The Ultimate B2B SEO Strategy, Step-By-Step

Businesses of all sorts and sizes will benefit from having a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Following B2B SEO best practices can help you get more organic traffic, make more conversions, and ultimately make more sales. 

Before you start creating your strategy, you need to consider all of the variables that make up your business’s specific situation. One of the most important factors affecting your SEO journey is whether you’re a B2C or B2B company.

Though Google uses the same ranking factors and algorithms to determine your rank on search engine results pages (SERPS) regardless of business type, there are a few key differences you should know about before starting research and writing content.

If you’re in the B2B environment and want to excel at SEO, keep reading. You will learn more about the things that set B2B SEO apart from B2C SEO and get a step-by-step rundown of how to enhance your strategy.

How does B2B SEO differ from B2C SEO?

As a B2B company, you likely have a niche target audience. You aren’t trying to sell a product to a vast consumer base, but a select few people within a very particular industry.

For example, a clothing company that sells cold-weather loungewear might have a target audience mostly consisting of men and women aged 16 to 50 in a specific geographic region. A business that sells accounting software specialized for nonprofits or charitable organizations is going to have a much smaller target audience: the CFO, accountant, or business owner of non-profit organizations.

As such, SEO in the B2B world can require a good amount of research into your unique sales funnel, and your content will likely focus on very specific (often low-volume) keywords and search queries.

Additionally, you might find yourself using more “professional” channels like blogs and email rather than social media, as potential customers are likely looking up your products and related topics during work hours.

Here’s a summary of the differences between B2C and B2B SEO strategies:

• B2B SEO requires a deep understanding of your audience. Since you need to rank for very specific keywords and search terms, you need to know exactly who will be searching and how they do it.
• Thorough keyword research is an absolute must in B2B. B2C SEO also requires keyword research, but since the sales funnels of B2B organizations are often more complex (and narrow), keyword research needs to be matched with the customer’s intent at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
• Key metrics like keyword volume and CPC will look different in B2B SEO. Niche topics and small industries mean keywords with lower search volumes and higher CPC (cost per click) bids.

So, how do you navigate through these differences? Here are 6 steps to creating a successful B2B SEO strategy.

#1: Create in-depth buyer personas

The goal of creating buyer personas is to understand who is making the decisions regarding purchasing your product or service so that you can tweak your content strategy, SEO, and channel marketing appropriately.

In B2B, the buyer/decision-maker is usually a strategist themselves—a marketer, CIO, CFO, business owner, accountant, etc. In order to know what direction to go in with SEO, you need to understand what drives these people. 

What pain points do they and their respective businesses have? Where are they looking for solutions and spending time online? What kind of content do they interact with most often? What are the exact characteristics that make a solution the perfect fit for them?

Making several different buyer personas with the help of your own sales and Google analytics data, customer surveys, competitor research, and internal opinions (like those of your sales team), will provide insight. This insight can be used to help all of your teams make more informed decisions as well as provide you with an SEO starting point.

#2: Research keywords that are directly related to your business or products

This step is phrased as such because there are many different kinds of search queries that a member of your target audience might make. Keywords that are directly related to your business will often be searched when the customer is close to making a purchase, as they’re looking for a very specific kind of solution.

For example, if a marketer looking to launch an influencer marketing campaign searches for “influencer research software”, they have already decided on the kind of solution they want and will likely make a purchase soon.

Understanding which primary keywords are associated with this final stage of the sales funnel will help you create an SEO strategy to support sales conversions. A lot of your technical SEO/on-page SEO will likely revolve around these keywords.

competitor keyword analysis will help you see what terms and phrases others in your industry are ranking for. When using a tool like SEMRush, you can see different metrics like keyword search volume and CPC, both of which tell you something important.

The search volume for terms like “winter boots’ ‘ will be massive compared to terms like “automatic rubber conveyor belt system”. You shouldn’t worry too much about low search volume in B2B—but you should consider the CPC. When a keyword has a high CPC, it means that people are bidding more for it in Google Ads, which usually means that it’s a term frequently searched by customers.

