B2B businesses often rely on TV advertisements, channel partnerships, and mouth-to-mouth marketing to promote their services and drive sales. Even though these marketing tactics have been beneficial for businesses, they don’t know about the benefits they can enjoy by marketing their services in the digital realm.
Since most of the businesses, in one way or another, have a presence on the internet, it has become somewhat rudimentary for B2B corporations to use the capabilities of digital marketing.
Even among the myriad of digital marketing strategies, SEO stands out completely due to its cost-effectiveness and simple methodologies. However, many businesses still refrain from using this technique due to its competitiveness and high noise-to-value ratio.
While in recent years it is quite difficult to succeed with SEO, B2B remains a comparatively easy segment for inbound marketing. Also, there are still some organic methods that a company can use to leave an ever-lasting impression on the internet. Furthermore, unlike paid marketing that gives a fixed ROI over time, a company can use SEO and content marketing techniques to grow its value explosively.
Now, you might be thinking that if SEO is so much effective, then why businesses fail miserably doing it. The biggest mistake that a B2B business make is to use SEO the way it is conducted via other business models. It is important to note that the audience of a B2B business is completely different from a business depending on B2C or C2C model.
How is B2B SEO Different from Others?
The first thing that any business must do before jumping on the SEO bandwagon is to identify and research about their buyer’s persona and target audience. Most B2B companies fail in this initial step.
Ideally, the target audience for any B2B business is the management of a corporation that handles the executive CXO positions. These people are highly professional, experts in their fields, and focus more on quality over quantity. Hence, they don’t attract from conventional and shoddy content pieces that may influence other audience types easily.
Moreover, in a B2B business, SEO tactics other than attracting the audience must also support sales channels through meaningful and comprehensive content that instills a feeling of thought leadership, authority, trust, and relevance in the minds of the readers.
Hence, while executing search engine optimization, B2B businesses must focus on publishing professionally structured content on a relevant media outlet. Doing this will not only help them to generate more sales but also project them as a thought leader in their specific domain.
Top 3 Things a B2B Business can do for Elevated SEO Results:
Now that we have understood the role of SEO in a B2B business, here are some tips that such corporations can use to boost their ROI:
1) Focusing on Low-Volume Keywords:
We literally mean it. Consider this:
The average monthly search rate of “wastewater” is whooping 6600, but that of the “wastewater management system” is only 20.
While the first keyword is mostly searched for informative purposes, the latter is the driving factor that indicates a chance to generate sales. This keyword really shows that the searcher is looking for a system that can help him to manage wastewater.
A B2B business that provides services related to wastewater management must focus on the second keyword as it will help to meet the final objective of making real revenue. A B2B business is smaller than other business models and hence can take advantage of this opportunity to easily attract customers.
Also, since the search volume of useful keywords is quite lower for B2Bs, businesses can achieve a better SERP rank and gain an edge over their competitors. The key is to target multiple low-volume keywords instead of focusing on eminent keywords that won’t bring any real value to your business other than increasing visitors on landing pages.
2) Emphasize on Branding and Thought Leadership:
As we discussed, the experts in a B2B business aren’t your normal see-and-buy audience. They focus more on the brand, thought leadership, authority, and other digital footprints of the service providers.
Hence, develop content that showcases your expertise and brilliant services, capable of attracting hard-wired brains of aficionados. Focus more on discussing the advantages and benefits of using your services in new and innovative ways. This will drill your brand into the memories of your readers, tempting them to look about your company every time they search for something related to your service.
Doing this will earn the trust of your potential clientele and will help you develop strong collaborations and partnerships with big enterprises.
3) Developing Content for Multiple Decisions Makers:
Even though the main target of any B2B business should be the CXOs and executives of a company, they aren’t the only decision-makers. Since deals made in the B2B arena include cost-heavy investments and can expand to years of execution, various managers and company administrators are indulged in making the final purchase decisions.
Hence while developing content pieces, make sure to keep the probable perception of different people towards your services in mind. Ensure that these people get the answer to every query on Google and that too from your website.
Your company’s website must be able to answer a wide range of basic, technical, and executive-level questions. Depending on the service that you are selling and the person you are selling it to, the range of your buyers’ personas can expand. One way to tackle all these personas can be to make sure that all the puzzling and complicated topics are discussed on your website.
On a Concluding Note:
It is now high-time for B2B corporations to realize the potential of using SEO and other digital marketing techniques. The benefits that these businesses can gain by using these strategies in such an uncompetitive market is simply unprecedented.
By learning about their audience, creating versatile content, and using proper structuration in both content and website, the B2B businesses can enjoy unparalleled advantages from Search Engine Optimization. Also, the algorithm updates of Google and other search engines are also focusing more on quality over quantity.
Frequently Asked Questions
A lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it’s passed. I'm not trying my hardest, and I'm not trying to do
About Author
Mr. Bhuvnesh Mathur
Bhuvnesh got his Bachelor's degree in software engineering in 2017 and has been working in Vidhema Technologies since 2018 as SEO Lead and technical writer. He has a special knack of learning from all verticals and imbibing the extracts into his writing and enjoys learning techincal aspects of of writing for his experties as SEO and SMO. In his writing he express his experience and understading of different technologies.