b2b-seo-strategy-is-critical-to-your-marketing-volume-nine

3 Reasons a B2B SEO Strategy is Critical to Your Marketing Strategy

by Volume Nine

Many companies in the B2B domain underestimate the power of B2B SEO, and they shouldn’t. Perhaps your business has always relied on referrals or outreach marketing, and you don’t see the need for an SEO strategy. Or maybe you’re already doing B2C SEO for your retail customers and you think that covers your B2B bases too.

To an extent, you may be right, but come on! If you really want your business to last into the future, your B2B digital marketing strategy needs to generate leads in every way that works.

Not convinced? Stay with me for just a few minutes and I’ll show you why incorporating a B2B SEO strategy into your overall marketing strategy is worth your time.

What Is B2B SEO?

When we talk about B2B (business to business) SEO (search engine optimization), we’re referring to the practice of increasing website traffic from professionals looking to buy products or contract services for their companies. This traffic goal is accomplished by using B2B SEO tactics to raise the website’s search engine rankings for keywords and phrases that relate to businesses, rather than consumers.

Why Perform B2B SEO?

It’s critical to perform B2B SEO in order to stay relevant and competitive in this modern age of digitized business-to-business relationships. Here are three reasons to believe that:

  1. Your B2B Customers Are Looking For You Online

Just look at the “2014 State of B2B Procurement Study”, published by the Acquity Group, which found that a whopping 94 percent of business buyers do at least some type of online research:

  • 84 percent look through business websites
  • 77 percent use Google for online searches
  • 41 percent read online reviews of businesses
  • 34 percent do research by exploring 3rd-party websites

Business buyers are doing their jobs online, and if they don’t find you, they’re likely going to find your competitors.

  1. B2B SEO Is Different From B2C SEO

Of course you should target B2B keywords for B2B SEO, but that’s not the only difference between B2B and B2C. You must also intentionally employ a B2B SEO strategy, which is typically quite different from the simpler B2C version of SEO.

While B2C SEO focuses on converting the sale during a single visit to your website, B2B SEO needs to take into account the longer buying cycles in B2B environments. Unlike everyday consumers, business buyers are often looking not to make an immediate decision, but to develop a list of options, either to narrow down themselves or to present to higher-ups.

Consequently, your goal when implementing and maintaining a B2B SEO strategy is to make sure your business makes it onto the buyer’s list. Although the final conversion may not occur online, the beginning of the process likely did.

  1. B2B SEO Actually Works

Sure, plenty of businesses out there don’t believe B2B SEO can significantly improve their marketing strategies, but try telling that to the businesses who have seen results from B2B SEO.

Consider the 2014 BrightEdge study, which found that 73 percent of all traffic going to the business services websites studied was driven by organic search. What’s more, the study found that approximately 55 percent of online revenue for business services websites was credited to organic search traffic. Display, email, and referral traffic came in second at just under 30 percent.

Bringing B2B SEO into Your Marketing Strategy

If you do it well, B2B SEO can become one of the best marketing strategies your business has ever taken advantage of. We can help make that a reality. Volume Nine offers affordable B2B SEO services that take the guesswork out of targeting business buyers through SEO. Whether you need a quick question answered or you want our experts to take your SEO strategy to the next level, we invite you to reach out.