Understanding the World of B2B SEO

Understanding the World of B2B SEO

The fundamentals of marketing describe market segmentation as a core consideration when deciding on a market strategy. SEO, being the most frequently used marketing tool of our times, is also affected by such a consideration. All SEO experts agree that market segmentation has major implications for the SEO strategy you design.

After all, if you sell apples, you can hardly use SEO strategy directed toward oranges and expect it to succeed, can you?

How Does the B2B Market Differ from the B2C Market?

The consumer (B2C) market is oriented towards the sale of finished, consumer goods. The characteristics of the clients you serve in consumer markets, is vastly different in that the nature of the goods you sell is different, the information required is different, and the pricing is different. As a result of this consideration, the content you produce; therefore, the SEO strategies you implement will also change.

When designing an SEO strategy for B2B markets, it is important to consider the following questions:

What is the nature of the goods you will sell?

Considering that you’re dealing with finished goods producers or some intermediary, it is very unlikely that you will be selling them consumer goods. Your products will probably be some form of industrial product that can help with their production, logistics or organizational functioning.

Comparing this with finished consumer goods, these products will found that to a higher pricing bracket, will be required to be durable and will possibly be considered an investment decision rather than a consumption decision. As a result these goods need to offer good returns for a long period of time.

What Are The Clients Like?

Your clients are most likely to be industry experts who have been working for years in the production of goods and services. These are usually highly skilled individuals who have in-depth technical knowledge of organizational and production processes. For these reasons noted their reaction to any marketing information is going to be evaluated in light of how the information/product helps their company work.

As compared to consumers of finished goods, these people not only care about quality or pricing, there are further organizational considerations that set standards for them.

What Does This Mean For The Content I produce?

Consider the goods that you will be selling and the clients you will be trying to target, the best bet you have is to give out technical knowledge in your content. When you represent a B2B client or are trying to reach out more clients in the production side of the business chain, you have to present some expertise to build customer trust.

You should expect that your content will be critically evaluated by other business owners and it should touch upon their business considerations. Your goal is to tell them that your products will contribute to the wellbeing of their business. This implies that your content should possess the following characteristics:

  • It should present technical knowledge of the product you are marketing
  • It should offer in-depth knowledge of industrial practices
  • It should come across as written in light of industrial/commercial dynamics
  • It should be able to present the value addition through your product, to client’s business

How Does B2B SEO Work?

B2B SEO

For anyone working on B2B SEO, it is important to understand that the same principles hold in both B2B and B2C markets. The real difference is in the information requirements and the standards that each client, in either market has set for the goods they will buy.

For example An article of clothing does not have to last for 3-4 years, but a hydraulics cylinder should not break down for at least that period of time.

If SEO marketing is a way of presenting information to clients, business owners require a different set of knowledge/information altogether. This difference will show up in the content that you produce for these people.

For as long as you create relevant content, it is more likely that you generate more leads as compared to when you wouldn’t.

Some Key Facts

When trying to assess the performance of your SEO, you should keep some of these performance norms in mind to create reasonable SEO KPIs for yourself. These norms have been identified by various research studies and surveys, which point to the following facts:

  • Advanced Web Rankingsshows that the top organic ranking SEO industry had a CTR of about 30%.
  • Avanade foundthat 61% of all businesses visit third party review websites before choosing to visit or hire a B2B company for any services.
  • A study by Clutchnoted that a increasing the number of client reviews 2 times, increased business visibility by 60%.

The Ideal B2B SEO

trends in local SEO

Considering all of the things we’ve said up till this point and factors we have just mentioned, certain steps must have become clear when it comes to constructing an ideal B2B SEO strategy. These are:

1. Increasingly Technical Content

When we say technical, we do not mean sophisticated. What we’re implying is that your SEO keywords and the use of these keywords should imply that you have a thorough understanding of industrial practices. It should show your potential clientele that you understand the product you sell, you understand where it lies in their service provision process and therefore, you understand the value it can add. So, they can then move on to see if you actually create the value addition by visiting your websites.

2. Exploiting 3rd Party Review Platforms

Since a large number of B2B clients rely on third party customer reviews before they approach a B2B service, it is imperative that you strategically place yourself in a positive light at these marketing channels.

3. Relying on SEO rather than PPC

Although PPC is great for low cost expenditures, considering the pricing and the nature of the goods you sell, PPC cannot offer the same results as SEO can. Because the PPC exercise is summarized, it does not offer much information and is not a reliable source of information for B2B services. For this reason, using an SEO dominant approach that includes relevant keywords that are embedded in all content and websites is the most sustainable way to generate B2B business leads.

Devebyte is one of the best digital marketing firms in Edmonton, Alberta. The company specializes in Local SEO, Web development and Social Marketing. We offer the most affordable rates with high returns on investment in your marketing strategies. Get in touch with us today for a consultancy session with our digital marketing experts in Edmonton.

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