We start with a Buyer Visibility Audit™.
It shows what Google and AI answers say about you and your competitors today. It is free and takes one to two business days.
A Manufacturing SEO Agency Built for Industrial Companies
Your buyers search Google for a material, a tolerance, a process or a problem before they ever call a supplier. We help you show up for those searches, and we show you the numbers as we go.
You already know the answers they are looking for. Your engineers and salespeople give them every day, on the phone and on the shop floor. Very little of it is on your website, so Google has nothing of yours to show. That is the gap we close.
We work only with manufacturers and industrial companies. Cobalt was founded by Bob Engelhart, who ran PB Exchange, a telecom remanufacturing company, for 23 years before starting it.
What does a manufacturing SEO agency do?
A manufacturing SEO agency helps your company get found in Google by the engineers and buyers who are looking for what you make. For a manufacturer, that means finding out what those people search for, publishing pages that answer them, and tracking where you rank.
Industrial SEO is different from the consumer kind. Your buyers search in the language of your trade, and many of the searches that matter most to you are specific and low in volume. An approach built around big, general keywords misses them.
Search is still where this starts. In GlobalSpec’s 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers survey (opens in a new tab), 77% of technical buyers favor traditional search engines over AI platforms when they look for information. The same work also earns citations in AI answers, which we cover on our AI Visibility Agency page.
If you tried SEO before and it didn’t work
We hear this often, and it is usually true. It didn’t work.
The usual reason is what was bought. A low-cost monthly package tends to buy articles written by someone who has never seen your shop, keywords repeated across thin pages, a batch of directory listings, and a monthly report full of activity that never connects to a buyer.
Search didn’t fail you. That version of the work did. What earns rankings for a manufacturer is your own expertise, published in depth, on the questions your buyers ask. That takes interviews with your people, real writing and patience, and it has no cheap version. There is more on this on our Investment page.
How the work gets done
We find the searches your buyers make.
We research what engineers and purchasing people search before they contact a supplier, and we map those searches into a plan for your site.
We interview your experts and write the content.
Your people give us about an hour a month. We turn what they know into articles and pages. Nothing goes on your site until you have reviewed it.
We publish and measure.
We build and publish the pages, track rankings and AI citations, and use what we learn to decide what to write next.
This is our Authority Growth Program™. Search rankings are one of the things it produces, alongside AI visibility.
What we measure, and what we don’t
We measure three things. The first is how many of your buyers’ questions you rank for on page one of Google, across the full set we track for you. That set is typically more than 1,000 questions per topic. The second is how often Google’s AI Overviews cite your website across those same questions. The third is your organic traffic.
We don’t report a single "number one ranking." One position on one search moves from week to week. The count of searches you show up for tells you more.
We also don’t report leads or RFQs. Our work doesn’t reach into your phones, your inboxes, or your CRM. If you tell us inquiries are up, that is good news, and we will treat it as your observation, not our number.
What results look like
Here are two examples from our own tracking, both from the September 1, 2026 scan.
Pulse Drying Systems (opens in a new tab), spray dryers.
On page one of Google for 134 of the buyer questions we track in that category, and in the top three pages for 322.
SC Industries (opens in a new tab), steel bushings.
On page one of Google for 100 of the buyer questions we track in that category, and in the top three pages for 245.
Figures as of September 1, 2026.
Source: Cobalt Sales Group tracking data.
These counts move from scan to scan, up and down, which is why they carry a date. There is more in our client results.
What we won’t promise
Nobody controls where Google ranks a page, and you should be wary of anyone who says they do.
- We won’t promise a number one ranking. No agency decides that. Google does.
- We won’t quote a schedule. How fast this works depends on your category, your competition and how much you publish.
- We won’t promise leads. Rankings and traffic are what we can measure. What happens after a buyer contacts you is outside our view.
Who this is for
This is a good fit for manufacturers and industrial companies with real technical expertise, a considered sale, and someone who can give us about an hour a month.
It is not a fit if you need results in ninety days or want a guarantee.
What does it cost?
Most engagements are $3,500 per month. That covers the research, the interviews, the writing, the publishing, and the measurement. It is month to month, and either of us can end it with 30 days’ notice.
We recommend planning on one to two years. Rankings that hold from scan to scan take time to build. The details are on our Investment page.
If your website needs fundamental work before content can do its job, that is a separate fixed-price project. See Buyer-Ready Website.
Frequently asked questions
Can you guarantee a first-page ranking?
No. Nobody controls where Google ranks a page. What we can do is publish specific, well-supported answers to the questions your buyers search, and show you how many of them you rank for from scan to scan.
Is SEO still worth it now that buyers use AI?
Yes. In GlobalSpec’s 2026 survey, 77% of technical buyers favored traditional search engines over AI platforms. Google’s AI features also run on the same ranking and quality systems as ordinary Search, so the work that earns rankings is the work that earns citations.
How long does SEO take for a manufacturer?
We don’t quote a schedule, because it depends on your category, your competition and how much you publish. We recommend planning on one to two years, because rankings that hold from scan to scan take time to build.
Do our engineers have to write anything?
No. We interview them and do the writing. Their job is to tell us what they know and to check that what we wrote is accurate.
Find out where you stand in search today
The Buyer Visibility Audit™ shows how you appear in Google and in AI answers, which competitors are named instead, and the biggest gap we found. It is free, there is no sales pitch, and you get it in one to two business days.