SEO (search engine optimization) is a complex and ever-changing process of helping your website rank higher on search engine results pages. There is no one thing that SEO is or is not, but rather a multi-pronged and consistent approach over time, particularly for business to business companies. Sophisticated algorithms consider many factors before serving up your webpage as a result to a search query. If you’re not employing at least basic SEO tactics, it’s likely that you’ll miss an opportunity to be seen by your potential customers.
B2B SEO
SEO is SEO. Whether you’re trying to reach customers or businesses, the same principles apply:
- Discover what people are searching for online.
- Create something that can answer their questions.
- Convince Google that the content on your website will answer their questions..
You’ll do this over and over in B2B SEO.
Attention SEO Decision Makers
If you are the one responsible for writing an SEO strategy for your B2B company, where do you start? Re-read the above section! Before all else, answer those questions to help you write an SEO strategy that will win results in your market. And, in case you’re wondering, we provide this service!)
SEO can get complicated very quickly, but we recommend keeping it simple to start. Again, here is what you need to ask yourself:
- What are our people looking for?
- How will we satisfy that desire?
- How will we convince search engines that we’re satisfying them?
According to Overthink Group, “because B2B purchases tend to be significant, long-term investments, more people need to weigh in on the buying decisions. Practitioners, managers, and executives will each approach the decision with very different problems in mind—so you can expect them to be searching Google for very different queries.”
That means that a B2B company will need to have pages optimized for answering tactical questions, high-level questions, and general questions.
5 B2B SEO
Once you begin dissecting the answers to the above questions, how do you then approach B2B SEO?
SEO Expert, Jai Srivastava of Zariance, provides five most important factors to consider when answering the above questions. In this infographic, he shows the most relevant stats and also presents tactical strategies that are sure to improve your bottom-line in the long run.
Conclusion
While there is no magical recipe that will result in ranking on every page for every search term, there are plenty of ways to improve your B2B SEO. We hope this article will give you a good starting point for assessment and application. As always, we’re here if you need extra help!
~Jenny Green, Co-Owner @ Fisher Green Creative, LLC, jenny@fishergreencreative.com
