SEO is a complicated activity, but this guide will become a lighthouse to show you the path to proper SEO investments and results. With our help you can clearly understand what the core tenants of SEO and its fundamental activities are. Take advantage of our B2B SEO Guide and help your company in making digital profitable.
Table of Contents
- Key Difference 1: Targeting the General Public vs. Targeting Stakeholders and Decision Makers
- Key Difference 2: Quick Conversions Approach vs. Gradual Informative Approach
- Key Difference 3: High Search – Low Value vs. Low Search – High Value
- Key Difference 4: Click-Bait vs. Thought Leadership
Main SEO Processes
Getting your SEO right is a starting point of having a healthy foundation for your online presence. With the rising cost of Facebook and Google Ads, having a steady and reliable, contextually relevant traffic, on a budget is a sound investment in the future of your business. SEO drives predictable, recurring visits to your site. This is a short summary of SEO Processes:
- Technical SEO Optimization
- On-page Content Optimization
- Off-page Optimization
- SEO Strategy
If you want your website to rank well, you need to know how to do SEO for your website. To make sure that all technical elements are reviewed and continuously fixed, that you have a constant flow of fresh & expert content that amplifies content frequency and that you are getting a continuous increase of new backlinks coming to your website.
The first part of this two-part guide will focus on the differences between B2B SEO and B2C SEO. This is the first crucial step in generating an effective B2B SEO strategy. Calibrating your thinking and concentrate your discussions with your partners to fit the proper target group and optimal keywords is, in large part, based on the critical differences between these two types of SEO. Without further ado, read on and prosper.
Key Difference 1: Targeting the General Public vs. Targeting Stakeholders and Decision Makers
In B2B sales, most often, the products and services are not only more expensive than those in B2C sales but are also generally in search of long-term investments. Whereas consumers make decisions based on their research, larger organizations form their decisions based on the analytical thinking of a larger group of decision-makers. These individuals range in roles from financial directors and managers to crucial various staff members.
When forming your vision of your target group, it’s essential to make sure your SEO strategy targets all of the necessary professionals who may benefit from your product or service. Spend time considering what each individual decision-maker may search for by analyzing their role in the target business. Whereas someone who’s focused on the financial direction of a company may search for the economic benefits of a given solution, the members of a company focused on its practical tasks will generally spend time searching for applicable technologies and methods which pertain to their specific job. Both are equally important in getting quality clicks for your business.
Key Difference 2: Quick Conversions Approach vs. Gradual Informative Approach
When selling products to a consumer, the goal is often a high conversion rate. Of consumers searching for “Best WiFi router” in Google, a high percentage of clicks on a quality product will go ahead and purchase without arduous research. This differs from the infinitely more critical approach businesses utilize to invest their resources. As a result, in B2B SEO, the expectation isn’t high conversion rates, but a more gradual yet thoroughly informative approach.
The goal of B2B SEO and the content of your business site is to educate the targeted decision-makers, leading them from general information to more specific knowledge about the benefits of your product or service. While this method may not generate instantaneous conversions, it does form lasting, high-value ones – just the type which fits the high-price, more extended sales cycle solutions often promoted by B2B companies.
Key Difference 3: High Search – Low Value vs. Low Search – High Value
Ten thousand plus searches for a keyword sound fantastic to B2C business. 100,000 sound even better. For B2B marketing, however, focusing on high search volume keywords isn’t so useful. Whereas thousands of general consumers may search for “Best Gaming Phone,” only specific companies will search for “Mobile chipsets in bulk.” As you can imagine, if your product or service proves its quality and compatibility to even a few valuable decision-makers a month, you can expect long-term, high-value investments from their organizations. Naturally, when doing B2B SEO, it’s best to focus on quality, rather than quantity of traffic.
Key Difference 4: Click-Bait vs. Thought Leadership
Perhaps the most crucial difference between B2C and B2B SEO is the goal of your content. Whereas B2C is satisfied with many clicks leading to necessary, even general information on their site, a B2B company should form a lasting impression through high-grade and unique content. As a digital publisher, your idea is to establish a permanent place in the minds of your potential customers, right? Achieving a high standing in the professional world means leading-edge, educational content, thorough information regarding all aspects of your target group’s endeavors, effective branding, and high-quality content style. Again, quality, quality, quality.
Now that we’ve calibrated the direction of your initial brainstorming, it’s time to give you some pointers on the technical aspects of your B2B SEO strategy. To keep the rest of the guide short and to the point, we’ve narrowed down the critical stuff to these four essential search engine optimization elements:
- Technical SEO
- On-page optimization
- Content creation
- Off-Page Optimization and Backlinking
Assuring that these four elements are coherently working together is a surefire way to move your site up in the search engine rankings. Here’s a more in-depth look at the main tasks associated with each of them.
Technical SEO
Having an understanding of how technical SEO works is only the starting point of getting website visitors. Our Chicago SEO agency considers professional optimization a process through which you keep your website clean and healthy per Google’s webmaster guidelines. It includes activities like:
- Page speed optimization to keep your website fast
- Removing links on your site that link to dead websites or 404 pages
- Tracking webmaster tools error reports and disavowing negative SEO and harmful backlinks.
On-Page Optimization
This task can only be adequately tackled after defining a sound keyword strategy, using our keyword research service. It means a lot more than just tracking a primary keyword that you are trying to rank for.
With proper strategy defined, your SEO team can start internally linking your page to improve visitor flow, while adding perceived value to Google and, of course, your audience.
Tasks for on-page optimization include:
- Optimizing meta tags and descriptions that will improve your SERP CTR
- Internally linking your content and referencing useful information on your site
- Refreshing and expanding the material that is already ranking to improve visit duration as well as conversions. We also refer to this as “Content Design.”
Content Creation
Creating expert content is a tedious task that often involves hours of research, as well as critical input from the experts themselves. Knowing what kind of content to create, publish, and promote is a crucial strategic component of profitable SEO. We always follow the guidelines of our keyword research service when defining what content type is worth publishing.
Some important factors that come to mind when we mention content are content frequency (how often you publish), content length, content quality, and internal links. As we already mentioned in the first part of this guide, you should be aiming for the long-term effect on the minds of your potential customers, so keep that in mind when tackling your content. The main tasks of content creation are:
- Keyword research
- Expert Content writing
- Publishing and optimization
Off-Page Optimization and backlinking
Managing the flow of the external website ecosystem is an excellent route to establishing sound traffic coming to your site. Backlinks also need to be reviewed for quality, ensuring that they are passing the necessary authority to your pages. Google doesn’t only check for the number of backlinks, but quality as well.
Essential tasks for backlinking include:
- NAP Creation (name phone address citations)
- Webmaster outreach (Email marketing activity)
- Publishing guest posts, infographics, and other media on external properties
Final Thoughts
Google is equally paying attention to the websites that are linking to you, as well as the content that you publish and how it is technically structured. While distributing new content is expanding, the number of keywords you’re ranking for, backlinks, and technical/speed optimization are increasing their rankings. The rest lies in the quality and expertise of your business and your content’s applicability to the endeavors of the markets you’re targeting. Still, it’s wise to utilize tools which help you dial in your keywords, sending your SEO into useful and profitable realms. If you feel you’re ready to increase your organic traffic, let’s schedule your website audit and help you analyze the opportunities which lie ahead for your organization.
