For many business entities and freelancers, SEO still represents an effective method, capable of attracting genuinely interested organic traffic, improving online visibility, and acquiring new clients. For this reason, without invoking the founding fathers of digital marketing, the term “B2B SEO” has become ingrained in the collective imagination. Therefore, for companies, organic growth represents a functional goal within the investments planned for web marketing activities. However, apart from the type of recipient, what significantly distinguishes B2B SEO from B2C SEO is the strategic approach, which is completely different.
Given that SEO still represents one of the most important acquisition channels for B2B companies, and that having significant organic visibility at all stages of the purchasing cycle naturally accelerates the growth of your professional activity, a few questions arise:
- What are the real benefits of B2B SEO for a company?
- What optimisation techniques are functional to SEO for companies?
- How can a B2B SEO strategy be correctly defined?
A series of frequently asked questions that we will attempt to provide coherent answers to in this in-depth space, created with the intent of explaining the benefits of combining the potential of SEO with the needs and objectives of the Business to Business market.
Are you ready to take notes? At Visilay, we will start right from the beginning, to help you immediately understand what B2B SEO is and how it differs from B2C SEO.
What is B2B SEO?
Taking a step back for the sake of reviewing the subject, with the term SEO (an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation), we refer to that branch of digital marketing that studies content optimisation techniques through targeted strategies with the aim of improving the ranking and organic visibility of a website within the search engine results pages (SERP) offered by Google.
So, by abstracting, it follows that B2B SEO (Business to Business) is the set of optimisation strategies designed and developed with the aim of increasing organic traffic and search engine rankings for companies seeking to sell services and products to other companies or professionals.
In short, to be pragmatically concrete, explaining in a few words what B2B SEO is, we will attempt to summarise it as follows:
- A great B2B SEO strategy has the ability to excellently position a company’s website, showcasing services and products for specific keywords;
- A well-structured B2B SEO strategy will be able to grow your company’s revenue, even though the web is increasingly becoming a tough and competitive market.
And with this second point, we are sure we have further piqued your curiosity. So, let’s move on to the next step.
Is there really a difference between B2B SEO and B2C SEO?
As you might have already imagined, the main difference between B2B SEO and B2C SEO is the average recipient, namely, the user of the website’s content.
While in Business to Consumer, optimisation activities are specifically designed to attract the consumer audience, in Business to Business SEO, the goal is to sell products and services to other key players similar to you in the professional market.
It follows, of course, that the way you approach B2B SEO will be very different from the B2C strategy. Starting with the sales funnel, which in our case will naturally be more complex and with greater competition, considering, for example, keywords with lower volumes than a B2C marketer would expect.
This is why the list of differences between B2B SEO and B2C SEO extends to keyword research activities, but also to SEO Copywriting, with content that, for the reasons just mentioned, must be more technical, informative, and precise.
What are the real benefits of SEO for a company?
Once we have learned (or reviewed) what B2B SEO is and how it differs from B2C SEO, we should also have established how a successful strategy can place a company’s or professional’s website at the top of the “list” of users who are actively seeking the services it offers and sells.
However, beware! It is a common belief that the only goal is to increase profits. Naturally, this is (also) true, but only when considering the short term. There are indeed numerous other benefits of B2B SEO:
- Brand Awareness: Your company can become known to all those businesses that have needs aligned with your offerings.
- Brand Consideration: It will be possible to intercept traffic from businesses that already know your brand, encouraging them to seriously consider purchasing from you.
- Capturing users who are already in various stages of the conversion process but have not yet decided to proceed.
- Capturing new potential clients who, thanks to certain optimisation strategies, have become aware of your company’s existence.
Essentially, through a well-crafted B2B SEO strategy, you can maximise your company’s online visibility, expanding your clientele every day and achieving tangible results in the medium and long term.
The real question is: how to do it, and through which optimisation techniques?
