It is estimated that over 80% of businesses use some form of SEO to market their products or services online. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a new concept for businesses, however, with the ever-changing SEO landscape, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest trends and best practices.
For B2B businesses, SEO is especially important. B2B buyers are typically more informed and researched than B2C buyers. They know what they want and they are looking for the best possible solution. To be found by these buyers, your business needs to have a strong SEO strategy in place.
According to
Forrester, “77% of B2B researchers use search specifically to research business
purchases”.
That’s why we’ve put together this 8-step guide to B2B SEO marketing. This guide will cover everything from keyword research to content optimization to link building. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of what it takes to create a successful SEO marketing strategy.
Step 1: Narrow Down The Decision Makers Involved In The B2B Buying Process
These Australian digital marketers recommend narrowing down the decision-makers in the B2B buying process to improve SEO marketing. Building strong relationships with decision-makers is crucial in the B2B sphere. Effective SEO marketing can help you reach these individuals and establish your brand as a trusted authority in their industry.
Unlike in a B2C purchase, there are usually multiple decision-makers involved in a B2B purchase. This could be the chief executive officer (CEO), the chief financial officer (CFO), or even the head of a specific department.
It’s important to narrow down who the decision-makers are in your target market. This will allow you to create targeted content that appeals to their specific needs and pain points. You should focus on creating a buyer persona for each decision-maker involved in the buying process.
You may also look at the historical data of your past customers to see what types of businesses have been the most successful.
Step 2: Perform A B2B Keyword Research With A Goal In Mind
Once you have a good understanding of who your target market is, you can start performing keyword research. The goal of your keyword research should be to find the keywords that your target market is using to search for a business like yours.
You can use a variety of tools to help you with your keyword research, such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner and Google Trends.
You can focus your keyword research on building topical authority or building a portfolio. If you’re just starting, we recommend that you focus on building a strong foundation first. You can do this by targeting the more general keywords in your industry.
Step 3: Focus More On Bottom-Of-The Funnel Keywords (BOFU)
A B2B strategy will have keywords from every part of the funnel. But for SEO, you should focus more on bottom-of-the-funnel keywords (also known as BOFUs). These are the keywords which have higher purchase intent and are more likely to convert into customers. Moreover, businesses using these keywords are considered ready to engage with a sales representative.
You can leverage your keyword performance report from Google Analytics to identify which BOFUs are bringing in the most traffic. You can also use a tool like Moz Keyword Explorer to find new BOFUs that you can target. Some examples of BOFUs include “pricing”, “compare”, and “reviews”.
Step 4: Optimize Your Service Pages For BOFUs First
Once you've identified the BOFUs that you want to target, it’s time to start optimizing your service pages. These are your money keywords and you should be optimizing your pages for these keywords first.
Make sure that your title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags are all optimized for your BOFUs. In addition, use your BOFUs throughout the body of your content to signal to Google that your page is relevant for these keywords.
Don’t stuff your keywords, but make sure that they are used naturally and in a way that makes sense for the reader. You should also make sure that you've separate pages built for each feature. This will allow you to optimize each page for its BOFU.
Aside from optimizing keywords and meta descriptions, updating your service pages is a strategic move to optimize your BOFU or money pages. You can introduce new graphics statistical data, add additional subheadings, gamification elements, or any relevant information to benefit your readers. Ensure they are interesting to attract more visitors and improve your SEO ranking.
By keeping your service pages current and relevant, you can improve SEO, address changing customer concerns, showcase expertise, and demonstrate credibility and trust. Regular updates also allow A/B testing, refining content based on data-driven insights. Additionally, you can highlight new features and offers and enhance the user experience.
Updating service pages benefits your SEO strategy by keeping content fresh, addressing evolving keywords, and strengthening link-building and internal linking. It's essential to regularly update your service pages to adapt to market changes, provide up-to-date solutions, and build trust and loyalty, optimizing your money pages for better conversion rates.
Step 5: Build Topical Authority
In addition to targeting BOFUs, you should also focus on building topical authority. This can be done by targeting latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords. LSI keywords are related to your main keyword but are not the same as your main keyword.
For example, if you’re an accountant, some LSI keywords could be “bookkeeping”, “taxes”, or “financial planning”.
A topical authority is important because it signals to Google that your website is an expert on a certain topic. The more LSI keywords you rank for, the more authority you will have in Google’s eyes.
Moreover, it also shows other businesses that you’re a thought leader in your industry. This can help you attract more leads and close more sales.
Step 6: Check If You've Different Pages Competing For The Same Keywords
If you have different pages competing for the same keyword, it can split your traffic and dilute your authority. This is often referred to as keyword cannibalization, which can happen for a variety of reasons, such as when you have two similar products or services.
To check for keyword cannibalization, you can use a tool like Screaming Frog. This tool will crawl your website and identify all the pages that are competing for the same keyword. Once you have this information, you can then decide which page you want to keep and which page you want to redirect.
The goal is to have one primary page for each keyword that you want to rank for. This will help you focus your link-building and content marketing efforts on one page, which will ultimately lead to better results.
Step 7: Use Internal Linking To Supercharge Your B2B SEO Strategy
Internal linking is one of the most underrated SEO strategies. By internally linking to other pages on your website, you can increase the authority of those pages and improve your website’s overall structure.
When you’re linking to other pages, make sure that you’re using keyword-rich anchor text. This will help Google understand the topic of the page that you’re linking to.
In addition, you should also make sure that you’re not over-linking to the same page. This can come across as spammy and it can hurt the overall user experience of your website.
A good rule of thumb is to link to a page two to three times throughout your website. Any more than that and you run the risk of being too repetitive.
Step 8: Build High-Authority Backlinks
Link building is one of the most important SEO strategies for B2B companies. Backlinks signal to Google that your website is reputable and trustworthy. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher you will rank in Google.
There are a few different ways that you can build backlinks. The first is to create high-quality content that other websites will want to link to. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, or even videos.
Another way to build backlinks is to reach out to other websites and ask them to link to your content. This is often referred to as “outreach link building”. The more high-authority websites that you can get to link to your website, the better.
Building backlinks can be a time-consuming process, but it’s well worth the effort. High-quality backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. You can check the quality of your backlinks with the Backlink Tracker tool. This tool will help you audit your backlink profile and constantly monitor it and keep track of any changes.
The Bottom Line
B2B SEO is a complex process, but it can be extremely rewarding. By following the steps in this guide, you can create a solid B2B SEO strategy that will help you rank higher on Google and attract more leads. If you're not sure where to start or you need help with your B2B SEO strategy, contact an experienced SEO company. They specialize in helping businesses improve their organic search visibility and attract more website visitors. They're heavily invested in research and new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) for SEO to stay ahead of the curve and can help you overcome any challenges you may be facing.
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