A compelling SEO strategy can skyrocket your success and take your B2B brand to new heights. Appearing high on search engines and increasing your visibility is a definitive way to drive more traffic to your page, thus acquiring more potential customers and conversions. 

But where do you start when it comes to creating this B2B SEO strategy? And how does it differ from a B2C SEO strategy? As experts in all things SEO, we’re here to help.

This complete guide will answer all of your B2B SEO questions and put you on the right track to creating your own winning strategy in no time. 

What is B2B SEO Strategy?

To start with the basics, SEO stands for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website in organic search results. Potential customers will turn to your brand as the answer to their search queries with a great SEO content strategy. 

Source: Directive Consulting 

B2B SEO strategy, short for Business-to-Business SEO, has the same overall goal of increasing organic search engine traffic and rankings through optimized web pages with a target audience of companies and business leaders. 

With an effective strategy, your business is brought directly to B2B buyers who are looking to engage with or purchase your services. 

How are B2B SEO and B2C SEO similar?

For both B2B and B2C SEO, the SEO basics remain the same. These basics can be broken down into three main pillars: 

• On-page SEO: This focuses on optimizing the parts of your website that you can control– keyword placement, page speed, meta description, etc. 
• Off-page SEO: This focuses on increasing overall authority of a domain through external factors– backlinks, social sharing, linked mentions from reputable websites 
• Technical SEO: This describes all technical and code related aspects that help search engines crawl, understand and index your website– responsive website design, indexation, etc. 

How are B2B SEO and B2C SEO different?

Overall, the biggest difference between the two SEO strategies comes down to their audience. B2B brands and B2C brands have different buyer personas. B2B SEO strategy targets leaders and decision-makers in companies, whereas B2C SEO strategy targets individual consumers. 

Other key differences include: 

1. Longer time spent in each sales stage:

For both B2B and B2C, the sales funnel remains the same. However, time spent in each stage of the funnel is longer for B2B brands. 

With B2B, several leaders in a company make decisions about whether to choose your product or services. With B2C, you focus directly on one consumer who will decide on their own. 

In a B2B company, there will be several hours spent researching, collecting data and information, going back and forth in conversations with the seller, and looking up case studies and product demos before a sale is even made. 

Source: Sprout Social 

1. More focus on low-volume keywords

B2B SEO relies on high-value, low-volume keywords. In B2B SEO, you have to think about how the audience is much smaller than in B2C. 

For example, on a hot and sunny day in July, there could be thousands of Google searches for “window air conditioner” from direct consumers, but very few searches for “HVAC system.” But if you are a brand that installs HVAC systems for businesses in your area, you need to keep this in mind when it comes to what keywords you should be using in your content. 

With B2B SEO, you don’t need to target keywords with 10,000 searches a month. You are focused on your specific and targeted audience and therefore need to make sure that your keywords reflect this and have the right intent for your potential buyers. 

1. Less organic traffic and conversions

With higher search volume and individual consumers, B2C SEO is more likely to convert a visitor to a customer on their first visit to your website. However, if a B2B brand is searching for an HVAC system and your website shows up, the chance they’re going to commit to your services on the first visit is extremely low. 

With more decision makers and higher stakes for a brand, they are likely coming to your website to do research, see what you offer, compare your brand to competitors, discuss amongst themselves and then come back to take further action. And this further action could be just reaching out for a consultation and not directly signing on to buy your product (longer time spent in each sales stage, remember?) 

Although a B2B SEO strategy is less likely to have thousands of searches and conversions a day, it is more likely to build up credibility, reliability and loyal customers in the end. 

1. Higher emphasis on expertise and “thought leadership”

Oftentimes, A B2C SEO strategy focuses on being fun, playful, trendy or catchy and aims to draw out the consumer’s emotions. 

There could be thousands of companies selling “floral dresses” but a customer could choose to buy from a specific brand because of a captivating Instagram Ad or a funny product description on their website. Each individual consumer has their reasons for purchasing from a specific website, but it often comes down to how it makes them feel. 

B2B buyers, however, are looking for an expert to provide what they need. They are looking for a company that can best fit their needs and offer the right solutions to their problems. If your SEO strategy isn’t displaying this right off the bat, then they are likely to pass on your company. 

In order to showcase this expertise, B2B SEO relies heavily on the idea of thought leadership. 

Source: Venngage 

According to Marketing Insider Group, thought leadership is “a type of content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business, or from your community, to consistently answer the biggest questions on the minds of your target audience on a particular topic.” 

