SEO for engineering and B2B firms on the M4 corridor

The most common engineering firm website I see has a page called Capabilities. On it sits a bulleted list of ten or eleven processes, a few words each, and an ISO logo at the bottom. It was probably written in an afternoon and it has done its job for years, which is to exist.

A buyer who needs one of those processes learns almost nothing from the list. Google learns almost nothing either. This post is about what to write instead, and how to write it for the two kinds of reader you actually have.

A list of capabilities ranks for none of them

A search engine ranks pages, not websites. A page that mentions eleven processes in a sentence each is a weak answer to eleven different questions, so it ranks for none of them. A page about one process, with the materials, tolerances, equipment and certifications that go with it, is a strong answer to one question. It also happens to be the question somebody typed.

The fix is dull and it works. Give each capability that matters to the business its own page.

One capability, one page

You do not need a page for everything you can do. Start with the three or four processes you would most like more work in, and the ones where you have a real edge in equipment, tolerance, material or certification. A page for a process you do once a year only adds noise.

A capability page that does its job usually holds the following.

• What the process is used for, in a paragraph written for someone who has never visited your workshop.
• The materials you work, by grade. Stainless steel is a starting point and 316L is an answer.
• The size and volume range, from prototypes to production runs, and the largest part you can handle.
• Tolerances and surface finish, stated for the feature types you hold them on.
• The equipment, by make and model. Engineers search for machine names, and they judge a shop by them.
• The certifications that apply to this process, with the scope of the certificate.
• Typical lead times, if you are willing to stand behind them.
• A photograph of a real part with a caption saying what it is and what was hard about it.
• A clear route to a quote.

Write it as long as the answer needs, which is usually longer than the old list and a lot shorter than people fear. Padding is easy to spot in this audience.

Titles and headings carry weight, so make them specific. A page title built from the process, the material or sector and the company name does more than one that says Services. Link the capability pages to each other where it is true, for instance from a sheet metal page to the finishing page that follows it, and give them a single hub so a visitor can see the whole range. Breadcrumbs help people and search engines alike.

Leave out the filler. Stock photographs of handshakes, claims of state-of-the-art equipment and a mission statement above the first useful fact are all things a buyer scrolls past. A photograph of your own machine with the model name in the caption is worth ten of them.

Engineers and procurement search differently

Two people read these pages, and they arrive by different routes. The engineer usually finds you first. Procurement checks you before anyone raises a purchase order. Your page has to survive both.

The practical consequence is that one page has to carry both vocabularies. The engineer wants tolerances and the buyer wants the certificate, so both go on the page, near the top, in plain text.

Use the words your buyers use, which are not always the words your shop floor uses. The best keyword research available to you is the last year of enquiry emails. Read them and note what people asked for.

Assume the page will be forwarded. Somebody reads it, copies the link into an email to a colleague and writes “worth a look”. A page that makes sense without context, with a specific title and the key facts in the first screen, is far easier to forward than one that does not.

Specs, tolerances, materials and certifications

Put the numbers in the page as text. A tolerance trapped in an image or a PDF datasheet cannot be read by a search engine and is a nuisance on a phone. Publish the PDF as well if buyers expect it, but the page comes first.

Certifications need more care than a logo. Name the standard, such as ISO 9001 for quality management, AS9100 for aerospace, ISO 13485 for medical devices or IATF 16949 for automotive, whichever you actually hold. Say who certified you and what the certificate covers. Procurement reads the scope wording, because a certificate for one site or one activity does not cover another. If you do not hold a certification, do not imply one. A buyer who catches it will not come back.

State tolerances you hold routinely, and separately the tightest you have achieved and on which feature. You will be asked for both on the first call anyway, and a page that answers it saves the call. If you cannot give a figure, say what it depends on. That reads as honest and it is.

Spec tables are worth building as real HTML tables, with a header row, rather than as screenshots. They are easier to read, they are indexed, and they hold up on a phone in a workshop doorway.

Case studies without breaching an NDA

Most engineering firms have good work they cannot show. That does not leave you with nothing to say.

1. Read the contract first. Some NDAs cover the customer's name, some cover the part, some cover both.
2. Ask. Some customers will agree to a one-line mention or an anonymous description. Some never will, and that settles it.
3. Describe the problem and leave the customer out. The part type, the material, the tolerance that made it difficult, the quantity, the lead time and what you changed in the process are all useful to a buyer and rarely sensitive.
4. Name the sector in general terms. A medical device manufacturer in the south of England identifies nobody.
5. Check the photographs. Drawing numbers, part markings, logos and the jig in the background have all given away more than the text.
6. Send the draft to the customer anyway. It costs a day and it keeps a relationship.

If you cannot use real work at all, a composite is acceptable, provided it says so. Our own case studies are anonymised composites and we label them that way. Inventing a customer and presenting it as real is another matter, and buyers who know the sector tend to notice.

RFQ forms that people finish

Procurement wants a quote, and your form decides how easily they can ask for one. A contact form with a message box is a poor tool for it. A good request-for-quote form asks for the following.

• The drawings, uploaded in the formats they actually use, such as STEP, DXF or PDF, with a file size limit that fits a real assembly.
• The quantity, split between a one-off, a batch and an annual volume.
• The material and finish, if known.
• When they need it, and which certificates must come with it.
• A name, a company and an email address.

Keep the number of required fields low and give an email address as the alternative for anyone whose drawings are too big. Offer a mutual NDA before drawings are sent, if that is your practice. Confirm receipt on screen and by email, and say how long a quote takes only if you can keep to it.

Two things get forgotten. Uploaded drawings should be stored privately, never at a public web address. And each capability page should link to the form with the process already filled in, so you can see which pages produce quotes.

The M4 corridor, Slough to Reading

Between Slough and Reading, with Heathrow to the east, the M4 is the spine of the valley's business-to-business trade. Slough has a trading estate that is a dense mix of logistics, data centres and trade counters, and most of its trade is business to business. Reading anchors the western end, with technology firms, professional services and the suppliers that serve them.

That context changes two things. Buyers on the corridor often want somewhere they can visit, audit or collect from in a day, so a place name earns its keep. And your competitors are a short drive away, so the page that explains your edge in specifics beats the page that repeats the category.

Resist the urge to write a page for every town on the motorway. One honest page about where you are, what you can collect and deliver, and how a customer gets to you will do more than twenty near-identical ones. Process pages should be national in outlook. Place pages should be few and real.

Measure what matters

Rankings are a means to an end. What the business wants is quote requests that arrive with drawings attached, from companies it would like to work for. Count those, by page, every month. Note how many were the right sort of enquiry, and how many were a student asking for a free sample. After a few months you will know which pages earn their place and which to rewrite. It also gives you something concrete to show the sales team, who are usually the first to say the website does nothing.

Where to start

1. Read the last year's enquiries and note the words buyers used.
2. Pick the three processes you would most like more work in.
3. Write a page for each, using the list above.
4. Rebuild the quote form.
5. Check the numbers again in three months.

If the site needs rebuilding to get there, do it carefully. The pages that already rank are an asset, and redesigning without losing your rankings covers how to keep them. If you would like a second pair of eyes, our M4 corridor B2B SEO work is built around exactly these pages.