Manufacturing Industry Struggles To Use Internet Marketing Services Effectively

Lancaster, PA (PRWEB) May 18, 2009 — ProspectMX announced Monday the debut of a series of industry-specific website audits as a way to chronicle how the biggest industries utilize internet marketing for top organic search engine rankings.

A recent study of FORTUNE 500 manufacturing companies showed that the largest companies in the U.S. fail to rank in the top 100 search results for around 81% of the top manufacturing search terms. This report inspired ProspectMX to further examine search engine optimization (SEO) practices in the manufacturing industry. ProspectMX’s findings resulted in the first of a series of articles outlining ten internet marketing strategies manufacturing companies should use to improve search engine rankings.

“There’s a lot of opportunity on the internet for manufacturing companies across all industries,” said Dave Conklin, CEO of ProspectMX, a Lancaster, PA-based provider of internet marketing services. “After reviewing our audits in the manufacturing industry, it became clear that few companies are doing anything about all of that opportunity.”

In the packaging industry, for example, the search term “plastic packaging” is one of the most searched for keyword phrases on the internet every month. Suppliers of plastic packaging should highly covet top organic search rankings for this keyword, as it averages around 8,100 searches every month worldwide, according to Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Around 42% of internet searchers click on the top ranked webpage for a search term, meaning that ranking no. 1 in the search engines for “plastic packaging” could lead to an additional 3,400 visitors to a website each month.

The internet marketing experts at ProspectMX uncovered several shortcomings in the SEO practices of the top ranking company websites (not web directory sites) for “plastic packaging” during their research on top searched keywords the manufacturing industry. Nearly all of the top ranking sites audited utilize basic SEO best practices, but:

- Almost 100% of the websites audited failed to utilize “page rank sculpting” - the process of funneling internal link authority to the most important pages on a website. Research has shown this can benefit search rankings of interior webpages.

- About 80% of the websites audited contained broken links. Google Webmaster Guidelines clearly state that websites should not publish pages with broken links.

- About 70% of the websites audited failed to name images with relevant keywords, one of the most important techniques for universal search optimization.

If companies interested in ranking at the top of the search engines for “plastic packaging” were to utilize all SEO best practices, the opportunity to quickly improve the search rankings of their website over the competition is possible.

This week, Dave Conklin will be a guest at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute’s (PMMI) MarketTrends Roundtable in Chicago. PMMI is the leading global resource for packaging with the goal of improving members’ abilities to succeed in the global marketplace. Conklin will be joining the roundtable to discuss the importance of SEO to packaging machinery manufacturers in order to best use the power of the internet to boost their business.

For a list of 10 free tips for improved SEO on your manufacturing website, check out the Internet Marketing Blog (http://www.prospectmx.com/blog) from ProspectMX.

ProspectMX was established in late 2007 by the founders of an Inc. 500 company as a provider of internet marketing services to clients nationwide. SEO link building, pay-per-click management, internet marketing consulting and organic SEO development are just a few of the services ProspectMX offers businesses of all sizes. Find free internet marketing resources and information on receiving a free consultation at http://www.prospectmx.com.