For years, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was primarily aimed at B2C, but that’s not the case anymore. With increasing use of Internet searches in business purchases, SEO is now just as valuable for B2B sales groups as well. If you hadn’t previously been using SEO strategies in building your website, it’s time to change strategies.
Simply put, SEO is about creating website content that’s designed to place as highly on Google searches (and other search engines) as possible. While the specifics of SEO may change from year to year, the core theory has become quite stable – and that means it’s easy for almost any website to implement working SEO strategies.
Yes, everyone has a blog, but there’s a reason for that: There is simply no more effective, and more cost-effective, way of improving your search engine placement. Search engines prioritize websites which are updated frequently, and blogs are cheap to write – or have written for you.
Further, they can be highly effective in attracting leads. By posting articles on topics which are relevant to your target audience(s), you increase the likelihood of them discovering your website while running web searches.
Your blog should mostly be used for less-important material, articles intended to act as “bait” to draw in new visitors. The longer and more substantial content should be put on a separate page, generally referred to as a “library” or “resources.” There will be fewer pieces of content here, but it should be of higher quality.
Also, content should be gated so that the visitor has to provide personal information to gain access – usually contact information, like their email address. This allows you to turn your resources page into a lead-generation tool.
How do you know what type of content to put on your website? By targeting words and phrases that your audience is already searching for. They search for information, and you provide it. In particular, try to target common questions being asked by your audience.
Keyword research can become a complicated topic, but fortunately, Google has an easy-to-use tool to get you started.
Whenever possible, try to keep your article titles under 60 characters. That’s the maximum length of a title within Google search, so anything past 60 characters will be cut off when people search.
Meta descriptions are a brief summary of a piece of content, which shows up directly below the title in search results. This should be where you briefly (<160 characters) pitch why someone would want to click on a link.
You don’t only want people discovering your site via search – you also want them to share your articles on social media! Be sure to incorporate buttons for sharing on popular social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Also, try to make your content entertaining enough that people want to share it in the first place!
Since 2010, ALM Corp. has been a leading global provider of B2B SEO Services and other online marketing. Contact us to discuss your digital marketing options.
