An SEO agency for industrial companies works in two fields: the technology of the website and its content. Technology covers indexing and loading times. Content means the right topics, written in the language that purchasing and engineering really use. The bottleneck in mechanical engineering almost always lies in content, because few writers can describe a protection system or a drive concept so that it is technically correct and still gets found. additiv has worked in this content field for industrial clients for almost 30 years.

additiv handles the content side of SEO: topic research, search terms, page structure, copy and ongoing maintenance. What we do not take on for clients is technical implementation such as server configuration or migrations. Most clients already have a specialist partner for that. We come from specialist communication for industry. Our editors have covered drive technology and intralogistics for years. That depth decides whether a text works as a source on Google and in AI answers.

At additiv, SEO usually runs on a retainer alongside press relations, bylined technical articles, content marketing and visibility in AI answers. A trade press article, a customer case study, a LinkedIn post and a website text grow out of the same research. Separating them means researching and paying several times. Combining them gives one topic reach across several channels. For topics with high commercial value, Google Ads adds paid presence to the organic visibility that content builds.

Ongoing SEO support starts with an inventory of which pages rank and where the site loses its readers. It also shows which topics are missing. A topic map follows. After that additiv works in cycles: prioritising topics, writing or revising texts, adding internal links, measuring results and adjusting. Technical findings that come up along the way are documented and passed to whoever runs your website. additiv follows up on whether they work. Your technical partner implements them.

A typical SEO month has a fixed part and a flexible part. The fixed part is an editorial meeting with sales and engineering, two to four texts in production, an approval loop and a report. The flexible part is whatever the market brings, such as a trade fair or a competitor taking over a topic. Every three months additiv reviews the roadmap. It checks which topic clusters are finished and where sharpening an existing text pays off more than writing a new one.

additiv measures SEO work by four values: visibility in the relevant search space, organic entries on the pages that bring business, time on page and scroll depth for technical texts, and enquiries traced back to organic search. Rankings alone say little. They fluctuate. Position three for a niche query is also often worth more than position one for a generic term. A fifth measure has been added: how often the company appears in AI answers. Reports come monthly. The evaluation follows each quarter.

As a rule of thumb, new content shows first movement after six to twelve weeks and reliable results after six to nine months. Existing pages that sit just behind the first results page can often be moved forward faster, because only the text needs sharpening. Topic fields in which a company has not appeared at all take the longest. There you first have to build authority. It comes from the number and quality of texts. additiv measures a baseline at the start, so that progress is visible.

The choice between agency, freelancer and in-house role depends on scope and technical depth. A freelancer is a good fit when a clearly defined task recurs and someone in house steers it. An in-house role pays off once the topic fills a full position. That is usually the case in larger Mittelstand companies, Germany’s mid-sized manufacturers, with their own marketing department. An agency fits when technical depth and trade press contacts are needed at the same time. Many engagements are mixed: steering in house, research and writing at additiv.

The technology stays with whoever runs your website, internally or at your web agency. additiv supplies the points that come out of the content work: pages missing from the index, loading times that slow down technical texts, missing structured data and redirects after a relaunch. This division has a practical advantage, because there is no discussion about responsibilities while someone else is already working on the site. additiv describes what needs to be done and checks afterwards whether it works.

Technical products are mostly found through terms that never appear in the catalogue. A design engineer searches for the part number. A plant manager types in the problem that needs solving. On top of that, technical and everyday language drift apart: a company that speaks of inductive energy transfer is searched for by people typing wireless charging. additiv uncovers these vocabularies and builds the page structure around them, with part numbers on their own pages that search engines can read.

additiv moves the key content of data sheets and PDFs onto the page as text and keeps the PDF as a download next to it. In industrial B2B much of the technical knowledge sits in PDFs, where search engines and AI systems reach it poorly. On the page, specifications go into a table that machines can read. Application examples move into running text. The data sheet loses nothing. The page gains a place where it can be found. additiv clarifies with your technical partner how the PDF files themselves are handled.

SEO across languages needs its own term research for each market, because a German search term often has no equivalent in the English-speaking market. American buyers also work with other standards and product names than European ones. additiv researches the terms for each market and then decides whether a text can be adapted or has to be rewritten. The same holds for ads, since translated German ads rarely work abroad. Technical questions such as hreflang and domain strategy stay with your technical partner, who receives the term research from additiv.

SEO and visibility in AI answers are closely connected, because language models draw their answers from sources they find and understand online. Much of what helps search engines also helps there, above all clear structure and unambiguous terms in readable text. Google evaluates pages, while AI systems evaluate sections. An answer to a specific question therefore has to make sense on its own, even when it is lifted out of the page. additiv builds texts exactly that way. More on generative engine optimisation is on our page about GEO and AI visibility.

Google Ads is worth it for a technical B2B offer when your target group searches Google for solutions and your offer can be clearly defined. In mechanical engineering or intralogistics, search volumes are much smaller than in consumer markets. Behind a specific query, however, there is almost always a real need. Ten enquiries a month can be worth more than ten thousand clicks if a few of them come from the right companies. additiv recommends ads above all for strategic topics such as a new product segment or a market entry.

Companies that already do SEO often still need Google Ads, because the two do different jobs. SEO builds visibility for your core topics over the long term. That takes months but keeps working afterwards. Google Ads puts you in front of someone actively searching for a solution or a supplier straight away. Its effect ends with the budget. Ads make particular sense when your competitors already advertise on exactly those queries. For industrial clients additiv usually runs both side by side, with ads for the top queries and content for the breadth.

You recognise an SEA agency that understands B2B by the questions it asks in the first meeting. An agency that asks about your sales process and your products knows that months still follow the click in industrial business. One that only asks about the budget is selling campaigns. Vocabulary is the second sign: whoever sets up ads for plant engineering without knowing the difference between a standard and a product series spends budget on the wrong queries. additiv brings the technical vocabulary from almost 30 years of industrial communication.

Poor enquiries from running campaigns usually come from search terms that are too broad or from ads and landing pages that miss the search intent. Broad terms bring students and competitors into your enquiry form. When the ads speak a different language from the target group, the wrong people click. When the page behind the ad misses the question someone searched with, the right person leaves again. additiv reviews the account and compares the actual search queries with your offer. The biggest lever often lies in the text rather than in the budget.