B2B SEO - more success with the right strategy

Do you have an online store for business customers and want to achieve better organic search engine rankings? Or do you want your company website to generate more inquiries and orders in the B2B sector? Then it’s time for B2B SEO. We show you what to look for in search engine optimization for business customers.

The SEO basics for B2B

Before you rack your brains over which SEO strategy is best for B2B, you can be sure of one thing: The SEO basics apply to B2B just as they do to B2C. So keep in mind:

• You optimize your website primarily for your B2B customers and prospects, not for search engines. Whatever is good for your target group and users is also good for Google & Co. in the next step.
• Make sure that your website is technically flawless. That’s the only way to ensure that your content is found and crawled and that it can be ranked at all.
• Create a perfect user experience and offer unique content with added value. In the long run, this will be the best way to achieve good rankings and convince your users of the value of your offer or services.

If you take these three aspects into account, you have already done a lot of things right in B2B SEO.

 

For the technical SEO of your B2B website this means in particular:

• Ensure short loading times. Pay special attention to the Core Web Vitals. They help you to achieve speed and better performance.
• Create a secure website by using an SSL certificate. Trust plays a key role in B2B business success. SSL encryption is not only a Google ranking factor, but also a confidence booster for new customers.
• Make sure your website can be indexed. Are all important directories crawlable?
  → Check the robots.txt to find out. Have you submitted all important URLs of your website to Google?
  → Store an XML sitemap in the Google Search Console. Of course, the sitemap is no guarantee for the indexation of your URLs. However, you will receive important insights about the indexation status via the Google Search Console if you have submitted a sitemap.
• Does your web design approach follow “mobile first“? Google crawls mainly the mobile version of your website. And of course, over 50 percent of your users will access your web content on their smartphones first.

In short: The basic SEO rules for your B2B website are the same as for any other website. However, there are differences between B2B and B2C in terms of SEO, which we will now show and explain.

Why is B2B SEO not the same as B2C SEO?

Private customers usually have different requirements than business customers. This simple insight leads to significant differences to B2C, especially in the content field and in the focus of your B2B content.

As in B2C, the aspect of “trust” plays an important role in B2B. Trustworthiness” is a part of the so-called E-A-T criteria, which are decisive for Google for high-quality content.

Important differences in B2B compared to B2C websites

1. Your B2B content usually focuses on information and appeals less to emotions.

For example, if you run an online fashion store, you will not just optimize content about pants and tops based on keyword research, but also address your target group in the appropriate tone of voice. In B2B, content is more fact-oriented. A B2B online store for fashion will therefore focus more on material properties or specials such as graduated prices and delivery times.

Figure 1: The B2B product page contains product data sheets, information about the warehouse, etc.

 

2. B2B content is usually aimed at decision-makers and not at a broad audience. 

For example, if you offer your services to private customers, you want to convince as many people as possible with your content and may have to be longer with descriptions or definitions. Decision-makers, on the other hand, are already familiar with the subject matter. They need less background information and more straightforward facts instead.

3. Keywords in the B2B area often have a low search volume.

This point cannot be transferred 1:1 to all B2B websites. Nevertheless, it is more likely that you optimize your content in a keyword niche anyway. Therefore, content optimization in B2B, for example, should be less oriented towards search volume and instead focus more on user intent. As a result, you should increasingly consider what questions a B2B customer has about your offer. Answer these questions in your content, without only paying attention to the search volume of keywords.

An example: You are a medium-sized machine manufacturer and produce components for drawers. In this case, you will hardly want to rank for “desk” or “shelf”, nor is there sufficient search volume for the combination “components for shelves” or similar. If you focus your content on solving the problems of your target group instead, you can reach exactly the users you need in Google search via the long tail. If only ten potential customers come to you via Google search per month and only two orders are generated per half year, the optimization has paid off. In contrast to B2C websites, the B2B sector usually involves higher order volumes or “shopping baskets”.

What you should keep in mind if your website addresses B2B customers

As already mentioned, B2B is about trust and reliability. Therefore, it is all the more important that your website is technically flawless. At the same time, decision-makers usually only have a limited amount of time. Unlike private customers, who simply “browse” the web and let themselves float around, business customers want to reach their goal quickly.

Therefore, make user experience a priority in your B2B SEO strategy. The goal should be for your target group to find the information or content they need as quickly as possible and without long detours.

Which means in practice:

• It’s best to refrain from hiding content behind a login or registration. Of course, there are often arguments saying that competitors would otherwise be able to monitor prices or offers too easily. But that is something they can do after registration anyway. If you make important content available to users, it can be crawled more easily by Google and other search engines.
• Make price lists or offers responsive and avoid e.g. PDF files that are offered for download in a hidden location. Ideally, these should only be an additional offer. For instance, have you ever tried to read a PDF file on your smartphone? This can be very exhausting, especially with longer lists.
• Create a simple navigation with a comprehensible hierarchy. Make sure to keep the directory depth below three. This way you can make sure that every section of your website can be reached in a maximum of three clicks.

Keep it simple for your customers, potential customers and interested parties. From an SEO point of view, this also includes offering quick and simple contact options.

At this point you will surely realize that B2B SEO as well as sustainable search engine optimization in general is very much about user-friendliness. For example, offer your visitors simple inquiry forms on your B2B page or set up a chat where questions about offers or prices can be answered quickly.

How to find the right content and keywords for my B2B target group?

We already mentioned the E-A-T criteria. In addition to the trustworthiness of a website, the areas of “expertise” and “authority” also play an important role for Google.

For your B2B content, this means that you should demonstrate your expertise, for example, through expert articles in a corporate blog or by carefully explaining your product portfolio. This is especially important for products or innovations that require extensive explanation. Create your content in a way that leaves no questions unanswered.

Of course you can also work with a glossary or wiki. However, at this point you should always ask yourself about the economic efficiency and the actual benefit for your target group.

An example: You produce screws for the industry. In this case, a glossary about the different types of screws would rather lead in the wrong direction. After all, you want to reach professional end customers and not provide valuable input for an upcoming student presentation.

However, a glossary can be helpful if, for example, you use a kind of “vocabulary” of your own for your products and these terms are in need of explanation.

By the way, you can also get ideas for your B2B content by talking to your customers or through their suggestions. Your target group usually knows their problems very well and is looking for solutions. For example, take up some of these problems on your website and give possible solutions. These can then become a starting point for an inquiry or a sales pitch if someone has come to your site via this content.

Local SEO as a booster for regional players in B2B

An important question you have to ask yourself in B2B: What is the reach of your offer? Do you want to address target groups across regions or countries?

If it is “only” about regionality, local SEO plays a role for your B2B SEO.

Which factors are important in this context?

• Establish regional references with your content.
• Use Google My Business to maintain the chance of getting into the Google Local Pack of organic search results.
• Make sure to always provide the same NAP data on all pages on the web, as your company name, company address and contact details remain consistent.

Figure 2: For B2B companies with a regional focus optimization for the Local Pack can be an additional lever

Local SEO offers the advantage for locally operating companies in the B2B sector of having smaller competition and thus a greater chance of achieving good rankings in the local search results.

B2B SEO – a matter of the target group

As you may have noticed, in B2B SEO, dealing with the target group plays an even more important role than in B2C. This is because you are addressing a much smaller group of people with your content, and these people usually already have some prior knowledge.

So it’s more important than ever to gain trust. And in B2B, you accomplish that first and foremost with expertise. In addition to a technically excellent, fast website and perfect usability with short click paths, you should place great value on your content, keeping less focus on keywords and more on open questions that your potential customers might have about your products or services.