How B2B SEO Can Generates Leads to Your Business

Do you want to know how B2B SEO can generate more leads for your business? Most B2B marketers understand that SEO is valuable but hesitate to undertake it because of time and budget constraints or just plain not knowing where to start. But can you afford to skip SEO? Most likely not, according to certain stats:

• 61% of B2B decision-makers begin the decision-making process with a web search. (Demand Gen Report)
• 77% of B2B buyers say they won’t even speak to a salesperson until they’ve done their research. (CEB)
• B2B brands that blog produce 67% more leads per month than those that don’t. (Social Media B2B)

SEO can make one of the most significant impacts on lead generation and can easily be one of the most cost-effective channels for new lead acquisition. So, it’s time to get off the fence and perform SEO as a priority in your company.

How B2B SEO Generates Leads? 

Search Results for Various B2B Terms Aren’t Crowded Yet 

While SEO competition in buyer marketing is at its height, the hesitation that B2B marketers face when it comes to SEO is why the brands that use it have a strategic advantage.

More importantly, big B2Bs often don’t employ SEO aggressively. DuPont, for instance, shows up at the bottom of page 2 for the keyword search silicone lubricant (bottom of page 3 in my experiment). While that may not necessarily spoil them, considering that companies with higher SEO rankings are almost definitely selling more products and making sales directly, utilizing SEO with content marketing can make their brand more visible.

How do you determine what your rankings are? Start by considering the playing field on Google with a depersonalized Google search for some key terms or phrases for your industry or questions that your sales team frequently asks. You may have Googled your brand (or yourself, we all do it) before, but hold in mind that Google personalizes search results based on your search history, location, and more, which can skew the results. A depersonalized search strips those choices and lets you see the results that your audience is more likely to see.

Once you’ve removed personalization choices, look at where your brand shows up in the search results compared to your top competitors. Is anyone answering your prospect’s and customers’ common questions online? Are those answers authoritative, precise, detailed, and helpful? If you can be among the first to answer their questions—and answer them well—you can capitalize on a vast opportunity and put a (potentially long-term) stake in the ground for SEO.

SEO Can Significantly Improve the Value of Every Content Effort

Done right, your content helps your customers build trust and confidence in your business. For B2B specifically, your customers want to know that the vendors they work with know their stuff, are reliable, and can be trusted.

If you are already building content online, SEO can significantly increase the value of every content asset you have already created and every new content asset. Without combining content production with SEO, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd.

Some of your initial considerations should include:

• Keywords: The search phrases on each level of decision-making will be different. On the initial level, searchers may make extensive requests, such as “shipping companies in the Northeast,” while other users may search for more exact keywords to meet certain specifications.
• User intent: Google’s algorithms are good enough now that keywords are almost useless without considering the user’s intent. Do they want to buy or learn? Build content that answers the question behind the keyword.
• Content-type: Understand who your audience is and then create the correct type of content for them. For instance, practitioners are more likely to be grabbed by a video, infographic, or ebook—something that explains the basic concepts. At the same time, CEOs and managers may be more willing to exchange email addresses for whitepapers.

Remember that all of the above will differ for every decision-maker. What attracts the attention of a department manager trying to influence his boss will likely not be the deep resource that the CMO is looking for as she plans for the following year.

The Value (and Probability) of Mobile for B2B

Mobile can and does covert, although at times obliquely—and mobile traffic is spiking. Buyers are starting to use mobile in the workplace further often than they use laptops or desktop computers, according to eMarketer. That includes people on purchasing teams.

The demographic of your customers are getting younger, and they use mobile at an increasing rate, even at the office. Your B2B marketing strategy should reconsider that, not only because it’s the way of the foreseeable future, but because it’s an opportunity to be among the first to reach that demographic where they’re most comfortable.

How does mobile optimization differ from the search on a system?

• Long-tail keywords are even more important on mobile. Mobile users are more likely to search by voice, using a full sentence that’s conversationally structured. Work direct answers to possible questions into your content whenever possible.
• Faster load times and, of course, a mobile-friendly user experience is required.
• CTAs require to be easily accessible by users and their thumbs. That means buttons require to be big enough, phone numbers should be tappable, and forms should be as short as possible.

Another reason mobile is so important is that it’s in use at all times of the day or night, not just through business hours. Without mobile optimization, you can miss out on potential customers who are researching during off-hours—especially when you consider that mobile users are likely to click through on several high-ranked results, as reported by a Mediative study.

Now is the time to use the lack of B2B SEO saturation to your support, to make the most out of your content marketing strategies, and optimize for mobile users. If you neglect mobile SEO, your competitors who do use it will make the brand impressions. That’s a lot to lose out on.