What Are B2B SEO Services? A Complete Breakdown

B2B SEO services (Business-to-Business Search Engine Optimisation) are strategies that aim to improve search rankings and visibility of companies that sell their products or services to other companies, not consumers.

For all practical purposes, there is no basic motivational difference between B2B SEO and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) SEO. However, there are some procedural differences.

Let’s find out in this Innocams blog post what those differences are and why B2B SEO is crucial for a business’s rapid growth. 

What is a B2B Model?

A B2B company sells its products or services to other companies. For example, Google sells its Workspace and Cloud to other businesses. Here Google is a B2B company. 

But when Google offers its free Gmail or Drive to the general public, it follows a B2C model. The important thing to remember here is that a B2B company can also work like a B2C model.

Some prominent B2B companies are Google, Microsoft, FedEx, Cisco and Salesforce Inc.

What is B2B SEO?

B2B SEO is the process of optimising websites of B2B companies for search engines. If done effectively, this campaign can dramatically improve the SERP rankings of those sites, drive more traffic, generate qualified leads and increase conversions. 

A B2B SEO agency will formulate and implement optimisation strategies to improve the SERP rankings and visibility of such companies.

B2B SEO Vs B2C SEO

Both these two SEO processes try to attract targeted customers. But in the case of B2B SEO services, the target customers are usually business owners whereas B2C SEO targets individual consumers.

Here is a detailed breakup of the key differences between these two types of optimisation methods:

B2B SEO	B2C SEO
Targets Businessmen, industrialists.	Targets individual consumers.
Has a longer sales cycle.	Has a shorter sales cycle.
Usually involves several decision-makers.	Usually involves a single decision-maker.
Utilises keywords related to industry problems, solutions.	Utilises keywords related to brands, products or services.
Requires in-depth industry-related content, aimed to attract industry and thought leaders.	Requires engaging, compelling content, aimed to attract individual consumers.
More difficult than B2C as the target customers are seasoned industry experts who are hard to please.	Less difficult than B2B as the target customers are easier to attract and engage.

Benefits of B2B SEO Services

If a B2B SEO agency can effectively implement proper strategies, it can dramatically improve a brand’s SERP ranking, visibility and growth. 

Here are some key benefits of an effective B2B SEO campaign:

• By optimising a business website for targeted keywords and search queries, B2B SEO can improve the site’s ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
• This visibility may help the company attract potential customers and reduce sales cycle and buying process.
• Valuable content, relevant to your industry, will establish you as a thought leader and a trustworthy brand.
• Improved SERP ranking and visibility will provide your brand with recognition and awareness within your industry.
• B2B SEO services are long-term strategies that yield sustainable growth and ROI.
• An effective B2B SEO will give you a crucial competitive edge over your rival companies.

B2B SEO Strategies that Work

Now I’ll discuss key strategies that efficient B2B SEO agencies apply to push their clients up on the SERPs.

The key point to remember here is these are general strategies that are applicable to all B2B sites’ optimisation. SEO agencies may formulate and implement some other strategies as per the unique needs of individual companies.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

This is the first thing to do. Create complete profiles of your target customers. The personas should include their demographics, pain points, interests and needs. It should also include their decision-making process. 

The more you understand your target customers, the better will be your SEO campaign as you will use effective keywords that will resonate with their needs and pain points. This resonance will attract them to you.

2. Understand the Sales Funnels

Take pains to understand the different stages your B2B buyers pass through in the sales funnels. Remember, in the  B2B model, sales funnels are quite complex. From decision-making to purchasing is a tortuous and long road. 

If you can map out the sales funnels well, it will help you formulate SEO strategies that will attract them and bring them to you. This understanding will also help you create content that will be relevant and valuable to your target buyers.

B2B SEO services sharply focus on this sales funnel complexity.

3. Carry Out In-Depth Keyword Research

Ferret out terms and words your target customers use while conducting search to find out solutions to their problems. Use these keywords in your content. 

They should be in H1 title, URL, title tag and preferably in the first sentence of your content. The idea is to make search engines understand what your content is all about and what its target audience is. 

This will help search engines show your potential buyers your pages when they make an online search with your targeted keywords.

4. Use Long-Tail Keywords

During the keyword research process, concentrate on long-tail keywords your target audience is likely to use during searches. Long-tail keywords yield several benefits:

• Long-tail keywords indicate a commercial intent. They are more specific than short keywords. People who use these keywords usually want to buy a product or service. 
• Since users of long-tail keywords express commercial intent, people who will find your pages after using them are qualified leads, already in the sales funnels.
• Long-tail keywords are low competition keywords that will give you a competitive advantage.
• Since long-tail keywords clearly express search intent, you can use them to create more effective content.

