How to Implement a Winning B2B SEO Strategy

This guide will look at the best practices to adopt in order to build your own B2B SEO strategy.

The different types of B2B SEO

There are three main categories of B2B SEO and they occasionally overlap with one another.

1. On-page SEO

People refer to on-page SEO as content SEO and it usually concerns:

• Keywords
• Meta descriptions
• Titles
• User experience

2. Off-page SEO

This refers to everything that happens on other websites but which can help your pages rank highly on Google and other search engines. Off-page SEO has several elements but people mainly focus on link building.

3. Technical SEO

With technical SEO, most of what is happening is behind the scenes. This mainly relates to the process of making your webpages technologically friendly in searches.

Although technical SEO is essential, we’re going to focus on on-page and off-page SEO.

What’s the difference between B2B and B2C SEO?

Interestingly, both B2B and B2C SEO follow the same principles. For example, they:

• Determine what people are looking for
• Provide something that will help people resolve their problems
• Convince Google that your products and services are exactly what searchers are looking for

However, there are still some distinct differences:   

1. B2B SEO should appeal to various decision-makers

Company purchases are often substantial and for the long term. You can’t expect people to purchase your products and services without giving the matter some thought. This will usually take some time as buying decisions often require the consideration and approval of several people.

For instance, executives, managers, and members of staff will all approach and tackle the same problem from their own individual perspectives. Therefore, when they visit Google to conduct a search, they may ask different questions. Because of this, your web pages should be optimized so that they answer potential questions from a variety of angles.

2. Focus on low-volume keywords

B2B searches are smaller than those in B2C, meaning your SEO strategy can thrive with low-volume keywords. This could prove difficult for people used to B2C SEO. For example, thousands of people search for food delivery apps but how many of them use Google to find “online restaurant reservation systems”?

A good B2C SEO blog post can generate around 30,000 or more monthly visits via organic searches. In fact, you may not even have to spend too much time on keyword research. In contrast, B2B SEO focuses on collecting several related keywords and using them in a single blog post. Once the article has been published, it can generate a few hundred organic views every month.  

3. There is less organic traffic for conversions

The people who “Googled” food delivery apps will have probably downloaded the ones they liked within minutes. However, this won’t be the case for restaurant owners or managers who searched for an “online restaurant reservation system”.

It’s easier to make a sale in B2C as searchers can make a decision on the spot. The B2B sales cycle takes longer as the price will be significantly higher and multiple stakeholders will be involved.

This makes it unlikely that your B2B SEO content will convert first-time or even second-time visitors, although there can be exceptions. Often, first-time visitors will be searching for the tools and information that can help them achieve their objectives.

So, why should you put all your efforts into B2B SEO? Well, it appears that there is an upside to the B2B market: less e-commerce competition. It also tend to focus more on your content and homepage rather than product pages.

4. Use SEO to promote your brand and thought leadership

As mentioned, since conversion is unlikely during the first visit, it is critical that you establish your brand in a searcher’s mind. You need to ensure that your target audience will see your website whenever they ask questions related to your industry.

Your B2B SEO strategy should also aim to gain the trust of your target market. Show people that your website will help them solve their problems.

How to create a basic B2B SEO strategy

If you want to devise a B2B SEO strategy for your company, there are some simple steps you should take. 

1. Find out what your target audience is searching for

You need to understand what your prospective customers are typing in the search engines. Then, use these search terms as keywords in your content to help them find your website.

Now, where will you find these keywords? You can obtain them from:

• Your site
• Your competitors
• Publications
• Intuition

Your website could provide valuable information about the keywords you already rank for. Use the Google search console or SEO tools to find these keywords on your site. Sometimes, intuition can play a role in your keyword research. Perhaps there are particular questions that are often asked by customers. Why not enter these queries into your SEO tools and see what happens?

2. How can you satisfy your target audience?

Once you have determined what people are looking for, it’s time to figure out how to present your products and services. This is when you need to optimize your product categories. For instance, if you are selling solar power generators, you clearly need to rank for “solar power generators”. In addition, you need to:

• Add the product category page to the title tags of the other pages (e.g., homepage)
• Mention your product category with your brand name when writing content, especially if it is shared or hosted on other sites
• List your products and services on review sites and ask for customer reviews
• Reach out to influencers or people who rate products in your industry

3. How can you convince search engines that your product is worth a searcher’s time?

Discovering your customers’ requirements and offering solutions to their problems is a major aspect of SEO. Once you have done this, you need to convince Google that it should include your web pages on its search results pages. There are various ways of doing this but the most common are:

• Build a group of interlinked pages around your product category
• Use terminology related to your product
• Optimize your metadata
• Build links to your content

Final thoughts

Hopefully, this article will have taught you how to implement a simple B2B SEO strategy. On the way, you will have learned about more advanced topics in this area. However, make sure you stick to the three underlying principles of B2B SEO. Discover what your target audience is looking for and provide the content that will resolve their problems. Finally, convince search engines that your content can satisfy searchers’ needs.