SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving your website’s ranking and visibility in search results on a search engine like Google or Bing. In a digital world where information is abundant, and information searched by a user is readily available on thousands (or even millions) of web pages, it is very crucial to ensure a good search engine ranking, or your website will lose a significant number of potential users. The better the ranking of your webpage, the more users your site will get. A high ranking in search engines also means better trust, more shares, and ultimately better business.
Importance of SEO:-
SEO is so important that it is now an essential part of the marketing campaigns of almost every organization. Considering how more than 5 billion searches are made on Google alone every day, paying attention to SEO is not only important but also an absolute necessity. It’s not that uncommon to see some e-commerce businesses getting more than 80% of their sales through just organic search results and guess their number 1 marketing strategy? It is SEO.
Relevance of SEO:
SEO is relevant in every kind of business with an online presence. The importance of SEO is well recognized in B2C (any e-commerce platform) and C2C (Olx, eBay, etc.), but in the B2B domain, the potential of SEO is often not completely recognized and exploited.
Unique nature and importance of SEO for B2B company:
B2B (Business to Business) is a model where business is conducted between companies instead of a company and consumer (that’s B2C). B2B in simple words are companies catering to their needs or providing services and products to other companies instead of directly serving the consumers.
What’s a good SEO strategy?
A good B2B SEO strategy ensures good ranking and visibility of your website every time someone searches for the services your company provides. Although the fundamentals are the same, B2B SEO strategies are quite different from B2C SEO, and come with their own unique set of challenges since you are selling directly to businesses and not individual consumers.
Effects of generational shift in workplace:
It is also important to consider the generational shift in the workforce that is, the ultimate decision-makers. The new generation is more well-versed with digital technologies and does more and more research about products and services online compared to traditional methods of checking credibility. This surely influences the purchasing decisions and habits of companies involved in the B2B domain.
Why is SEO for B2B Companies unique?
Shedding some more light on how B2B SEO is unique, it is important to understand the key differentiator: the customer.
Unlike normal B2C businesses, B2B consumers have different needs, hence different purchasing habits.
Unlike normal consumers, who look up products they want to buy and then directly choose from available choices, B2B consumers rely more on research and background checks.
In addition, it’s important to consider the amount and intensity of research that goes before purchasing a B2B product compared to a normal B2C product.
Complexity of sales funnel:
This uniqueness and complicated nature of B2B SEO leads to a complex sales funnel. It involves:
- Establishing awareness.
- Building interest.
Which finally leads to action (sale of product or service).
This also makes it important to understand your potential customers as well, to ensure better implementation of SEO strategy.
Most crucial part of sales funnel:
One of the most important and perhaps the most complicated parts of the sales funnel is the choice phase. This is where the consumer chooses the service best for them from several available options. A good SEO works in favor here.
Various studies have demonstrated that the higher a website appears in search results, the more impression it leaves in the mind of the person in terms of confidence and credibility.
Most people don’t even go to the second page of the search results, making high ranking and visibility extremely valuable in organic searches.
Why SEO is essential in B2B companies:
Despite the parties involved being companies and the strategies being a bit complicated, SEO is still necessary for a B2B company for these various reasons:
Companies make decisions based on trust and credibility. A good SEO ensures an online presence and is quite helpful in generating leads.
B2B blogs and guides that genuinely help people spread word of mouth, build trust and directly generate leads.
B2B buyers prefer doing thorough research about the company they want to do business with and the most fundamental part of their research process is searching on the internet.
This makes SEO an essential and non-ignorable part of marketing strategy for a B2B company. This also makes SEO an excellent method to generate new leads and be cost-effective at the same time.
How important is quality of content?
Now as we talk about numbers and stats, let’s also keep in mind the most important factor of SEO: quality of content. Gone are the days when just increasing keywords and generating backlinks decided the SEO. Now, the algorithms of search engines are specially designed in ways to award quality content with better rankings. B2B SEO has primarily two goals:
- Ensuring high ranking and visibility in search results.
- Providing the necessary (and quality) information a researcher might be searching for.
Conclusion:
Instead of looking at SEO as just a marketing strategy to increase search engine rankings, it should also be seen as a means to increase the discoverability of the target audience for your company’s products and services.
SEO for B2B, if done correctly, can build long-term credibility and trust. This results in confident customers who would love to do business again and again with your company. Hence, keeping in mind the target audience, prioritizing SEO is extremely crucial.