5. Craft Valuable and Relevant Content

In B2B SEO services, content is king. 

Create high-quality content that can address your target customers’ pain points and compel them to respond to your calls-to-action. 

Use targeted keywords strategically throughout your content. Use their synonyms and derivatives. Use industry-specific parlance in the content. 

Also vary the format of your content. Use text, images, videos, podcasts, infographics etc judiciously. Remember you are trying to convince people who are experts in their fields and will need some convincing. 

6. Focus on Technical SEO

First, conduct a thorough technical audit of your site. This will help you pinpoint areas needing improvement and then plug the loopholes.

Second, make sure your site is optimised for mobile devices and loads fast. These two are serious ranking signals for search engines these days.

7. Go All-Out for Backlinks

Search engines consider backlinks a serious ranking metric. So try and get some. 

But remember, they should come from reputed and relevant sources. No black-hat scheme, please! Get high-quality backlinks through white-hat practices like writing guest posts, contacting leaders in your industry etc.

8. Utilise Social Media

Utilise social media to promote your content. Share it on your social media platforms to increase visibility and drive traffic. Social media is a powerful tool if you know how to use it optimally for your business.

Proper utilisation of social media is a key strategy in B2B SEO services.

9. Track Your Progress

B2B SEO is an ongoing process. There is always something that can go wrong. So watch out for loopholes in your SEO campaign all the time. Track your progress. Monitor your KPIs. Regular monitoring is the final and probably one of the most important strategies in B2B SEO.

B2B SEO Services: A Case Study

Now I will discuss a case study where effective implementation of B2B SEO helped a company dramatically improve its ROI. 

Introduction to RevenueZen

RevenueZen is a B2B SEO services provider based in Portland, USA. It took over the optimisation campaign for Lightyear.ai–an IT company. 

RevenueZen Factsheet

Name	RevenueZen.
Year founded	2017.
Website	https://revenuezen.com/
Brick and mortar	9015 NW SHERRY CT, PORTLAND, 97229, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Phone	Not available.
Email	Not available.
Company type	Privately held.
Industry	Digital marketing.
Services	B2B SEO, B2B content marketing, B2B SaaS SEO, analytics and reporting.

What Was Happening to Lightyear.ai?

Lightyear is a New York-based IT company that has over 400 clients. It is a SaaS provider and helps other IT organisations automate their business processes.

The Pain Points

When RevenueZen took over, Lightyear was already an established business. However, its website was newly-launched and it had not taken any SEO drive before. 

The challenge before RevenueZen was how to optimise such a site so Lightyear gets some quick results. Lightyear’s team knew the importance of inbound traffic, but they had no idea how to get it. 

So RevenueZen had to optimise this site, starting from scratch. 

What RevenueZen Did

After an SEO audit, the B2B SEO services provider’s experts identified three strategies that needed immediate implementation: purchase-intent keyword research, link building and crafting high-quality content for this IT company’s website.

The expert went to work without any delay. 

What Was the Outcome

In 6 months, Lightyear saw over 234% increase in organic traffic, over 644% new keyword ranking and more than 145% increase in domain authority.

Lightyear.ai: Website SEO Analysis

Now I’ll run a quick check on Lightyear website’s SEO health as part of this interesting case study to find out how technically strong RevenueZen keeps it. 

Lightyear.ai: Overview of the SEO check

Meta information	100%
Page quality	61%
Page structure	29%
Link structure	91%
Server	100%
External factors	100%
Response time	0.11 s
SEO score	80%

Here is a breakdown of what emerged from this SEO check:

• The length of the page title and meta-description are perfect.
• The site has no crawlability issues.
• The canonical link specification is valid.
• The domain length is good and it is no subdomain. 
• The charset encoding is set correctly.
• Doctype HTML 5 is set correctly.
• The Favicon is linked rightly.
• Number of words on the homepage (258) should be increased.
• Words in the H1 header are not used in the page content.
• The site is well optimised for mobile devices.
• Images have alt text.
• Social media presence should be stronger.
• The site uses HTTPS for enhanced security.
• Too many H1 heading (a negative aspect of B2B SEO services).
• The page’s response time is excellent (0.11s).

The upshot is, barring a few issues, RevenueZen is keeping this site’s technical aspects in good shape.

Conclusion

B2B SEO services have become a staple for businesses who sell their products or services to other businesses. 

By optimising pages of a B2B company, an efficient optimiser can improve its website’s SERP visibility, drive traffic, generate qualified leads and enhance conversions.

Strategies like keyword research, link building, technical SEO are applied for this optimisation purposes. 

We have discussed a case study that showed how an efficient optimisation campaign can radically improve a B2B company’s ROI.

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