Digital Marketing for Manufacturer Caplugs Leads to No. 1 Ranking in Google

Results

  • Multiple #1 listings in Google
  • Increased website traffic by 635%
  • 400% increase in conversions

Did you know that the first result in Google’s organic search gets an average of 32.5 percent of the traffic share? That’s a pretty impressive piece of the pie. The value of high visibility in search doesn’t end there either. More than half of all website traffic comes from organic search — and more than 40 percent of revenue is captured by organic traffic. Simply put: If your online content isn’t optimized for customers and search engines, it’s impacting your bottom line.

For the manufacturing industry, well written, optimized content is essential to getting your products in front of potential buyers. Maybe your company manufactures parts for engineers. The buyer will be researching solutions, creating designs and then evaluating potential suppliers. You want to be at the top of that shortlist — and it starts by being findable in search.

That was the realization that Caplugs — a leader in custom-molded components, masking solutions and product protection — came to 15 years ago when they first partnered with MoreVisibility.

Digital Marketing Challenges for Manufacturing Companies

In the beginning, it was tough to make the case to seek outside help with digital marketing, says Melody Napierela, Director of Global Brand & Marketing Communications for Caplugs. If it was a B2C company, it would have been easier to show the need for a strong digital presence. The competition is stiff and you need to stand out to earn the business. Many manufacturers, however, target a B2B audience and a niche market. At some point, they may have been the only business equipped for the job. That’s rarely the case anymore.

Additionally, digital marketing for manufacturers is a full-time job — and many internal teams don’t have the bandwidth to fully support it, Melody observed. They’re focused on the tactical, day-to-day initiatives, which doesn’t allow much free time for assessing the search landscape, staying on top of changes, and identifying opportunities that lie ahead.

“When it’s hardcore manufacturing like us, they don’t always recognize how important it is,” says Melody. “But for us, as a small team and bringing MoreVisibility on as an extension of that team, it’s that expertise that I would never be able to afford [having] a person inside do. Year over year, it just grows in importance.”

The Value of a Digital Marketing Partner vs. a Project Vendor

Throughout our 15 years of partnership, MoreVisibility and Caplugs have collaborated on initiatives such as:

  • Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce — Added custom variables, dimensions and event tracking to provide increased site interaction and shopping behavior data in Google Analytics.
  • Content Strategy — Created a roadmap for optimized on-site content to grow organic traffic and improve user experience to increase engagement.
  • Social Media and Blog Content — Crafted compelling content to help drive traffic to Caplugs’ website and increase effectiveness of search result ranking efforts.
  • Interactive Advertising Campaign Management — Developed highly optimized and targeted paid search campaigns to drive qualified traffic to Caplugs’ website and increase product sales.
  • Domain Merger Configuration Analysis — Provided consultation on SEO best practices when merging Caplugs and Tri-Star Protectors’ websites into a single domain. Caplugs had acquired Tri-Star and needed to incorporate its content onto Caplugs’ website. We also identified any potential issues that could negatively impact Caplugs’ organic search rankings during this process.
  • Website Design and Development Server Review — Provided recommendations to improve the SEO-friendliness of Caplugs’ proposed website designs and user-experience mock-ups.

Like many of our clients, performing well in search results is important to Caplugs — and their bottom line. As a result, it’s our job to think beyond the task at hand and look at what’s on the horizon of search.

Sometimes, that horizon is unknown — even to Google. Each day, 15 percent of searches are completely new to the search engine. It relies on its algorithm to deliver the most relevant and reliable information available. To help people find what they’re looking for, Google considers various factors including the searcher’s question, language and location, as well as the content on the webpage being served in search results — and the expertise of that source. To keep up with the changes in search, Google also has to make changes to its algorithm. It does so roughly 500 to 600 times per year.

Some of those changes are minor, while others have the potential to shake up the search landscape. Google’s Panda update impacted 11.8 percent of queries when it first rolled out in 2011. It was developed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites (poor design, repetitive wording, low editorial standards, intrusive ads, and more). The Penguin update in 2012 sought to sink spammy sites that were buying links to boost their rankings. In 2015, Google released a mobile-friendly ranking algorithm that was designed to reward mobile-friendly pages in Google’s mobile search results.

Each time there was a major update, MoreVisibility would reach out to Melody — along with our other clients — to make her aware, share important considerations, and offer ways to help. For Melody, it reinforced the importance of having MoreVisibility as Caplugs’ ongoing digital marketing partner, not a vendor for a one-time project.

