Technical SEO in Chicago

Distributor catalogs with prices behind a login

Chicago-area distributors often run an online ordering portal for account customers, with contract pricing, order history and reorder lists behind a login. Over time that portal becomes the website. The result is a catalog that customers love and search engines barely see, because product pages either require a login or render key content only after account-specific scripts run.

The fix starts with a decision, not a code change. Which product information can be public: descriptions, specifications, images, brands, applications, perhaps a list price or a prompt to log in for pricing? I work through that with sales and management, then specify a public product page template that search engines can crawl and index, while the account view keeps the contract details.

I also check for the side effects portals create: cart and account URLs that are crawlable, session or customer parameters in links, duplicate category trees for different customer groups, and staging or test copies of the portal left open on a subdomain. Each is written up with a clear instruction, whether that is a noindex rule, a robots directive, an authentication fix or a canonical tag. The national view of ERP-fed catalogs and faceted navigation is on my US technical SEO page.

Data sheets, safety documents and CAD files

For a manufacturer or industrial distributor, the most searched content is often a document: a product data sheet, a safety data sheet, an installation manual or a CAD drawing. Engineers search for them by part number, material or standard. On many sites those files sit in a document library, linked only from a search box, with names like a scanner's default output.

I audit the document library and decide what each type needs. Data sheets that people search for often deserve an HTML product or specification page with the PDF attached, so the key facts are readable, linkable and structured. Remaining PDFs need descriptive file names, titles set in the document properties, and links from the relevant product pages. Duplicate copies of the same safety document across brands or years are consolidated, and outdated versions are removed or redirected.

CAD and configurator tools are usually served by third-party platforms. I check whether the parts of those pages that matter for search are visible to crawlers, and whether the tool sits on your domain or someone else's, which changes how much it helps you. Getting the HTML pages right is also what makes the content usable by AI assistants, covered on my Chicago GEO page.

Folding acquired company websites into one domain

Growth by acquisition is common among Chicago distributors and manufacturers. Each acquired company arrives with its own website, often with years of links, rankings and customer bookmarks. Leadership eventually decides to consolidate onto one brand and one domain, and that is where search visibility is most often lost.

A sound migration depends on a redirect map built from real data. For product pages, that means a crosswalk between the acquired company's old part numbers and the new item numbers, usually maintained in the ERP during the business integration. For locations, it means mapping each old branch page to the surviving branch. For content such as guides and case pages, it means choosing the closest equivalent rather than sending everything to the home page.

I build that map with your ERP and sales teams, specify the redirect rules, check that the destination pages carry the content buyers used to find, and keep the old brand names visible where customers still search for them. After launch, I monitor crawl errors, index coverage and search traffic for both domains. The step-by-step method is described in SEO migration consulting.

Careers pages for plant and warehouse hiring

Manufacturers, food plants and logistics operators around Chicago hire continuously for production, maintenance, forklift and warehouse roles, often across several facilities. Job seekers search by role and location, and search engines can display job postings in special results when the pages are marked up correctly.

The technical problems are predictable. Jobs live on an applicant tracking system's domain rather than yours, so the careers section of your site has little to show. Structured data is missing, incomplete or wrong about the work location. Filled positions stay live for months, or disappear without the markup being updated. Each facility is listed under the head office address, so a role in a suburban plant appears to be downtown.

I review how your careers pages and tracking system publish roles, then specify the fixes: job posting structured data with accurate locations, pay information where you choose to publish it, prompt removal of closed roles and a crawlable list of openings on your own site. Employment advertising and pay transparency rules can apply, so wording about pay and eligibility should be checked by your HR or legal advisor.

Working with your web agency, IT team and ERP owner

In many Chicago companies, the website belongs to several people at once: a marketing manager, an outside web agency, an IT team that runs the servers and an ERP or eCommerce owner who controls product data. Technical SEO fails when fixes depend on all of them and none owns the outcome.

I write each recommendation as a ticket with a clear owner, a description of the problem, the exact change required, and how to test it. Product data issues, such as missing attributes or duplicate items, go to the ERP owner; template and code issues to the agency or developers; server, caching and log access to IT. I join their planning calls early in the Central time day, so questions are answered without waiting a full day.

After release, I verify the change on the live site, check how search engines respond in Search Console and report what remains. I make no promises about rankings; I make the site easier for search engines to crawl, understand and index. Broader planning sits with the Chicago SEO consultant work, and the full method is on the technical SEO service page.