Common tactics for a company to display thought leadership are through informative blogging, guest posting, LinkedIn marketing, appearances on podcasts, conferences or webinars, and working with influencers or PR companies. 

Tips for creating an effective B2B SEO strategy:

So now that you know what B2B SEO strategy is, how do you get started on creating one that works? 

1. Create buyer persona

Knowing exactly who you’re selling to is key. And in the B2B case, you will most likely be targeting several different people and business leaders. What are their problems? How old are they? What are some of their characteristics? The more you know and understand them, the better. This will help you target them directly and confidently. 

1. Conduct keyword research

Source: Mangools 

Conducting extensive keyword research should be the first step in every SEO strategy. For B2B, you will need to map out keywords and phrases that your potential customer could use at every stage of the sales funnel. Using effective keywords in your content will also help showcase your expertise and build credibility. 

You can use tools such as Ahrefs and Google Analytics to analyze keyword metrics such as search volume, long vs. short-tail, keyword difficulty, and intent. 

1. Create SEO-driven content

You know your target audience, you’ve done the keyword research and now it’s time to showcase your expertise through your content. With blog posts, webinars, videos, podcast appearances, social media posts, and case studies you will be able to highlight that you are the top industry leader. 

1. Promote your content and get it seen

Spread your business far and wide! This can be done through PR agencies or with the help of influencers or brand ambassadors. Amp up your off-page SEO by making sure you get seen through product reviews, business recommendations, social media shout-outs, and interviews. 

1. Keep your website optimized and running smoothly 

Source: Net Solutions

A fast, efficient and well-designed website all contributes to the user experience and can be a determining factor to a consumer choosing to purchase your products or services. 

Run frequent tests, stay aware of page load speeds, any link errors, and continue to expand your website by building out different landing pages to boost your brand and target more customers. 

How to track success of B2B SEO strategy:

Source: SEO PowerSuite 

Once you’ve got your B2B SEO strategy in place, it’s important to track a variety of KPI’s to determine if it is working efficiently or not. These include: 

• Organic traffic: An increase in traffic to your website is one of the highest indicators that your SEO strategy is working and reaching potential customers
• Search rankings: This refers to where your website is showing up, or ranking, on SERPs such as Google. One goal of your SEO strategy is to rank high and be as visible to potential consumers as possible, so rankings are important to note. 
• Organic click through rate (CTR): The number of clicks a search result receives divided by the number of times it’s viewed on a search engine. 
• Pages per session: The average number of pages a user views in a given session. 
• Average session duration: The amount of time a user spends on your website. 

You can use tools such as Google Analytics, Ahrefs or SEMrush to analyze these KPI’s and make changes where needed. 

Examples of a successful B2B SEO strategy:

At Galactic Fed, we have worked with a variety of B2B brands to improve their SEO strategy.  One successful example of this was with CodersLink. 

Coderslink connects leading tech companies with highly trained tech talent in Latin America. They came to Galactic Fed looking to improve their organic visibility and SEO with a well-executed backlink profile.

By developing strong content that other tech sites deem as shareable, Galactic Fed was able to build a backlink profile for Coderslink via guest posting on tech sites organically. 

Source: Ahrefs 

With 6 months of link-building efforts with Galactic Fed, Coderslink had the following success: 

• Increased domain rating by +12 points
• Grew non-branded impressions by 39% and non-branded clicks by 34%
• Increased referring domains by 58% and referring pages by 62%
• Increased organic traffic to site by 33%

Galactic Fed also worked with the team at Nightfall AI. 

Nightfall AI is the industry’s first cloud-native data loss prevention platform. They have worked with hyper-growth tech startups to Fortune 500 companies to prevent data leakage and secure sensitive information across SaaS and data infrastructure, providing continuous protection for cloud services like Slack, GitHub, and AWS.  

To help more companies strengthen their data security, Nightfall and Galactic Fed joined forces to build a stronghold in SERP and expand Nightfall’s online presence so that more companies would know their name. 

Throughout the campaign, Nightfall was able to increase organic traffic by 372% and increase organic keywords by 242% through extensive keyword research, new keyword-targeted content, and frequent reviews of existing content to ensure that everything was well set up in terms of internal link architecture. 

Let’s get started:

It’s important to remember that B2B SEO success won’t come overnight. It is a process that takes time, dedication and lots of edits and changes along the way. Find out what works for your brand and what doesn’t and, if it all seems too overwhelming for you, be open to accepting help. 

If you’re ready to learn even more about B2B SEO strategy, check out this video. 

And if you want to take advantage of our team for all of your B2B SEO needs, schedule a free consultation today!