Complete B2B SEO Strategy – All you seek

While an awareness of the customer’s use of your product is important, repeating what they already know (what an code on a can look like) obscures the real information they want. And that’s what B2B marketing thrives on … information.

Dave Jung

Here you will get all that you need to know about B2B SEO and strategies to execute it in the most efficacious manner.

What is B2B SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) for B2B websites is a digital marketing strategy designed to make them appear higher in search engines such as Google and Bing.

 As opposed to SEO for B2C, search engine optimization for B2B companies tends to target keywords that key decision makers within companies use while working.

SEO for B2B vs B2C

If we talk about search engines’ actual ranking factors, SEO for B2C is exactly the same as for B2B.

To cut a long story short, the same SEO strategies that apply to B2C are also fruitful for B2B.

However, in practice, B2B SEO is a lot more different.

In B2B, you do not target a broad demographic group. Instead, you have to target only a small group of decision makers.

These decision makers could be marketing managers, CEOs, or sole proprietors running small businesses and seeking services. 

When it comes to B2B SEO, much depends on the nature of the product, its life cycle, and the needs of potential customers.  These guide keyword research, content strategy and more.

A series of five differences can distinguish B2B from B2C campaigns in terms of the way an SEO campaign should be implemented:

1.Different Product Tangibility

B2B and B2C differ largely on the basis of the type of product or service they provide. B2C mainly focuses on the wants and desires of the end consumer. 

On the other end, B2B campaigns are characterized by the sale of intangible products that gain benefits for the customer’s business, not just for the client. 

Thus, the understanding of goods or services sold must be made crystal clear from the very beginning in order to employ SEO strategies.

2. Different Performance Indicators

B2B and B2C do not base the evaluation of their SEO campaign’s success on the same indicators. B2B leads are low in volume, but the quality of these leads is more critical. Business-to-business buy-in decisions require repeated sessions over a few months, so sales volume is less significant than in B2C. 

3. Sales Life cycle 

In contrast to B2C, B2B SEO focuses on different areas as a business-to-business sale depends on multiple considerations, through several managerial layers.

4. Role of SEO

Content marketing campaigns and outreach campaigns in B2B SEO must be geared towards educating prospects and not just concentrating on the purpose of gathering links for better rankings. The business’ services must be made known on relevant web pages through B2B SEO.

5. Keywords types

B2B SEO campaigns require keyword research: the agency must have an expert understanding of the industry in order to anticipate the end users’ needs (and what they will search for online).

B2B marketing is more important than B2C. It’s what drives the economy forwards, not just outwards.

Tom Gatten

In order to implement a successful and efficacious B2B SEO strategy, the following course of action must be followed:

1: Build your decision maker persona

2: Choose your bottom of the funnel keywords

3: Find top of the funnel topics

4: Optimize your product and services page

5: Create a valuable blog

6: Build backlinks for your B2B website

1. Build your decision maker persona

This step wholly focuses on answering the question “WHO?” (who you are going to target) at various levels of your strategy implementation. 

When considering a business-to-consumer type of business, the answer to this “WHO?”  is pretty clear – it’s your customer.

But in the case of a business-to-business type, the customer is not a person, but the business itself. 

Thus, you must know WHO within the business you need to target and what is the search intent of your target customer. 

Next, make a detailed persona of your target audience. 

You may use a persona  making tool for better results.

The requirements of the persona include:

• Name and position
• Demographic traits
• Business information
• Career information

2. Choose your Bottom of the Funnel Keywords

Now that you have your persona, it’s time to figure out how they search for what you sell.

In other words: bottom of the funnel keywords.

As a synopsize, marketing funnels are a way to visualize the customer journey.

Here is a simple version of this funnel for B2B marketing. This funnel is divided up into two sections: top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel.

Henceforth, this step is all about finding the bottom of the funnel keywords.

In other words, it focuses on keywords that people search for when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Here is how you can find bottom of the funnel keywords:

The moment your company is in your buyer’s consideration set, they’ll be actively comparing your solution to your competitors.

Rather than letting your competitors or directories own the search results, you have an opportunity to own these results.

Even if you’re not an established player in your industry (yet) you should be positioning yourself as a trusted alternative.

You don’t need expensive keyword research tools to come up with these bottom-of-the-funnel content ideas, either.

Just search “Brand vs…” in Google and let Google autocomplete do the work.

The key to competitor comparison articles is honesty. After all, not every customer is a fit for your offering.

Tell your readers:

• Why your product is worth using
• Why they might consider your competitor over you (be honest)

3. Find top of the funnel topics

Next, it’s time to find a set of top of the funnel keywords and topics.

These are keywords that you’ll ultimately create blog content around.

Are people searching for “How to save money on shipping” ready to buy right now? Of course not.

But that doesn’t mean they’re worthless. In fact, top of the funnel keywords can be SUPER valuable.

Why?

Because, more people search for top of the funnel keywords than bottom of the funnel terms. A LOT more.

Thus, if you only target bottom of the funnel keywords, you’re putting a cap on how much traffic you can get from Google.

The real value from SEO over the long-term actually comes from top of the funnel searches.

4. Optimize your product and service page

Now it’s time to optimize your product and service pages for SEO.

To be more specific, you want to optimize each page around one of the bottom of the funnel keywords you identified in Step #2.

To be clear: on-page optimization is a massive topic. 

Here are three strategies to follow while optimizing your page:

1. Your content must be 100% unique hand written content.
2. There should be long-form content, consisting of at least 500, 1000 or even 2000 words of content.
3. Include your target keywords several times on your landing page, but in a smart way.

5. Create an extraordinarily valuable B2B blog

Blogging is an important part of any legit B2B SEO strategy.

The reason is that a quality blog can benefit your SEO in a number of ways.

As an example, if you publish super high quality content, other people will link to it. In turn, those links will help your landing pages rank higher in search engine results.

Additionally, a B2B blog establishes you and your company as an industry leader.

6. Build backlinks for your B2B website

If you want to succeed with B2B SEO, link building is a must.

The question is: how can your B2B business get quality backlinks?

Here are a few strategies you should opt for:

• Digital PR: Focus your PR efforts on industry blogs and new sites.
• Helpful tools: As long as your tools are useful, you’re good to go.
• Partner Pages: If you do business with suppliers, manufacturers and other strategic partners, build a handful of links from their partner pages.

Conclusion

Here you go, a complete B2B SEO guide in your hand. 

Just remember the key point: B2B is marketing to people at work, while B2C is marketing to people at home.