“Every year, I have to justify my outside experts [to leadership],” Melody says. “A lot of times, they’ll say, ‘Well, just have them do these projects for us.’ I’ll say, ‘No, we need them 12 months [of the year]. Each time Google shifts, I’m getting an email.”

Measuring Results in Real-Time

In 2020, Caplugs’ leadership communicated that they wanted to increase their [ecommerce conversions?] by four times as much. After discussing their goals internally, the first thing Melody says she did was reach out to her extended team of experts, including MoreVisibility, to ask for recommendations.

To help Caplugs reach its goal of increased online presence and performance, MoreVisibility provided:

  • Content Creation Services– Supported Caplugs in crafting optimized content for key category and product pages to increase organic visibility.
  • Quarterly Categorical and Competitor Reports– Conducted trend analysis of SEO tactics in progress. We also identified changes in the competitive search landscape, highlighting the greatest gains and opportunities to further improve search engine rankings.
  • Competitor Website and User Experience (UX) Analysis– Analyzed user experience — from product search to transaction completion — on key competitors’ websites.

As a result of those initiatives, Caplugs went from having low visibility in Google’s search results to ranking No. 1 for keywords we helped target, including:

  • Caps for threaded connectors — Moved from 4th position in 2016 to 1st position in 2020. This led to a 277% increase in overall sessions and a 232% lift in new users for the webpage targeting this keyword. Our continual optimization efforts helped increase sales from organic traffic.
  • Finishing Caps — Moved from 48th position in 2016 to 1st position in 2020. This page did not initially receive much organic traffic in 2016 and did not see sales conversions. Our continual optimization efforts increased traffic by 635% — and the webpage targeting this keyword is now producing sales conversions.
  • Sheet Metal Plugs — Moved from 65th position in 2016 to 1st position 2020. The conversion rate increased 40% on the webpage targeting this keyword from 2016 to 2020.
  • Edge Liners — Moved from 31st position in 2016 to 3rd position in 2020. In comparing organic traffic in 2016 to 2020, there was an increase of 306.48% in overall organic sessions, a 384% lift in new users, a 400% increase in conversions, and a sizable revenue increase.
  • Connector Caps — On a fairly consistent basis, Caplugs’ webpage targeting this keyword has ranked No. 1. Our efforts helped deliver new users to the page via organic traffic, resulting in increased product sales.

Caplugs’ vastly improved online performance was a result of the ongoing collaboration between our two companies. Melody and Caplugs’ team had the insight we needed about their products, business and long-term goals. MoreVisibility understands the search landscape, continually keeps up with changes to it, and has decades of experience helping companies navigate it.

“We’re the inside experts on our product, but we rely heavily on you as our outside expert,” Melody says. “It helps give us credence [with] ownership and internal management in that, our strategies aren’t limited by someone who has worked at the company 20 years. I know Caplugs inside and out, but what are [we] missing? That’s MoreVisibility and our other expert partners bringing that high-level expertise that is right for the future, not just limited to one person’s experience.”

Why MoreVisibility is the Right Digital Marketing Partner

A comprehensive digital marketing agency, MoreVisbility was founded in 1999 — when the internet was still relatively in its infancy. Since then, we have grown into a team of 35 in-house experts. Our team members are all specialists in their fields — SEO (copywriting and technical SEO, for example), SEM, design, development, social media, and analytics. This leads to deep — not surface-level — knowledge and reliable recommendations for our clients.

It also helps us collectively come together to share different vantage points to a challenge, making sure every angle is addressed.

Our clients range in industries, including manufacturing, construction/building materials, financial, technology, automotive, healthcare/wellness, and real estate, to name a few.

Despite our 20-plus years of experience, we never assume we have all the answers. We’re always ready to roll up our sleeves, dig into the data, ask questions, collaborate and challenge one other to find the best solution.

That curiosity and desire to explore new ideas has led us to both attend and speak at digital media conferences, seminars and trainings nationwide, alongside other influencers. As a Premier Partner for Google Ads and a Google Marketing Platform Partner (which includes certification in Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Data Studio, and Optimize), we also participate in a number of Beta launches, testing new products before they’re released to the public.

Looking to level-up the digital marketing for your manufacturing company this year? We’d love to help.

Contact us to discover how you can create an online presence that commands attention — and converts leads.

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