ve got their priorities backwards.
Let’s say you’re a CNC machine manufacturer. Would you rather:
– Fix some broken links and get a backlink from a blog about productivity hacks,
or
– Rank on page one for cnc milling machines for sale ?
Only one of those brings in leads.
And yet, we see agencies over and over again getting lost in the weeds — endlessly “optimising” sites that are already technically fine, or chasing backlinks that don’t move the needle.
Meanwhile, the content that should be bringing in buyers never gets written. The keywords that matter most never get targeted. And the money gets spent anyway.
When you’re evaluating an SEO partner, ask where their time goes:
– How much do you focus on technical SEO vs keyword strategy and content creation?
– What’s your actual plan to rank for commercial terms?
– Do you build dedicated service pages to target buying-intent keywords?
If they talk about all three parts — technical, links, and content — as being “equally important,” that’s a red flag.
Because they’re not. Not if you care about leads.
You don’t need a perfect website. You need a website that shows up when buyers are looking for a supplier — and gives them a reason to get in touch.
Everything else is noise.
4. Can they write about your services in a way that makes people want to buy?
Let’s get something straight:
If you’re trying to rank for buying-intent keywords — and actually turn those clicks into revenue — the content on your site needs to do more than fill a page. It needs to sell.
And that’s where most SEO agencies completely fall apart.
They don’t know how to write about products or services in any real depth.
They hand your keyword off to a freelancer, give them a loose “content brief,” and hope for the best.
The result? A 1,000-word post that sounds like it was written by someone who’s never seen your workshop, never spoken to a customer, and couldn’t tell a spindle from a servomotor.
That kind of content might fly if you’re going after top-of-funnel keywords.
But when you’re targeting real commercial terms, the bar is higher. Way higher.
Buyers landing on that page don’t want definitions. They want detail. They want to know:
– What tolerances can you hit?
– What materials do you work with?
– How fast can you turn around prototypes?
– What makes you different from the other dozen suppliers they’ve got bookmarked?
If your content can’t speak to that — clearly, confidently, without sounding like a sales brochure — you’re not converting anyone.
Good SEO content for manufacturers doesn’t just “rank.” It communicates.
It bridges the gap between what your sales team knows and what your prospects need to hear.
That means talking to the people inside your business who actually know the product — your engineers, your estimators, your account managers — and pulling out the gold that never makes it onto the website.
That takes process. That takes skill.
Most agencies don’t have either.
Here’s what you need to ask:
– How do you gather product or service knowledge for the pages you write?
– Will you be interviewing our team, what is your process?
– Can you show me a service page or product description you’ve written — and explain how it led to actual leads or sales?
You’re not selling t-shirts. You’re selling highly technical, often custom solutions with long sales cycles and complex buyer questions.
The content has to feel like it’s coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about — because your customers will sniff out nonsense in seconds.
So if you’re getting vague answers, recycled subheadings, or thin writing dressed up in buzzwords, you already know how this story ends.
The right SEO partner knows how to write like a salesperson who actually understands your product.
That’s rare. And it’s what separates the content that ranks and converts… from the stuff that just takes up space on your site.
5. Are they creating dedicated pages to rank?
Let’s talk about a little trick we’ve seen a lot of SEO agencies pull.
Here’s how it goes:
Instead of building out dedicated pages for each keyword that matters, the agency takes your keyword list and hands it to some overworked copywriter with vague instructions to “include these where possible.”
What you get back is a few long-winded blog posts with a dozen keywords awkwardly stuffed in — most of which don’t even match the topic of the article.
You’ll see lines like:
“When choosing a CNC partner, it’s important to consider 5 axis CNC machining suppliers who are ISO certified and also rapid prototyping aluminium parts.”
It reads like a robot wrote it. And it doesn’t rank.
Why? Because Google’s not that easy to fool anymore.
The algorithm doesn’t just look for keywords — it looks for intent. It compares your content to what’s already ranking for that query.
If the top five results are all dedicated service pages — clearly structured, targeted, and designed to solve a specific problem — and all you’ve got is a blog post that mentions the phrase in passing, you’re not getting anywhere near the first page.
