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Industrial SEO

SEO, AEO and GEO for Manufacturers, Distributors and Industrial Suppliers

Engineers search for a material, part or capability, and AI engines answer from datasheets, standards bodies and supplier directories. If your specifications sit in PDFs, the answer names a distributor or a rival's part number, and the RFQ follows. Our industrial SEO work uses SEO, AEO and GEO to turn specs into readable pages and earn the mentions engines trust. We measure it in RFQs against a fixed baseline.

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Why engineers shortlist suppliers before they ever send an RFQ

An engineer with a drawing on the desk searches for a material supplier for a specific application, or a component manufacturer with the right certification in the right country. More of them now ask an AI engine, which answers from datasheets, standards references, directories such as Thomasnet and distributor catalogues, and names the suppliers whose specifications it could read as text. Procurement sends RFQs to that shortlist, often before your sales team knows the project exists.

Our whole catalogue lives in PDFs

Tolerances, materials, load ratings and certifications sit in scanned datasheets that crawlers read badly or not at all. Engines can't quote what they can't parse, so the spec question gets answered from a distributor's HTML page or a rival who published theirs as text.

Distributors outrank us for our own products

Search your own part number and the first results are distributor listings and directory profiles. The enquiry may still reach you, through a channel that takes margin, owns the relationship and sometimes offers a competitor's equivalent part on the same page.

AI answers get our capabilities wrong

Ask an AI engine who makes your component and it names a competitor, lists a process you dropped years ago or misses the certification you spent a year earning. Each wrong answer takes you off a shortlist you never knew existed.

What we build for industrial SEO, AEO and GEO

Six workstreams from one roadmap, in the order your baseline sets. Every one is shaped by how engineers, buyers and procurement teams specify parts, and every one answers to the numbers your sales team watches: RFQs, quote requests and spec-in enquiries, broken down by product line.

01

The part and capability questions engineers ask

We map searches and prompts such as a material supplier for a given application, a component manufacturer with ISO 9001 in the USA and one spec against another, by product line and market. Then we record which suppliers, distributors and directories each engine and search result names.

02

Specifications published as structured text, not PDFs

Product and capability pages with dimensions, tolerances, materials and certifications in HTML tables, plus application pages by industry, material and standard explainers, comparison pages and resource hubs for engineers. The PDF stays as a download. The page carries the facts an engine can quote.

03

Mentions in the directories and trade press engines read

We trace the sources answers cite for your parts, such as Thomasnet, GlobalSpec, IndustryNet, trade publications and distributor catalogues, then complete your profiles and pitch the trade editors. Where an ISO or ASTM standard applies, your pages cite it correctly, because engines check claims against it.

04

One record of your plants, certifications and part numbers

Organisation and product schema, a location and facility page for each plant, matching Google Business Profile listings, and the same certifications and part numbering on your site, directories and distributor feeds. When engines meet the same facts everywhere, they stop guessing at what you make.

05

A site crawlers can read, from catalogue to configurator

Industrial sites hide content in PDF libraries, JavaScript configurators, gated CAD downloads and faceted catalogues that spawn thousands of thin URLs. We fix indexation and rendering, give each product a crawlable page, confirm AI crawlers can reach it and keep Google and Bing indexing current specs.

06

RFQs counted by product line, not visits

Each month we rerun the same part and capability prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Copilot, then report rankings, citations, RFQs, sample requests and distributor leads from search, with pipeline value by product line wherever your CRM records it.

Covered on every engine your buyers use

  • ChatGPT
  • Perplexity
  • Claude
  • Gemini
  • Google AI Overviews
  • Google AI Mode
  • Copilot

ChatGPT search and Copilot draw on Bing's index, so Bing rankings feed AI answers. We work on search and AI engines as one program.

How it works

The same four steps on every engagement, with a clear view of what to expect at 30, 60 and 90 days.

  1. 01

    Understand

    Map your business, buyers, competitors and the prompts and searches that decide your category.

    Days 1 to 30. A fixed baseline across every engine and the prompts that matter.

  2. 02

    Prioritize

    Pick the few moves that will get you recommended fastest and turn them into a focused roadmap.

    Days 1 to 30. A focused roadmap agreed, with the first fixes already shipping.

