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The internet has revolutionized the way we shop, particularly when procuring parts. Digital processes now power the supply chain, which allows buyers to find products and place orders online faster and more efficiently than ever before.
This new world of procurement poses a new challenge for manufacturers and distributors. It’s no longer enough to send out mailers and catalogs and to solidify customer relationships with an in-house sales team. To compete in a truly global market, vendors need to be found online, which is why search engine optimization (SEO) has become a priority.
One of the biggest challenges industrial buyers face is scouring the web for the right parts and the best deals. SEO can help by serving up relevant products, but there are still dozens, if not hundreds, of choices. More industrial buyers are turning to vertical marketplaces, such as the Bay Supply Marketplace, to narrow their search and find the best selection of specialty products. Still, effective SEO remains an essential part of any marketing strategy.
Effective SEO drives buyer traffic to marketplace sales, and any good marketplace offers tools to support online search.
The Boom in Specialty Marketplaces
Industrial suppliers are taking their cue from Amazon and other e-commerce retailers to build their online sales channels. Vertical industrial marketplaces are becoming the norm in procurement, having grown from a $24 billion market in 2020 to $224 billion in 2023. That’s why more manufacturers and distributors are looking to combine SEO marketing and vertical marketplace sales.
Using niche industrial marketplaces offers several benefits to online sellers:
- Focus: Because the marketplace is dedicated to one product category, online buyers are highly qualified, and there are fewer tire-kickers.
- Streamlined procurement: Using an online marketplace means the sales process is digital. Requests for quotes, orders, customer communications, and payments are all handled electronically, which is faster and more efficient.
- Supply chain integration: Utilizing digital sales streamlines the integration of orders into business processes, automating fulfillment and facilitating data sharing among sales, shipping, accounting, and other departments.
Industrial buyers have come to expect the convenience of a marketplace as a service, including the quality of search. Well-tuned SEO helps drive buyer traffic to marketplace brands.
How Bay Supply Supports SEO
To ensure that manufacturers and distributors maximize sales value from the Bay Supply Marketplace, Bay Supply invests in SEO to drive buyer traffic.
The marketplace attracts 40,000 qualified buyers each month, and many of those buyers find it through SEO. Bay Supply’s organic SEO traffic has increased 174 percent in nine months with a focused SEO program. SEO contributed to a 3,388 percent increase in organic blog traffic, a 75 percent increase in marketplace orders, and a 30 percent increase in year-over-year sales growth. Bay Supply’s SEO success lifts all of the fastener brands listed on the marketplace.
Each vendor on the marketplace has a dedicated profile, allowing them to offer branded sales experiences. Manufacturers can syndicate their products through authorized distributors while maintaining control of their core catalog. The profile also supports SEO with metadata, keywords, and indexed data. The Bay Supply Marketplace targets industrial fastener buyers, so all prospects are highly qualified.
Vendors gain several benefits by using SEO to drive buyers to the marketplace. The sales process itself is much smoother because all transactions are conducted online, and buyers don’t have to speak with a sales representative. Search also delivers sales leads who have a specific intent, including those who have searched for a particular item, such as “blind rivet nut” or “Huckbolt alternatives.” With SEO, success is all about having the right buyer find your products when they’re ready to buy.
Overcoming Manufacturers’ SEO Challenges
Businesses competing in today’s global digital economy, including fastener manufacturers, must bridge the gap between their SEO strategy and sales. Static webpages tend to draw less traffic because they often contain limited product information and metadata. It requires a content strategy, such as a blog, to promote fresh keywords that drive organic search traffic. Most manufacturer websites lack product tagging and aren’t optimized to handle long-tail keywords, which are essential for SEO.
Distributor websites can also cannibalize manufacturer search traffic. Maintaining keywords and product data across multiple sales channels can be challenging, which can negatively impact SEO.
Selling through an online marketplace helps manufacturers overcome these SEO challenges. Every vendor listed on the Bay Supply Marketplace has an indexed profile, which helps increase search traffic. The profiles are structured to appear in Google search results for brand and product categories. The marketplace also has an optimized content ecosystem with backlink authority. Fresh material with more metadata means more indexed pages and a higher domain authority.
Manufacturers can use the marketplace to support SEO in various ways:
- They can rank for more product keywords.
- They can get more referral traffic and backlinks.
- They can generate more online sales leads without a large ad budget.
The future of industrial sales is online, and that means more than setting up a website. A manufacturer’s online catalog must be part of an integrated marketing strategy that promotes brand visibility and consistency while generating sales leads. An online marketplace also has a high domain authority, includes optimized product pages, and attracts highly qualified buyers.
To learn how the Bay Supply Marketplace can drive your SEO program, schedule a meeting with one of our onboarding agents. It could make all the difference in boosting your digital sales.
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