This is especially true in manufacturing, where buyers search with intent. They want pages that speak directly to what they need:
– Short-run aluminium CNC machining
– Fume extraction system installers UK
– Bespoke copper pipe bending for HVAC
If your agency isn’t creating one page per target keyword — structured around what your customer is searching for and what they need to see to convert — you’re being short-changed.
So here’s what you need to ask an agency before hiring them:
– How do you get pages to rank for specific keywords?
– Do you create individual pages for each target term, or just “optimise” existing content?
– Can you show me examples where you ranked a page specifically built for one keyword — and brought in leads because of it?
If their answer involves “adding keywords to existing pages” or “optimising blog content with multiple phrases” — walk.
That’s not SEO. That’s filler.
And in this business, you don’t want filler.
You want to rank when the right person is searching. You want them to land on a page that speaks directly to their need.
You want them to pick up the phone or hit “Request a Quote.”
That doesn’t happen by sprinkling. It happens by building.
How I actually get manufacturers results from SEO — not reports
How I work:
As a freelance SEO content writer and consultant specialising in manufacturing, I don’t hide behind process decks or bloated packages. I focus on two things — the two things that actually move the needle:
- Finding keywords with high buying intent
- Creating dedicated, high-quality pages to rank for them
You get those right, you win.
You get them wrong — or skip one altogether — and nothing else matters. Not the backlinks. Not the page speed. Not the site audit with 87 broken alt tags.
Just wasted budget and silence in your inbox.
Here’s how I do it differently:
1. I start with the keywords that bring in RFQs, not pageviews
Most SEO agencies go straight for the site crawl or start link-building before they’ve even asked what you actually sell. That’s backwards.
I start by finding the keywords that matter — the ones typed in by project managers, procurement leads, and technical buyers who are actively looking for a manufacturer.
Not general interest stuff like “what is CNC”, but focused, commercial-intent terms.
I break these down into three categories:
- Service & product keywords – what you sell, plain and simple.
- Comparison and alternative searches – what your buyers are typing when they’re weighing you up against a competitor.
- Pain point searches – when someone’s got a problem and they’re looking for a supplier who can solve it, now.
I prioritise the ones that show clear buying intent — and I don’t move on until we’ve built a strong base there.
Awareness content comes later (if at all). First, we build the pages that generate leads.
2. I write a dedicated page for every target keyword
I don’t hand you a spreadsheet and wish you luck.
I don’t send over “content briefs” and leave the hard work to your marketing team.
And I sure as hell don’t write fluffy blog posts that try to chase five keywords at once.
For every keyword I target, I build a page around it — whether that’s a blog post, landing page, or service page.
One keyword. One page. One clear intent.
That’s how you meet buyers exactly where they are in the search.
That’s how you outrank the competition.
That’s how you convert.
I write the content myself, based on interviews with your team or deep-dive research into your processes, products, and customer base.
And I write it with one goal: turning searchers into enquiries.
3. I highlight what makes you different
This is the part most SEO writers miss:
It’s not enough to just rank. The page needs to sell. Quietly. Clearly. Without trying too hard.
I write to show off what makes your firm, your process, or your product line the right choice — without sounding like a brochure.
That means:
- Explaining key features, specs, and tolerances
– Calling out turnaround times and quality guarantees
- Comparing what you do vs. what your competitors don’t
- Slipping in testimonials, case studies, and lived experience from your team
I get this detail by talking directly to the people who know your offering best — the folks on the floor, the sales team, the engineers.
Not scraping from competitor sites. Not guessing.
This is what makes buyers stick around.
This is what makes them hit Request a Quote.
This is what actually brings you business.
4. Technical SEO and link building are support acts — not the headliners
Yes, I audit your site. Yes, I fix what’s broken.
But I don’t make technical SEO the centrepiece of my work — because a fast-loading, well-structured site that doesn’t target the right keywords is just a nicely organised ghost town.
Same with backlinks. If we need links to get pages ranking, I’ll find relevant ones — industry publications, associations, partners.
But I won’t waste your time or budget buying shady backlinks or building hundreds of links to pages that don’t convert.
Everything — everything — is done in service of ranking and converting for high-value keywords. That’s the North Star. Always.
That’s all he wrote, folks.
Until next time, peace.