SEO for B2B: A proven guide to successful strategies you cannot miss
The digital marketing space is an ever-competitive one where brands fight hard to get the attention of prospective customers. So, having organic visibility at various stages of the buying cycle is critical for B2B companies. SEO is a proven customer acquisition channel, which can generate guaranteed results. However, the bigger question is, how do you get started?
Whether it is about the integration of the right technology or content globalization, these challenges can pull back any B2B brand. Understanding the finer nuances of SEO for B2B is essential. We bring you this guide about three successful strategies you can implement right away.
What is B2B SEO?
B2B SEO is a strategy that works to increase organic traffic and improve search rankings. Successful strategies ensure that prospective customers come across the online platforms of businesses that offer related services. The basics of SEO for both B2B and B2C remain the same. These include the three pillars of SEO like content, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO.
However, when you craft a B2B SEO strategy, challenges arise due to your target audience. When people buy on behalf of a business, the purchasing cycle would be a lot different. It is where the main difference between B2B and B2C SEO lies. Let’s explore it further.
What are major differences between B2B and B2C SEO?
The primary difference between B2B and B2C SEO is the audience. The way a business presents the product to prospects differs immensely. It leads to several unique challenges that we look at below.
Complexities in sales funnels
The sales funnel of a B2B business is a lot more complex than B2C. B2B buyers will put in a lot more thought and consideration when making a purchase. Consider the example of buying a T-shirt and choosing a marketing automation software for the company. The latter will, of course, have much more complexities.
B2B marketers need to follow a personalized approach and know their prospects in and out to make a visible impact. The brand should also remain visible on the SERPs, right from the awareness till the action phase when a deal gets closed.
Keywords with lesser volumes
Complexities in the sales funnel also mean that prospects will use a range of keywords to search for services. The keywords thus have a low volume compared to that of B2C. It becomes vital for marketing teams to target keywords aptly by understanding the search intent of their prospects well.
Lower rates of conversions
B2B companies have lesser conversion rates compared to B2C ones. However, the value of each deal will be far more in the case of B2B. To have a successful B2B strategy, you need to focus on getting the right audience. It is essential to niche down and come across as a genuine problem-solver in front of your prospects.
Now, you might wonder how to overcome this problem. There are three proven strategies that can help you. Let’s look at them.
Three strategies to overcome SEO problems faced by B2B businesses
Here is an overview of three B2B SEO best practices and strategies you can adopt to overcome SEO problems.
Pillar page strategy
A pillar page is a large content piece optimized for a topic most relevant to the business. It will then further link to cluster pages that target long-tail and secondary keywords. These answer the specific queries customers may have. Both sets of pages also remain interlinked.
There are multiple benefits as prospects can get their queries solved by themselves. It is also beneficial from the SEO perspective as search engines understand the content well through internal links.
Backlinking
We already know the importance of backlinking in the SEO space. One of the best ways to do that is through digital PR. You can target industry news websites and blogs to get noticed. Another alternative is to have helpful resources that people wouldn’t mind to backlink. Lastly, you can also explore the option of getting links from partner pages. It can be either your supplier, manufacturer, or strategic partner.
The next option here is the middleman strategy. Backlinks are a critical step to ensure the success of SEO efforts. They show search engines that your content and pages are good enough to rank. However, marketers would only want to connect informative content instead of sales pages. It is tough to get external backlinks that link to your sales pages.
You can have a relevant middleman in the form of an informative blog post. The authority of the middleman gets passed onto the sales pages through internal links. It ultimately leads to better-ranking sales pages.
The third option here is the skyscraper technique. The technique is about finding top-ranking content that has several backlinks. Marketers can then build from that content by offering additional value to readers. They can also indulge in outreach to link to fresh content instead of the original.
The technique is beneficial as marketers can understand how to understand search intent and present content. Optimizing the content for search intent leads to an increase in organic search traffic.
Keyword strategy
B2B lead-to-close sales cycles might take more than a quarter to accomplish. It is thus essential to engage with prospective clients early in the sales cycle. TOFU (top of funnel), MOFU (middle of funnel), and BOFU (bottom of funnel) are vital elements in a customer’s journey.
As your customers navigate from understanding your offerings to making a buying decision, they might have several questions and mindset shifts. A related keyword strategy helps you identify phrases that your prospects are using to find information in search engines.
You can target the awareness and research phases by capitalizing on pain point searches and targeting the searcher instead of search. These techniques will help you build a relationship in the early stages to hold much better chances of conversion.
Here are examples of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU keywords.
TOFU: How can project teams improve their time management skills? (general queries related to the pain point)
MOFU: What is the best time management platform for project teams? (direct reference to solutions)
BOFU: [Brand X] time management software (branded and product-related searches)
Bottom line
We have covered various aspects of SEO for B2B companies, including the problems faced and strategies to overcome them. The best way to improve your discoverability is by carefully studying the search intent of your audience. As part of your B2B SEO strategy, it is best to create content that satisfies the search intent. We can’t stress enough about the importance of SEO for B2B businesses.
If you want to implement an SEO strategy for your B2B business, a B2B SEO agency like Sonder Digital can help. Contact us today to understand more details about our services.