  3. 03

    Execute

    Do the technical, content, authority and AI visibility work ourselves.

    Days 30 to 60. Content, technical and authority work shipping every week.

  4. 04

    Improve

    Track AI citations, rankings and the leads they drive against the baseline and keep refining.

    Days 60 to 90. A first read against the baseline, then the next quarter planned.

Case studies

Neither case study is a manufacturer. The method we used for a Salesforce partner with sprawling, overlapping pages, and for a finance automation platform whose capabilities crawlers could not tell apart, is what carries over to product lines.

Read all case studies

Who this is for, and who it is not for

A good fit

Manufacturers, distributors and industrial suppliers with a live site, products engineers already specify and a way to count the RFQs search brings in

  • Component, equipment and contract manufacturers, including job shops
  • Industrial distributors
  • Engineering and automation firms
  • Packaging, materials and industrial software suppliers

Not a fit yet

  • Suppliers who want performance claims published that they cannot verify
  • Marketplaces reselling RFQs to other suppliers
  • Businesses with no live website or nothing to sell yet
  • Anyone expecting guaranteed placement in a specific answer

How we compare with the other ways suppliers win RFQs

SearchAxe Industrial marketing agency Directory and paid placement Trade shows and distributors
Understands how your buyers research Maps engineer and buyer prompts by product Knows the trade, less so AI answers Knows category traffic, not your buyers Knows buyers, not how they search
Works on AI answers and search together Yes, one plan for both Search and trade ads, AI rarely Directory visibility only No, offline and channel only
Ships the fixes Yes, spec pages, schema and technical work Brochures and campaigns more than fixes No, your site is untouched No site work
Earns third-party mentions Directories, trade press and distributor catalogues Trade press, sometimes Only your paid profile Show coverage and dealer pages
Compliance-aware copy Checked specs, certifications and export language Varies by agency Your listing, your responsibility Depends on each distributor
Measured against a baseline Fixed baseline, read every month Activity reports, rarely a baseline Profile views and lead counts Badge scans and channel sales
Published pricing Yes, from $499 per month Usually on request Listing tiers plus ad spend Booth, travel and channel margin

What you get each month

  • Baseline report Where you stand on every engine and in search before any work starts.
  • Monthly AI citation and ranking report Citations by engine, rankings and referring domains, read against the baseline.
  • RFQs attributed The RFQs, quote requests, sample requests and spec-in enquiries that search and AI answers drove that month, by product line, in your own analytics.
  • Slack access A shared channel with the people doing the work.
  • Rolling roadmap What shipped, what is next and why, updated every month.
  • Competitor movement Which competitors gained or lost ground in AI answers and search, and why.

How we get started

From first call to work in progress in three steps.

  1. 01

    Book a free consultation

    A call about your business, your market and where you stand in AI answers and search today.

  2. 02

    Get a plan and a quote

    We send a plan for what we would do first, with a quote for the plan you choose.

  3. 03

    Work starts right away

    Once the plan and quote are approved, the work starts immediately.

What clients say

We had thousands of pages going nowhere. Amit cleaned that up and rebuilt our landing pages. Our top three rankings are up 362% and our citations across AI engines have grown more than a hundred times.

Nan Ha Nan Ha Product Growth Lead, Viggle AI Read the Viggle AI case study

We came to Amit with a good product and almost no search presence. He gave our team a plan we could actually follow. Referring domains are up 183% and our first page rankings have more than tripled.

George Kurdin George Kurdin Co-Founder, Monk Read the Monk case study

Our content was getting published but not landing anywhere. Amit reworked how we format it for AI engines and our citations across all seven engines are up over 400%. The Reddit community he built now brings us leads weekly.

Aditya Nagpal Aditya Nagpal Founder, Wisemonk Read the Wisemonk case study

We launched with a homepage and nothing else. Amit built the search foundation, the landing pages, the blog, the schema. Our domain rating is up 70% and we went from zero AI citations to being quoted by six of the seven AI engines.

Ahad Shams Ahad Shams Founder, HeyOz Read the HeyOz case study

We had multiple pages fighting each other for the same terms. Amit mapped it all out, consolidated what needed consolidating, and rebuilt our service pages. Organic traffic is up 147% and our top three rankings have more than doubled.

