The primary goal of a B2C SEO strategy is to convert to a visitor to a website into a sale, however with B2B the goal is unlikely to be an immediate sale, but to improve your organisation’s chances of becoming the chosen supplier. This means that any conversions are unlikely to be immediate, and the conversion is likely to happen offline rather than online. However, your website still has a key role to play in the decision-making process. And since the first step in any SEO strategy strategy is getting your company found online, search engine optimisation is still essential for B2B websites.
With B2B SEO the objective for the website is not to drive traffic through a conversion channel, but to establish trust and give the purchaser a clear and concise message about the company, services and values. The B2B strategy should be focussed on building confidence in your brand, products and services and offering the best possible route through the website to achieve this. For a B2B customer first impressions of your website and the content it contains is critical.
Your website has to become the primary tool for portraying you as a valuable supplier. Your potential customers are looking for reasons to weed out potential suppliers who don’t offer best value. Your website needs to persuade them not to leave you off the list.
The content on your website is key, not only from a Search Engine Optimisation point of view but because you need to provide content that is useful to the user. Online content is what will drive traffic to your website and ultimately convert that traffic into first a lead, and potentially into a sale. Content will be crucial in convincing a decision-maker to proceed with your company as a preferred supplier. Clear, concise and credible content across every level of the website is what will determine your eventual success with the B2B market.
In the B2C buying process, the buying time can be as low as 10 to 30 minutes from search to sale, however with B2B the process can be anything from days to months. B2B decision makers go through a much longer process of scrutiny prior to making a decision on the right supplier for them.
The first stage of the process for the decision-maker is to identify suitable suppliers that meet their initial requirements. They will often carry out online searches in order to do this. Throughout this stage of the process decision-makers will use various generic terms related to the product, service or industry that they are searching for.
Once a shortlist of suppliers has been identified the decision-maker will evolve their requirements on specific issues or information related to the product or services, looking at various research materials, such as performance reports or white papers. During this stage the decision-maker will come across other appropriate suppliers. These will be added to the list of suppliers already established.
The final phase prior to making the decision will include all the evaluations made in phase 1 and phase 2 that will impact on the decision. The final decision will be made based on all the information compiled and evaluated. Bear in mind that some of this information will be based on information not gleaned online - on offline interactions, perhaps meetings, proposals, presentations, pitches.
So while the main aim of the B2B SEO strategy is to get found, the ultimate aim of the website should be to provide relevant information at every stage of the decision-makers buying lifecycle.
Unlike in B2C SEO where generic terms are commonly used, in B2B SEO product names will be used, as the decision maker knows the detail of the product or service they are looking for. B2B keyword searches are more specifically related the industry or product, so the content on your website needs to be tailored to capture this traffic as well as containing optimisation for some generic terms.
Keyword research should cover the following areas:
Keyword research for either B2C or B2B SEO is critical to the success of the website, and can become very complex very quickly, therefore it is essential that keyword research is structured around the website’s goals and targets. Keyword identification will be fundamental to the eventual content that is represented on the website, and that ensures that your site gets found at all stages of the buying lifecycle.
B2B decision-makers often start with the key question “Who are the best suppliers?” and “What value can they bring to our company?”. The success of your website will depend on identifying who is using your website, and why they are using it. You can then use the content on your website to respond to their needs and develop a relationship with them that positions your company as trusted, value-for-money, expert (or whatever they are looking for). In taking this approach your are building the reputation and credibility of your company.
Using your traffic stats you are able to create a user profile to understand who is using your website and where they are coming from. This will allow you to build a clear understanding of how you adapt your website to target this audience and retain their interest.
Once you have identified your audience, the task then is to engage with that audience through every level of the website. If we compare digital marketing to the standard sales process, Search Engine Optimisation is the equivalent of the first introduction - it’s how a decision-maker finds you in the first place. But (keeping the analogy going) SEO also has a part to play in the follow-up meeting and at every point in the decision-making process.
Your website needs to engage with decision-makers at a range of different levels by providing them with information and content that raises their levels of awareness and promotes the company as a valuable supplier. This content can also be used to forge deeper relationships with the decision-maker. Your overall aim should be to offer fantastic free content, however at some level you want to capture data that will create leads and enable you to measure the effectiveness of your SEO. This could include:
Each of the different types of content or online interaction above would allow you to capture key data relating to leads or potential clients. You can then use this information to develop long lasting relationships and enhance your website.
You can identify the ultimate success of your search engine optimisation strategy by looking at your web stats. The key objective you want to achieve is visitors repeatedly coming back to the website and spending time engaging with your content (about your products and services). The more frequently decision-makers visit, the deeper and more lasting the relationship between decision-makers and your organisaton becomes.
Success can be measured by those who submit data in order to interact with your content. Each ‘registration’ should be classed as a sales lead. Since sales leads can be expensive to achieve, generating them through search engine optimisation is a way of developing lasting relationships with potential customers in a cost-effective way.
Search engine optimisation remains under-exploited by B2B organisations, yet SEO’s ability to drive traffic and build lasting relationships is fundamental to the success of a B2B website. B2B businesses can use SEO to open up an new stream of prospective customers and relationships - and by doing so, get ahead of your competitors. Search engine optimisation is a marketing tool that B2B organisations can no longer ignore.