Is your B2B business interested in growing your brand via organic search? Ranking toward the top of the search engine results pages can be a tough nut to crack if you don’t know what you’re doing. Big companies have thrown mind-boggling sums of money into SEO without much traction. Fortunately, there are proven strategies that allow even new businesses to compete in the arena.
SEO can be the lifeblood of your B2B if you play your cards right. That’s because the No. 1 position in the SERPs has, according to research, a click-through rate of around 30%. In comparison, search ads have a CTR of 1.91% across all industries.
Therefore, the stakes are high for mastering B2B SEO. Here are a few pointers on how to get it right.
Local SEO
B2B businesses that draw in customers locally need to be visible in Google My Business search results. First, you need to appear to Google as a local business by meeting the following criteria:
• You must interact face to face with customers.
• You must have a physical location that’s not a PO Box or virtual office.
Reviews are the key to ranking highly in Google My Business listings. However, when getting started, this isn’t something you can control. Instead, focus on fleshing out your listing profile so that all the important info is filled out. This includes your physical address, working hours and contact information.
Also, I’d recommend making use of the “Book an Appointment” feature. This allows you to create a URL that instantly takes users to a page where they can book an appointment. It’s a straightforward way of nudging potential customers to take a step closer to buying.
Google Posts is another new feature. This allows you to post a 100-300 word blurb and an image. Simply go to your dashboard and click on “posts” to begin crafting something newsworthy. This could be general news about your brand or a press release of the latest product.
It’s Still All About Keywords
Keywords are the cornerstone of any successful SEO campaign, but the days of focusing in on a single keyword per page are gone. Instead, focus on keyword clusters based around a particular theme.
For example, if you were selling solar-energy-based installations you might traditionally target keywords such as “solar panel installation.” Such seed terms nowadays are saturated, so you’ll need to target the long-tail version: “solar panel installation for old homes” or “solar panel installation for expensive homes.”
The keywords need to be incorporated into your website content. Here is where you should be placing them:
• Post Title: Ideally, the blog post should start with the target keyword.
• Content: A mixture of keywords should be used throughout the text in a natural way. Don’t overdo it by thinking about keywords when writing. After all, you’re writing for humans and not search engines.
• Alt Tags: Search engines can’t understand images, so they pay attention to alt tags to figure out what a picture is about. Enter keywords here to get bonus points.
• Meta Tags: You’ll need to fill out meta tags to tell the search engines what your webpage is about. Placing keywords here is a no-brainer.
Furthermore, you must understand keyword intent before aiming to rank for that keyword. You might end up using the wrong strategy to monetize traffic if you don’t understand keyword intent.
You probably don’t have the resources to rank for every single keyword in your niche. Therefore, you need to prioritize the low-hanging fruit. Look for keywords that have decent traffic but don’t have too much competition. Assessing each keyword on potential ROI is a good way to start prioritizing the ones that you should go after.
Mobile-Friendly Websites
The number of B2B businesses that haven’t fully embraced the smartphone era is staggering when you consider that nearly half of website visits come from mobile devices. Therefore, your SEO efforts should also focus on mobile-friendliness.
Google has been in the process of rolling out mobile-first indexing, which means websites will be ranked on mobile-friendly parameters. Failure to adhere to these parameters means you’ll be missing out on some potentially lucrative rankings in mobile search.
You could create a copy of your website that’s specifically built for mobile devices. A conversion platform like bMobilized or Duda Mobile can be used to achieve this. Alternatively, you can use a responsive design that adapts to the device that’s loading the website.
Modern B2B customers are constantly on the move and use their smartphones to conduct business. Therefore, you cannot afford to be invisible on this platform. You could also go the extra step of developing an app that complements your mobile website.
Conclusion
The SEO tips for B2B businesses in this article are just a starting point. Once you implement the tips mentioned here, don’t stay stagnant. SEO is a constantly evolving landscape that you must stay up to date with.
Take a look at what some of your competitors are doing to get an idea of how a fully fleshed out B2B SEO campaign looks like. Reverse engineering the businesses that have already risen to the top of the search rankings is not only smart but will save you a lot of time and money.