In world where companies are always adapting digital strategy and competition increases with new entrances to the market, it is essential that the approach of a B2B SEO agency, or in house team, covers agility in the market and takes into account the different buying cycles, job functions and decision makers in the B2B business developement process.
Working as part of an overall marketing strategy, B2B SEO should cover some core elements, from utilising experts within the business, to working with customers to increase profiles in target industries. Further to this, consideration for international SEO, technical aspects of a website and brand profile will all form part of successful B2B SEO campaigns.
Within B2B SEO there are a number of buying cycles and customer touch points to consider which might not necessarily be similar to other markets. For example, buying cycles are generally longer from initial search to final sale, and within this there could be two or three pitch stages, email marketing, remarketing and direct mail. All of these elements should be considered as to where in the process SEO sits. Is it at the start, middle, end or multiple touch points in the sales cycle?
At the heart of any successful SEO campaign is the ability to audit data and reverse engineer route to successful rankings. B2B SEO is no different and carrying out an audit on current performance will allow for a 360 helicopter view of online performance.
An effective SEO audit will cover:
High performing SEO campaigns will always have a solid link building strategy within them – most notably these will have a focus on reputable links within any given industry, with a suitable anchor text and a heavy influence on brands.
Mining the data within your link profile will give you an understanding of the strength and weaknesses of a brand profile across the internet, and ensuring these profiles are kept up to date and worked on over a time, a natural increase will be seen within search rankings.
A term that will come up in discussion with any SEO agency will be the impact of Expertise, Authority and Trust within a website – commonly referred to as the acronym E-A-T. This is the application of the data outlined above.
Covering everything from accreditations to privacy policies, E-A-T should be at the heart of your SEO campaigns and is the base for creating landing pages, site categories and blog content.
Every page and piece of content should serve a positive purpose for a user, and in turn search engines will ‘promote’ this content – understand your business and the needs of customers for E-A-T and you’ll see a greater increase in rankings, but also conversion rates.
Across your link profile, the websites worked with should be reputable and trusted within your industry.
Carrying out effective SEO work, from audit and strategy, through data mining and final application on the website will give you the best chance of success in a competitive B2B landscape.