Guest post by Mark Franklin of HigherVisibility
To use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques or not to use SEO techniques? That is a question that leaders of business-to-business (B2B) companies have to ask themselves as they explore ways to increase their sales, revenues, and profits.
From our experience at HigherVisibility, many companies are answering the question incorrectly. A 2016 survey by the B2B research company Clutch concluded that about half of the small businesses in the United States with a website do not use SEO techniques. They should, concludes the PR/Newswire article that reported the results of the survey.
“Minimal SEO engagement significantly lowers a small business’ odds of being found online by potential customers and subsequently makes it more difficult for that business to meet growth goals,” the article says. “A lack of knowledge about how to implement an effective SEO strategy and cost are the main drivers of low engagement, according to industry leaders who reviewed the survey findings. But, small businesses that forgo SEO may find themselves at a disadvantage, unable to control their visibility in search engine rankings.”
The importance of ranking high on a search engine results page (SERP) is illustrated by several facts. For starters, websites that rank high on an SERP get more traffic. More traffic means more prospective customers. This article reports that the websites that rank first through third on a Google SERP get more than 75 percent of user traffic.
The same principle applies to B2B search engines. Smart B2B marketing pros will use SEO techniques to enhance their chances of placing higher on the SERPs of search engines that cater to businesses that are trying to sell their products and services to other businesses rather than consumers. That means, among other things, trying to get articles about your company published in trade publications that cover your industry rather than general interest publications with much larger circulations.
There are innumerable B2B search engines. Listing them is less important than finding out the B2B search engines that are the most pertinent to your specific industry. You should contact the trade association in your industry to find out this information because B2B search engines can dramatically increase your sales, revenues, and profits.
“These vertical search sites may not yield the same traffic as general search engines, but the percentage of qualified traffic and conversions can increase dramatically with leads from these specialized and vertical business-oriented engines,” explained a Search Engine Land article. The best ones deliver comprehensive results in the given niche, provide more focused search results than general search engines, and give searchers the ability to quickly and easily find relevant information.”
Smart B2B marketing pros who work for companies with a lot of financial resources should consider hiring a company that specializes in helping companies improve their search engine results. This chart ranks the 100 best SEO companies. The large number of SEO companies essentially proves the importance of high search engine rankings.
If cost is a factor, though, there’s another way to improve your search engine results — implement several SEO techniques yourself. Here are eight DIY SEO tips for B2B marketing pros:
Write for Trade Mags
Search engines have algorithms that result in articles in credible publications ranking higher on SERPs than articles on blogs that no one reads. Consequently, SEO experts often advise leaders of companies to write articles for credible business magazines and newspapers that demonstrate their expertise and knowledge of important subjects to prospective customers. The same principle applies to B2B companies that want to reach their prospects via trade publications.
Post Blogs On Your Website
Writing about topics that your prospective customers are interested in increases the chances that those businesses will find you — even if the content is on your own website. In fact, search engines will rank your website higher as it includes more well-written blogs on important topics. This article in Forbes magazine reports that “a recent study from HubSpot shows that B2B companies that publish 16-plus blog posts per month receive 3.5 times the amount of traffic as companies that publish only 0-4 posts per month.”
Trade Blogs with Other Websites
The “trade” doesn’t have to be formal. Inviting experts in your industry to write blogs for your website should improve the credibility of your website. In exchange, other websites might be more receptive to posting blogs you have written on their websites. The other websites could be trade associations, independent analysts of your industry, or even other B2B companies. A Search Engine Land article points out that in-depth, excellent guest posts on relevant blogs are “signs of quality that (the) Google (search engine) takes seriously.” B2B search engines will also factor in excellent guest blogs.
Post Your Website’s Link On Other Websites
Part of the reason you want to trade blogs is to get your website’s link on a credible website and vice versa. Your blog on another website is a hyperlink. Their blog on yours is a backlink. Search engines give credibility to both. Besides trading blogs, you can do what in industry jargon is called building links. Building links entails researching websites that are pertinent to your industry and interacting with them (commenting on their blogs for instance) so the link to your website is on other credible websites.
Post Videos On Your Website
Prospective customers might be more likely to contact your company if they are impressed by a video your company has produced. The video should not be overtly promotional. It should instead convey your company’s expertise in its industry and include tips that will help the viewers. You are probably aware that search engines often give searchers the option of looking for videos.
Create A User-Friendly Website
Try an experiment. Ask a friend to try to find specific information such as the price of a product or service on your website. Ask the same friend to try to find the same info on a few competitors’ website. Does it take longer to find the info on yours? The point is you need a user-friendly website. Search engines factor this in their rankings. “The idea is to have as few clicks as possible for a user to get what they need,” reports this Search Engine Land article. More internal links will reduce the number of clicks needed to access different pages, the article added.
Write Enticing Meta Descriptions
A meta description is the text below the headline of each item on the SERP. When you don’t write one, Google will display text from the first paragraph of your webpage, according to Hubspot. The meta description is written when you create a webpage. You might have to ask for technical help in figuring out where to write it, but the effort is worth it. Each meta description should be under 155 characters and should induce searchers to click the search results link. Writing a meta description for each webpage is advisable, says a Search Engine Land article.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
B2B decision makers are using mobile devices to seek information via search engines more than ever, reports Search Engine Land. Companies without a mobile-friendly website lose search engine traffic, partly because “42 percent of researchers use a mobile device during their B2B purchasing process.” To become more mobile-friendly, you should improve your mobile page speed and implement mobile design best practices. These websites have technical information on how to do that – here and here.
There are many other things you can do to improve the search engine results of your company’s website, but the eight above tips should improve them enough to boost your company’s sales, revenues, and profits.
Author information
Garrett Hollander
Director, Content Strategy at SalesStaff
Garrett Hollander serves as the Director of Content Strategy for SalesStaff. In that role, he serves the B2B sales and marketing community with premium content, posts, and ideas around various topics related to B2B sales. In addition, he manages SalesStaff's social media presence, building a strong community of like-minded sales and marketing professionals.
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