B2B SEO: Optimisation techniques visible (and invisible) to the human eye
Over the years, you will have tested many SEO-related techniques. Generally, these techniques are divided between those visible to the human eye, which we can directly see, for example, by browsing a website, and others like technical SEO, where we are not aware of them from the front end.
What is certain is that since B2B SEO encompasses a series of challenging positioning tasks, it is necessary to diversify the use of these “traditional” techniques, considering both the target audience and the goals they are meant to achieve.
In short, the main B2B SEO techniques we should use to gradually position a website’s content are:
- Technical SEO: It encompasses all those activities “invisible” to the human eye related to the site’s structure and the organisation of tags and technical elements such as loading speed, responsive optimisation, and heading tag definition.
- On-page SEO: It deals with optimising the content that populates web pages, both in terms of organisation (e.g., titles, images, paragraphs) and layout and design, all starting from a thorough keyword research strategy.
- Off-page SEO: It harnesses all the potential of quality external hyperlinks to improve Domain Authority and website visibility.
- SEO Copywriting: This means knowing how to create quality content that carefully balances technical requirements with engaging, persuasive writing skills, adhering to all SEO techniques for positioning industry-specific keywords.
Defining an accessible and winning SEO strategy for B2B
We finally arrive at the most interesting part of this analysis, namely, the definition of an SEO strategy for companies. To develop it, as we have repeatedly emphasised, it is essential to understand the recipient: only then can you provide them with relevant and useful content tailored to their specific needs.
At the same time, this means studying the specific touchpoints of the market area in which the client operates, thereby identifying their interests and preferences, to define the previously mentioned SEO activities, and in particular, a valuable keyword research strategy functional to writing targeted content.
Let’s try to define step by step the key points of a Business to Business SEO strategy:
AAA Buyer Personas wanted
The first step in creating a successful strategy is defining our Buyer Personas, that is, the profile of the typical user we want to engage with our company.
Only in this way can we correctly identify the useful target. Therefore, we need to “get into the mind” of the potential client, identifying their age group, interests, role within the company, and needs to be met.
This is because knowing the details of the Buyer Persona we are addressing will allow us to structure a layered B2B SEO strategy focused on truthful, concrete, and effective aspects, rather than assumptions.
Conduct a conscious keyword research
It’s time to conduct keyword research related to the previously identified Personas. Using specific SEO analysis tools like SeoZoom, SemRush, and Google Search Console, you should delve into and find all possible opportunities to reach your average target.
Focus on informational search queries rather than transactional ones, aligned with those people use to find businesses like yours. This task should be carried out in two ways:
- Conducting an analysis of your website’s current ranking to understand which keywords you are correctly indexed for or which ones you need to work on.
- Studying competitor websites to grasp their strategies and optimisation techniques.
Organise your strategy into topic clusters
Another common mistake in onPage SEO and Copywriting strategies is thinking that content optimisation should only be done for informational or transactional keywords: wrong!
Google also appreciates topic diversification: that’s why we recommend organising a cluster of topics, meaning a group of content related to a central argument, developed on a pillar page from which they are subsequently linked and link to each other.
We assure you that it is easier than you think.
Proper optimisation of internal pages, products, and services
This is the time to unleash your skills in OnPage SEO techniques. You must pay attention to how you organise content, how you link it, but also to what you write and how you write it.
Remember all those famous SEO best practices like proper keyword repetition, meticulous meta tag completion, and using the correct tone for the goal you are trying to achieve.
It follows that if in B2C you are addressing a consumer engaged in a potential personal purchase experience, you are now addressing the conscious marketer of another company who must think 100 times before making a purchase.
As we said, pay attention to the tone of voice used. Although business language is full of technicalities, it is always better to prefer a coherent communication style. So, use clear, concise, but above all simple terms.
Those who experience complicated navigation do not buy.
Leverage content marketing assistance
It doesn’t end here! There are indeed valuable allies that come from the “classmates” of content marketing.