Manjunath Thandu Manjunath Thandu CEO, Zivoke Read the Zivoke case study

Who's behind SearchAxe

Amit Malvi spent four and a half years at Invideo AI, rising from SEO Executive to Senior SEO Manager. He built and led a 20-person link building team and owned the company's GEO and AEO programs. Today he works hands-on with a small number of businesses across 16 industries, from SaaS and AI startups to law firms, clinics, online stores and manufacturers, that want to be the name search and AI engines recommend.

Pricing

Published prices, in US dollars per month. The plan that fits this work is below.

Full Service SEO and AI Visibility

$1,499 per month

Minimum three months

For businesses that want one partner to own search and AI visibility end to end, from the fixes to the monthly report.

  • Everything in SEO Consulting
  • Technical fixes, on-page work and citation-ready pages
  • Link building, brand mentions and entity optimization
  • Monthly reporting on citations, rankings and the leads they drive

Third-party fees, such as editorial or placement fees and paid listings, are paid by you directly.

Questions buyers ask us

Should our specifications be PDFs or HTML pages?

Both, with HTML doing the work. Keep the PDF datasheet as a download for engineers who want to file it. Publish the same specifications on the product page as text and tables, with dimensions, tolerances, materials, ratings, certifications and units. Crawlers and AI engines read HTML reliably, and a buyer who searches a spec lands on a page with a quote button instead of a file with no way to contact you.

How do you measure results when sales cycles run for months?

We report the leading numbers every month: RFQs, quote requests, sample requests and spec-in enquiries from search and AI answers, tagged in your analytics and passed to your CRM. When those become orders months later, we match them back to the source and product line, so you see pipeline value and not just form fills. Some AI influence leaves no click, so we also track how often engines name you.

Will this create conflict with our distributors?

Not if the pages are planned with your channel in mind. Your site becomes the reference source for specifications, which helps distributors too. Where you sell through dealers, product pages can route buyers to an authorised distributor by region instead of a direct quote form. We agree those rules with your sales team before anything ships, so search doesn't start competing with the channel that carries your volume.

Can you handle multi-plant and multi-country sites?

Yes. Each plant gets a location page with its capabilities, certifications and a matching Google Business Profile listing, so engines can answer a question about a supplier in a specific region. Country and language versions get hreflang, local units, local standards and the right contact route. We decide which product pages are global and which need a local version, so near-duplicate pages don't compete with each other.

How do AI engines answer technical questions about parts?

They pull from datasheets, standards references, supplier directories and the supplier pages that state a specification clearly, then name the sources they trust. A clean HTML spec table, consistent part numbers and current certifications make your page easier to quote than a distributor's copy of it. Our LLM SEO work covers how each engine reads and cites technical content, and we track the same prompts every month.

How long before we see results?

We set the baseline in the first 30 days and give you the first full read against it at day 90. Moving specs from PDF to HTML and fixing crawl problems usually register first. Directory corrections and trade press take longer, and long buying cycles mean RFQs from that work can arrive a quarter after it shipped. We don't guarantee rankings, citations or RFQ numbers.

What does it cost?

Plans run from $499 to $1,499 per month. Full Service SEO and AI Visibility is $1,499 per month with a three-month minimum. SEO Consulting is $999 per month, month to month, for teams with their own engineers writing content. Link Building and Brand Mentions is $499 per month. The AI Visibility Audit is a one-time $199. Directory, listing and editorial fees are paid by you directly. See our pricing for every plan.

Do you need access to our systems?

We need read access to your analytics and Search Console, editor access to your CMS or a staging site, and the product data behind your datasheets, ideally as an export from your PIM or ERP. RFQ attribution needs your CRM or quoting system to record the source. Your engineering and quality teams review every specification page before it goes live, and we never touch pricing or ordering systems.

Will the content pass engineering and compliance review?

That is how we write it. Specifications come from your own data and match the datasheet. Certifications are named only when they are current and you can show the certificate. Performance claims need a test result or a standard behind them, or they come out. Where products fall under export controls, we keep the control language your compliance team requires. Your engineers and compliance reviewers sign off every page.

Let's get your business recommended.

Tell us what you sell, who buys it and where you show up today. We'll reply within one business day with what is costing you leads and what we would fix first.

Schedule a Free Consultation