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We Want to Share What Strategies Really Work When it Comes to SEO for B2B Companies
If you’re a B2B company and wondering why the SEO strategy an agency implemented 5 years ago still isn’t working, we’re here to help you catch up. Search engine optimization isn’t a one-and-done type of tactic; it requires ongoing maintenance and pivoting to adapt to a changing search environment. And for B2B companies, building an SEO strategy correctly from the start is the difference between a website that generates a pipeline of qualified leads and one that just exists invisibly.
Our B2B SEO agency wants to make sure the strategies you implement actually move the needle and help you get more leads and requests for quotes in the door. Keep on reading to learn more from our guide that covers what business-to-business search engine optimization is, what it should involve, how it differs from other approaches, and what you should focus on to see meaningful results.
Let’s Start with the Basics: What is B2B SEO?
Business-to-business search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing your web presence to attract and convert the decision-makers and buying committees who are looking for the products or services your company provides. It’s rooted in the same core principles as any other SEO discipline, but the audience, the buying cycle, and the content strategy look very different.
Four main types of SEO you should know about before crafting your strategy include:
- Off-page SEO covers everything done to enhance your web presence outside of your own website — things like link building, citation management, and directory profile creation.
- On-page SEO focuses on your own site and the direct changes you can make to it to improve search engine rankings. This includes content, headers, metadata, videos, internal links, and images.
- Technical SEO looks at factors like site loading speed, image sizes and formats, page redirect structure, and overall user experience.
- Local SEO focuses on getting you to rank higher in specific geographic areas, primarily through your Google Business Profile and location-based strategies.
How to Start Crafting a Business-to-Business SEO Strategy
Now that we’ve gone over some basics, let’s get into the various components you should include in your B2B marketing strategy to help build your business.
Keywords
Start by Targeting Terms Your Buyers Are Actually Searching For
For most B2B keyword strategies, it won’t be about chasing broad high-volume terms. Your approach should be about finding the niche, long-tail queries that your buyers search when they’re actively looking for what you offer. Create different buckets of keywords to incorporate into your content, such as:
- Awareness/research – The who/what/when types.
- Consideration – “[niche] services” for “industry.”
- Decision – “Service vs. [DIY option]” or “[Product] pricing.”
To get started, we suggest trying these three free tools Google offers that can help you build and refine your keyword strategy:
- Google Keyword Planner requires a Google Ads account but doesn’t require active ad spend to access search volume data, which can help you see interest and opportunities.
- Google Trends can help you understand queries gaining or losing popularity and is great for gauging peak demand periods and seasonality, even based on location.
- Google Search Console is a great way to see what search queries directly lead to clicks to your website and even allows you to segment these searches using various filters for a quick analysis.
Backlinks
Link Building Your Brand’s Authority
Getting links from other authoritative websites remains one of the tried and true SEO fundamentals, and they’re equally important for establishing the kind of credibility that AI search tools use when determining which sources to reference.
The challenge with link building is that the days of being able to buy links in mass and not get in trouble from Google are long gone. High-quality link building tactics take time and real effort. A few strategies you should consider include:
- Listing your business in reputable industry directories (ex, ThomasNet) and maintaining complete, consistent profiles across them
- Identifying unlinked mentions of your brand, products, or team members across the web and requesting that those sites add a link
- Contributing content to industry publications that accept bylined articles, earning a link through your author bio or in the article itself
- Using digital PR platforms like Qwoted, Featured, MentionMatch, or HARO to provide expert commentary in exchange for links
- Pursuing trade association and chamber of commerce memberships for profile listings
Blog Content
Write for Real Buyers, Not Just Search Engines or AI Platforms
The B2B blogs that consistently perform best in search (and are likely getting cited in AI-generated answers) are using their blog to answer the questions that buyers are asking. (Hint, hint, you can find those kinds of questions using the keyword research options we went over earlier.)
Google’s own resources continue to reinforce the importance of helpful, experience-driven, expert content. Some ideas on content you can craft to meet this goal would be the following:
- Timely article about upcoming or emerging industry trends, new regulatory changes that impact your industry, or shifts your team is seeing in best practices that affect your buyers.
- How-to content that walks readers through solving a problem your company helps address. Keep these not super salesy, even if the solution would ultimately lead to hiring you.
- Evergreen guides on high-level topics within your niche, updated periodically to reflect new information. (Ex: the very blog post you are reading!)
- Posts that answer questions your sales team hears regularly that you can internally link from your product/service pages.
- Case studies and spotlights that show how customers can use your products or services. These would include your own original data, statistics, or research that other publications will want to link to.
Service and Product Pages
They Need Way More than a Few Photos and Sentences to Get More RFQs
Your “money pages” should be more than just a page with a form on it. Keep in mind these pages are often the first impression a buyer has of your company. Ask yourself this: Do these pages offer real value, or are they just a digitized brochure page? Or is it one that just appears optimized for a single keyword but has nothing of substance?
Build your pages to be genuinely informative, and include all the things you’d want to know if you were the customer. This includes supplement descriptions, photos, benefits, key uses, real testimonials, and maybe even baseline pricing if you are able.
The goal is that your product and services pages should be such that a potential customer could read it and then fill out your form completely informed and ready to buy.
So, Why Do B2B Sites Need SEO? It Helps Bridge the Gap in a World of Robotic AI Agents
Organic search has always been one of the best channels for businesses to get leads, but its importance has grown considerably with the rise of AI search. However, it’s important you don’t give in to quick gimmicks that promote immediate results, or you can become a victim of what some SEO experts are now calling “Mt. AI.”
When B2B SEO is done well, it’s a long game, but it’s one that can bring big returns on investment. But to really help sell it to you, here are some things that a properly executed SEO strategy can actually do for your business:
It can put you in front of qualified searchers at the right moment
B2B buyers aren’t in the business of making impulsive purchases. Since they usually need super-specialized products or services, they research extensively before filling out any forms. SEO can help make sure that your company is front and center during that research phase, whether it be on Bing, Claude, or in a ranked list article on a directory site.
It builds brand authority that AI search tools look for
While we still don’t know everything about how AI works, we can see for ourselves that when AI presents answers, it cites the exact sources they’re reading. This is a cheatsheet on where your website needs to be seen and what types of websites are doing well in AI search. In most cases, they’re finding the websites they cite due to SEO fundamentals like we’ve shared above, as when your site can rank well in traditional search, it also becomes a source these AI tools pull from when answering user queries.
It can drive long-lasting results with time
While B2B paid advertising can drive great results, with SEO, your traffic doesn’t stop the moment you use up all your budget. Organic visibility on search engines accumulates over time and can last a long time when you abide by the right approaches. A well-optimized page published today can continue generating qualified traffic months or years from now. But Google likes to change its algorithm often, so you still need to keep an eye on what’s ranking and make sure you stay in line.
