Do you sell goods and services to other businesses and have a struggling website? Many B2B organizations are now recognizing the importance of an effective online digital presence. If your businesses is looking to drive traffic and improve lead generation, one area to pay particular attention to B2B SEO. We will discuss some reasons why SEO is so important, as well as offer a few suggestions for areas to pay attention to on your website to begin your optimization strategy.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization is a digital marketing strategy that works to maximize the number of visitors accessing a website by ensuring the business’s ranking remains high in search results. By improving the visibility of a website, there is a higher likelihood that someone will click on it when looking for a product or service.
Search engine optimization is extremely important for a business if they are looking to increase their customer base online. Over 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine and it is often the first step a customer takes when looking for information that can assist them in making a purchasing decision. An organization that does not optimize their website for search engine reliability is likely to get lost among the competition.
Organic search is unpaid, determined by search engine algorithms, and can be enhanced using a number of different SEO optimization methods (such as back linking, tagging, and creating a sitemap). Paid search allows a customer to improve ranking status based on certain keywords or phrases with which they want to be associated. A good strategy for a B2B organization would include a combination of both of these methods to ensure your business ranks well among competition and your website is well optimized.
Creating a B2B Marketing Strategy
When building your B2B marketing strategy, it is important to first identify where your sales are coming from and who your target audience is for your product. Every B2B marketing strategy should prioritize lead generation, as this will help your business grow. Unlike consumer marketing, B2B organizations may not experience the same frequency with product or service purchase rate, therefore it is critical that your business develop a way to drive new traffic to your website to increase your customer base.
Lead generation is the process of acquiring more customers through a marketing strategy. When someone first visits your website, they don’t always start as a lead. They are unfamiliar with your business, so your marketing strategy must help establish trust and guide them through the sales process.
A lead generation sales process could look like this:
- Attract individuals through an engaging content strategy
- Convert visitors to leads through actionable recommendations and onsite landing pages
- Close deals with leads through marketing communication
- Encourage promotion of your business through customer feedback and social sharing
So where does SEO play a role in all of this?
The first step of the lead generation process is attraction. In order to attract lead prospects to your B2B website, they need to be able to find your business. Attracting the right type of individuals is also very important. You want visitors that are potentially interested in your products or services, so there is a need to understand exactly what you sell. Through a combination of content marketing and search optimization, your business will be able to effectively drive the right types of individuals to your website.
Why SEO is an Important Part of Your B2B Marketing Strategy
Search is the Primary Source of Website Traffic
As mentioned earlier, search is the primary method online visitors use to locate information about a product or service. A new buyer may not know the exact names or web addresses of businesses that provide the type of solution they are interested in, so they will usually opt to do a quick web search on a trusted search engine. Google owns about 75% of all search engine traffic, and is one of the most highly visited websites in the world. Optimizing your B2B website for better search results will ensure your website remains visible in a crowded market so you can direct more traffic to your website.
Helps Attract the Right Audience
Is your website bounce rate high? This could be an indicator that you aren’t attracting the right visitors to your site. By improving search engine readability for your B2B site, you can attract the right types of individuals by identifying keywords and phrases they may be searching and using them as a part of your content or paid search strategy. A more targeted audience can help your business convert more of these visitors to leads.
Enhances Your Content Marketing Efforts
Does your business have a blog or another type of content resource to help attract new individuals to your B2B website? If you have taken the time to set up a content marketing strategy, you will want to make sure you factor SEO into your marketing equation. By optimizing your website for better search results, you increase the likelihood that your content will be seen by more individuals. You can optimize your website content by identifying a keyword strategy, adding tags, and using internal links.
Generates New Traffic from Mobile Devices
Nearly 60% of website searches come from a mobile device. If your B2B organization is looking to reach a large market of traffic, optimizing your website for better search engine readability will help when looking to target these mobile users. Google now uses responsive design as a ranking factor for search, so you may want to consider updating your design so it reflects properly on smaller screens.
SEO Optimization Also Generates a Better Onsite Experience
When you optimize your website for search, one of the benefits besides more traffic is a better online experience. There are a number of onsite enhancements your B2B organization can make to improve SEO. This includes updating performance and security, developing more content, updating to a mobile responsive design, and removing any excess code that may be making search engine readability more difficult. The result of these optimization efforts is not only increased leads, but a faster performing, more secure, responsive, and engaging website.
It is a Measurable Way to Determine How Your Business Grows Online
Some forms of marketing are difficult to evaluate whether they are effectively driving business growth. Search engine optimization, however, is a relatively easy marketing strategy that can deliver quantifiable growth for your B2B organization. There are many SEO tools that will allow you to develop an optimization strategy through keyword and competitive analysis. This will allow you to see what keywords rank high in your industry, as well as what your competition is doing to improve their search rankings. Running an SEO health analysis (for a complimentary one contact us here) will also help determine if there are any broken links or content enhancements that can make your website more search engine friendly. If your brand wants to know where it stands in terms of digital performance, then SEO optimization is a great marketing technique that allows you to measure your success.
Useful recommendations provided in an SEO health analysis:
- Top industry competitors and ranking status
- Keyword performance
- Back link audit
- Off page link building
- Performance and security analysis
- Content audit
- Mobile responsiveness check
Helps You Better Understand Your Online Competition
Developing an SEO strategy is one of the best ways to get to know your competition a bit better. It may be difficult to analyze what types of advertising or direct marketing methods your competition may be using, but with SEO you can learn a bit more about their strategy. There are tools available that will allow you to see what paid search methods they might be using to rank higher for certain keywords.
Can Increase Online Conversion Rate
SEO marketing is a great way to increase your online conversion rate, which is important for B2B companies that are looking to increase their sales metrics. By optimizing your website to improve your rankings, you are not only able to generate more traffic to your site, but also have the ability to convert the right individuals into sales leads. You can optimize your website to have visitors that use a search engine enter a landing page as soon as they enter your website. This is an effective way to offer an actionable recommendation early in the buying process, which has been shown to increase conversion rates.
Other ways to improve conversion rate with the help of SEO include:
- Use dynamic content that changes based on your visitors
- Use long tail keywords to help direct the right visitors to your site
- Improve performance to prevent visitors from leaving your website
- Create a responsive design that translates well on mobile and tablet devices
Overall, SEO is an important element to include in your B2B marketing strategy. Not only does it improve lead generation, but it also helps you better understand the competitive space online, enhances your content marketing strategy, increases conversion rate, and improves your user experience.
Alliance Interactive is a digital, web design, web development, and website maintenance agency for nonprofits, associations , b2b organizations, and more. Give us a call today at 888-222-9056 or contact us here.