Keywords related to your business that have a high CPC can bring very valuable traffic to your site, so you might want to get in on the action. Ranking for such keywords can take a lot of work and time, but if you manage to make it on the first page, it puts you in a fantastic position to get more customers and ultra-high-quality leads.

You can also do more “casual” research by using the Google autocomplete feature. Begin typing a word or phrase into Google and look at the recommended queries that it gives you. This shows you what other people usually search when looking up similar topics.

#3: Research keywords and questions that are tangentially related to your business

Many of the customers that ended up buying from you likely didn’t find your business by typing in your brand name or your exact product or service. People in the beginning stages of the sales funnel may not even be aware of the kind of solution you offer. They may just be looking for answers to their questions or more information about a problem.

The search terms that people use in these circumstances are just as important to your SEO strategy as the keywords that are directly related to your business. These are the keywords that you should base a lot of your blog and other long-form content around, as it helps draw people in before they’re ready to buy. 

Going back to the non-profit accounting software example: An accountant at a charitable organization might search “best way to track expenses for easy auditing” before they ever consider buying new software. When you create valuable content about topics that are related to your business, it gets people into the sales funnel at the very top, which can lead to a sales conversion for you down the line.

Traditional keyword and competitor research can help you understand what kinds of peripherally-related searches people are making, but you can also use the insight from your buyer personas to answer questions like:

• What problems do your personas face that make them look for solutions?
• What kind of information or tips could make your personas’ daily work lives easier?

#4: Optimize your webpages

Your landing pages are vital for end-game SEO, meaning that having well-optimized pages helps you make sales. Your product and sales pages should be completely unique, contain a good amount of words (to appease Google’s algorithm), and should be optimized for one of your primary keywords.

Make sure to use your keyword in your main title and throughout the body text on a web page, but don’t overdo it. Keyword stuffing isn’t a great strategy in any piece of content, web copy included. Each page should contain unique content, even if two product pages explain a very similar product. This will help you get a higher ranking from Google.

Another algorithm-pleaser is length. Though many businesses like to avoid having a cluttered and overwhelming landing page, there’s an SEO benefit to having a little bit more text, as it allows Google to get a better understanding of the overall purpose of the page.

Finally, a simple tip: make sure you’re using in-links to your other pages and long-form content where appropriate.

#5: Yes, you should start a blog

Optimizing your web pages is a great step in the right direction, but that alone won’t have a large effect on visibility and brand authority long-term. If you don’t have a blog, it’s time to start one. Creative, entertaining, and informational long-form content like blog posts helps you attract more people in the early stages of your sales funnel.

A brand with authority is a brand that blows its competition out of the water. This is especially true for B2B businesses, as many customers in this space have much higher stakes than B2C customers. This means they want to buy from someone that knows what they’re doing and can deliver on their promises. Blogs can help you build that trust.

Blogs also help grow brand awareness and launch you up the SEO ladder with enough dedication and time. If you have a collection of valuable posts, then other blogs, news sites, and businesses can link to your content, which gives people many more chances of coming across your business and boosts your SEO in the process.

#6: Do your best to get backlinks

Link building means getting other sites to link back to your web pages. Backlinks are one of the main ranking factors that Google uses, so it’s not something you should overlook. When you’re in a niche industry, your efforts should be focused on getting backlinks from news sites and other businesses’ blogs within the space.

Getting backlinks can be difficult, as you will likely have to promote your content on other platforms in order to get people to see and link to it—at least in the beginning. Promoting your content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc., can get the word out there about your posts. You can also reach out to people directly to ask them to share or reference your articles, press releases, and various web pages.

Once you have a high rank on SERPs, it will be easier to get backlinks, as you will be more visible to the writers and journalists that might link to you. Just like SEO in general, link building is a long game.

B2B SEO: Closing remarks

If you’re in B2B, you know that almost every aspect of doing business is just a little bit different than B2C. SEO is no different. The basics are the same, but those in B2B should be extra cognizant of their audience, do keyword research and optimize for several stages in their sales funnel, and attempt to get as many backlinks as they can from other industry-specific sites and news sources. Happy strategizing!