SEO for B2B Companies
I work with B2B businesses across a range of sectors, including professional services, HR and recruitment, sustainability and ESG, industrial automation and manufacturing, corporate apparel and merchandise, energy and other specialist business services.
My B2B clients range from consultancies and specialist service providers to companies selling complex technical solutions to organisations around the world.
My Approach to B2B SEO
B2B search volumes can often look relatively small compared with B2C, but the value of the right search can be significantly higher.
My approach is therefore less about chasing search volume and more about identifying what your potential customers are actually searching for, why they're searching for it and where that search sits within the buying journey.
The priority is to make sure you have the right entry point for the searches that matter most.
First things first, I'll focus on bottom-of-funnel searches with genuine commercial intent.
That means making sure your website has well-optimised pages covering your products or services, individual sub-services or solutions, industries, applications and other commercially important ways potential customers might search for what you provide.
These pages should then be supported by useful informational content addressing the questions, problems and research your audience undertakes earlier in the buying journey.
B2B buying journeys can also be complex. The person researching a solution isn't necessarily the person making the final decision – and technical specialists, procurement teams, senior management and other stakeholders may all be searching for different information.
I'll take these different audiences and stages of the journey into account when researching opportunities and planning content.
And B2B SEO shouldn't exist in a vacuum. Where possible, I'll draw on insights from your sales team, CRM, Account-Based Marketing activity and existing customer conversations to understand the companies you're trying to reach, the problems they're trying to solve and the language they use when researching potential solutions.
My Approach to B2B SEO
B2B search volumes can often look relatively small compared with B2C, but the value of the right search can be significantly higher.
My approach is therefore less about chasing search volume and more about identifying what your potential customers are actually searching for, why they're searching for it and where that search sits within the buying journey.
The priority is to make sure you have the right entry point for the searches that matter most.
First things first, I'll focus on bottom-of-funnel searches with genuine commercial intent.
That means making sure your website has well-optimised pages covering your products or services, individual sub-services or solutions, industries, applications and other commercially important ways potential customers might search for what you provide.
These pages should then be supported by useful informational content addressing the questions, problems and research your audience undertakes earlier in the buying journey.
B2B buying journeys can also be complex. The person researching a solution isn't necessarily the person making the final decision – and technical specialists, procurement teams, senior management and other stakeholders may all be searching for different information.
I'll take these different audiences and stages of the journey into account when researching opportunities and planning content.
And B2B SEO shouldn't exist in a vacuum. Where possible, I'll draw on insights from your sales team, CRM, Account-Based Marketing activity and existing customer conversations to understand the companies you're trying to reach, the problems they're trying to solve and the language they use when researching potential solutions.
Bottom-of-Funnel SEO & Site Architecture
With B2B SEO, relevance and commercial intent are often more important than headline search volume.
A niche search might only happen a relatively small number of times each month, but if the person making that search represents a potential high-value customer, ranking for it can be extremely valuable.
That's why my first priority is identifying the bottom-of-funnel searches that matter to your business and making sure you have the right pages to target them.
Depending on the business, that can mean dedicated product, service, sub-service, solution, application and industry pages, creating highly relevant entry points for the different ways potential customers search for what you provide.
Industries, Use Cases & Case Studies
B2B customers don't always search for the name you've given your product or service. They may search based on their industry, a particular application, a problem they're experiencing or an outcome they're trying to achieve.
I'll identify these different search patterns and determine where dedicated landing pages make sense.
Case studies can be particularly useful here. As well as providing evidence that you can deliver what you're promising, they allow you to demonstrate your experience with particular industries, technologies, applications, problems and outcomes.
The result is a website that doesn't simply describe what you sell, but provides relevant entry points for the different situations in which somebody might need it.
Complex Buyer Journeys & Content Strategy
B2B purchases can involve longer buying cycles and multiple stakeholders, each with different priorities and different questions.
A technical specialist may be interested in capabilities and specifications. Procurement may be researching suppliers and commercial considerations. A senior decision-maker might be interested in outcomes, risk and ROI.
I'll consider these different personas when researching search behaviour and developing your content strategy to create useful entry points for the different people involved in the buying process.
Your core commercial pages should then be supported by strong informational content clusters addressing the questions, problems and research that happen earlier in the journey.
These resources should be organised logically and internally linked with relevant commercial pages, case studies and related content – building topical relevance while naturally moving potential customers towards the solutions you provide.
Sales Insights, Authority & Backlinks
The best B2B SEO insights don't come from SEO tools. Your sales team already knows the questions prospects ask, the objections they raise and the problems that cause them to start looking for a solution. Your CRM and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) activity can provide further insight into the companies and audiences you most want to reach.
Where possible, I'll bring this information into the SEO process, combining search data with real-world sales and customer insights to help determine what content we should create and who it needs to reach.
Authority matters too. I'll look at your wider digital footprint and identify opportunities to earn relevant backlinks through existing partnerships, suppliers, customers, industry organisations, PR, events, sponsorships and other genuine business relationships.
Rather than treating SEO, content, PR and sales as completely separate activities, the aim is to make them work together – helping your company become more visible and authoritative wherever your potential customers are researching their options.
