Digital store? SEO is the solution to your problems.
If you own or run a B2B eCommerce store, you must have heard about SEO – something that magically makes more and more people visit your site. Well, it’s not magic. These are the optimizations that you make to your website and its content to rank your site better when someone searches for something related to what you sell.
To help you achieve that, we bring you the ultimate beginner’s guide to B2B eCommerce SEO that every B2B digital store should know.
Let’s begin. Shall we?
What is SEO?
Let’s start with understanding SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving the chances of your website or a page ranking better on the SERP – Search Engine Results Page. As you already know, search engines mostly refer to Google, even though there are others in the market.
SEO involves lots of processes that increase your website’s visibility on the web. It involves processes like targeting the right keywords, adding quality content with these keywords, optimizing simple things like the headings and images, building links, improving your page speed, etc.
Why do you need B2B SEO?
If you think you get most of your customers by word of mouth and hence don’t need SEO, then you are wrong. Even though you get a lot of customers with word-of-mouth publicity, how many of them remember your website address? Also, what happens when they google your company name and don’t get your website on the search engine results page? Worse, they might get the sites of your competitors (you all will have similar keywords) and you will lose your customers to them.
When you optimize your website and its content, you get more people to your website. They can be either someone looking to buy a product or service that you offer or someone researching for some information who reads your blog. The latter might explore your website further and end up buying your product or service.
Business is all about solving people’s problems through your products and services. In this digital age, almost everyone first looks for a solution on the internet. If your SEO is good and your keywords match what they are searching for, then your blog, product, or service page might end up on the first page of SERP. And voila, you have a new potential customer.
Now that you are aware of the importance of SEO, let’s move on to actually doing it.
How to choose the right keywords?
Keyword research is the most important part of B2B SEO strategy. A keyword is nothing but the search query that a user types in a search engine. If you want your website to be ranked when the relevant keywords are typed, you need to first understand what people are searching for. Keyword research is all about researching to find the right keywords to include in your website and its content.
Types of Keywords
Whenever a user types a keyword, there is always an intention behind it. It can be broadly classified as
Search intent –
The user is looking for some information related to a product, service, or something in your industry.
Buyer intent –
The user specifically wants to buy a type of product or service. Sometimes, a particular product.
As you might have already guessed, you need to optimize your content around the buyer intent keywords. You can also target some search intent keywords through your blog. Because they generate traffic – leads that can be converted to customers in the future.
When it comes to keywords, it can be either a single word or a group of words. You call them short-tail keywords (1-3 words) and long-tail keywords (more than 3 words). Try to target more long-tail keywords because these are more specific and easier to optimize. Also, such users usually have buyer intent.
Keyword research
Here are some effective ways to perform keyword research.
Google suggestions
Remember every time you start typing something on the Google search bar, it suggests some possible searches that may complete your word or sentence? It is not playing some guess the word game. Rather it is giving you the top search queries that users search for. Also, if you scroll down to the bottom of the SERP, you will find 8-10 similar searches. Now you have some additional keywords. You can try the same on Amazon as well.
Keyword Research tools
Another way to perform keyword research is to use tools like:
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- SEMRush
- Google Keyword Planner
- Google Search Console
- Ubersuggest
- KeywordTool.io
- Keywords Everywhere and many more.
Don’t forget to organize all the target keywords in a spreadsheet along with the search score.
Create SEO friendly content
So, now you have a bunch of keywords. What’s next? You need to create SEO-friendly content around these words for your B2B digital store. One way to do this is with blogs.
Target the right audience
When ranking your page, Google considers more than just the number of keywords placed. It considers user engagement too. It tracks the interactions with a piece of content like the number of people who have opened the page, how many have read it fully, how many have commented on that particular post, number of likes and shares on social media, etc.
If you want more people to click on your website’s link on the results page and engage with them, you need to target the right kind of audience. You need to create content that resonates with your target audience. Because they not only interact with the content but start to like and trust your brand. This will increase their chances of buying from you thus increasing your sales.
Write blogs that provide value
When you write an article, be sure to write on topics that users are searching for (keyword research). That doesn’t mean you stuff all keywords into the article. Because keyword stuffing and over-optimizing your content affect your ranking negatively.
Always provide value for your readers. Because it will build trust, authenticity, and credibility that increases the chances of conversion. Write on topics related to your industry. You can find out the common problems your readers face during keyword research. Provide solutions for them.
Create different types of Content
Creating SEO-friendly content is not limited to your blogs. You can create checklists, tutorials, templates, ebooks, videos, infographics, etc. And don’t forget to share them and create engagement on social media. Because Google considers the number of shares of your webpage (content) on social media for SEO ranking.
Optimize your website
The next important part of our SEO guide is the optimization of your eCommerce store – the website. Wait a minute. Isn’t that what we have been talking about till now? Yes, but B2B SEO strategy is not just about adding the right keywords throughout your website. There are other aspects too.
On-page SEO
The above aspects like keyword research and creating content comes under on-page SEO. It deals with optimizing a particular page by including the right keywords in the headings, title, content body, image alt text, and the page URL.
Don’t forget the meta description of your page – a few words describing that particular page that will be displayed on the SERP along with the content title. You need to include the keywords here too.
Off-page SEO
Another way to build your B2B SEO strategy is by building backlinks. These are the links to your website or a webpage from other websites. You can do this by guest posting on popular blogs, influencer marketing, social media marketing, etc.
Product or Service category SEO
When users are searching with buyer intent, you need your product or service listed on the results page. To achieve that, you need to add your product or service category to your eCommerce store pages. Include them in the product page title, pricing, features, reviews, blogs, etc. Also, include them on other sites that talk about your service or product like in your guest posts and review sites.
Conclusion
We hope our B2B eCommerce SEO guide gives you all the information for you to get started to build your B2B SEO strategy. Remember that right after you implement the right keywords in your website, it just doesn’t rank on the first page of SERP. It takes time. Because you need to keep creating quality content consistently, build backlinks, create engagement, increase social shares, etc. Be patient and you will be rewarded.
