Internet Marketing Blog by Noon-an-Night

B2B marketing is much different than B2C marketing. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that B2B SEO should be handled differently than B2C SEO. To ensure you are going about things correctly and not wasting your time on techniques that don’t work, here are a handful of tips to keep your B2B SEO efforts moving in the right direction:

You Have to Understand Your Target Audience

When it comes to B2C copywriting, you can normally take a fairly straightforward approach. When a consumer starts looking to make an online purchase, they have a pretty clear idea of what they want. However, when it comes to B2B visitors, there are many times when they aren’t completely sure of what they need. They have a problem that needs fixed, but there is a strong chance that even if there is a clear cut solution, they may not know about it. Therefore, the best B2B SEOs are those who can get inside the head of their target audience and fully understand what their problems are, what they need and the approach they will take to finding their solution.

B2B Customers Don’t Purchase Instantly

Although most B2C customers do some form of research before making an online purchase, it doesn’t come close to comparing to the decision making process most B2B prospects will go through. Whereas a B2C customer may make a decision in a matter of minutes or hours, a B2B customer can take days, weeks or even months. Therefore, it’s important to ensure your website has all the information a B2B customer needs. If your website is thin on content, you can almost guarantee that you will have a hard time converting B2B leads into customers. Additionally, having a large amount of quality content can attract lots of long-tail inquiries, since (as described in the first tip) many B2B customers take an indirect route to solving their problem.

All Keywords are Not Created Equal

Although this is the last on the list of tips, this point is arguably the most important for B2B SEOs. If you are doing B2B SEO, it’s important to understand that one keyword can have multiple meanings. Therefore, you may think a keyword you want to target has a lot of traffic, but in reality most of the traffic is from B2C customers looking for a product or service other than what you are offering. The most important thing you can do to find keywords that are truly related to what you are selling is by talking to customers. By asking them about how they would describe their problem and solution and getting concrete keywords from them, you can begin developing your keyword strategy. B2B SEO is a long-term effort, so it’s your responsibility to stay on top of the efforts and ensure you are making the most of your keyword targeting and link building efforts.