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B2B SEO Best Practices – Keyword Research, International SEO, and More

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Connor Gillivan

7x Founder (Exit in 2019) | Co-founder, CMO of TrioSEO

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Steven Schneider
Steven Schneider
Steven is the Co-founder & CEO of TrioSEO. His background is in large-scale blogging where he co-owned 40 websites, managed 400 articles monthly, and helped grow the portfolio to 7-figures within 3 years. Follow him on LinkedIn for daily tips, tricks, and SEO strategies.
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Table of Contents

Did you know that 2 of 3 B2B buyers search for products online before deciding?

With many potential clients turning to search engines, optimizing your B2B website for SEO is more crucial than ever. An SEO-optimized website usually ranks higher, increasing your brand’s visibility to your target audience.

This blog will discuss the essential strategies and best practices for B2B SEO to help you attract and convert potential leads.

TL;DR – B2B SEO Best Practices

Are you pressed for time? We’’ll quickly summarize the B2B SEO best practices, which we’ll go into more detail later.

  1. Build in-depth buyer personas
  2. Focus on relevant keywords
  3. Craft thought leadership content
  4. Develop a strong backlink profile

Maximizing the impact of these strategies often calls for the guidance of an experienced team.

At TrioSEO, we have 10+ years of expertise in SEO, which we can leverage to help you increase organic traffic and attract valuable leads.

We attribute our success to our tried-and-tested strategies, which involve targeted B2B keyword research and effective content creation, among other things.

Maximize your reach and start using our B2B SEO services!

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What is B2B SEO?

B2B SEO optimizes a company’s online presence to attract and engage other businesses rather than individual consumers.

It involves creating in-depth and authoritative content, targeting industry-specific keywords, and other SEO practices to enhance performance.

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B2B SEO vs. B2C SEO

B2B and B2C SEO each target different audiences, requiring tailored strategies to be effective. Let’s compare these two to better understand them:

Characteristic B2B SEO B2C SEO
Target Audience Businesses, decision-makers, and professionals Individual consumers
Keywords Industry-specific keywords with lower search volumes High-volume keywords with general appeal
Content Type Mainly educational content (e.g. whitepapers, industry reports, and case studies) Mainly product pages, reviews, videos
Content Tone Professional, authoritative, formal Persuasive, casual
Buying Cycles Long sales cycle due to multiple-decision makers involved Short sales cycle

Importance of SEO for B2B Companies

The importance of B2B SEO cannot be overstated, but why is this so? We’ll explore the three key reasons:

  • Improved visibility: SEO boosts your site’s visibility by optimizing for relevant keywords, enhancing site structure, and aligning content with the audience’s interests.
  • Higher quality leads: Effective B2B SEO targets keywords that attract leads who are genuinely interested in your solutions. In this case, leads are more likely to convert.
  • Enhanced credibility: Achieving top rankings on search engine results pages indicates that your site is credible. Potential clients will then gain a positive perception of your company.

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4 Key Elements of B2B SEO

In B2B SEO, four key elements play an important role in ensuring your website ranks well, attracts relevant leads, and converts visitors into leads.

1. Technical SEO

Core elements of technical SEO include site speed, mobile-friendliness, and site structure.

While these elements often are found behind the scenes, they determine the success of your B2B SEO strategy. For instance, visitors can quickly leave and go to another site if your website is slow or doesn’t work on mobile.

2. On-Page SEO

On-page SEO techniques optimize your site’s pages to attract relevant traffic. The optimization includes images, links (internal and external), meta elements, and headings.

Prioritizing on-page SEO helps search engines identify whether your website is relevant to potential clients’ search queries.

3. Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO is another key element that isn’t visible to visitors, where you build high-quality backlinks and craft guest posts.

By focusing on these, you position your B2B website as authoritative. Remember that search engines reward high-authority websites, so off-page SEO isn’t something you should overlook.

4. Content SEO

Lastly, content SEO covers creating and optimizing your website’s content. It involves writing high-quality, relevant content that addresses your audience’s interests and pain points.

By aligning your content with what your audience searches for, you make your site more relevant — thereby increasing reader engagement and improving rankings.

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How to Find B2B SEO Keywords

Finding the right B2B SEO keywords is crucial for driving targeted traffic and attracting qualified leads to your business. 

Here’s a quick overview of the process of uncovering valuable B2B SEO keywords:

  1. Use keyword research tools
  2. Identify industry-specific terms
  3. Discover what keywords your competitors use
  4. Analyze customer feedback and queries for more keyword ideas
  5. Examine rising trends in your industry

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B2B SEO Best Practices

Implementing the best B2B SEO practices is vital to leave a mark on search engines. Here are some strategies to guide you:

1. Create In-Depth Buyer Personas

Building buyer personas involves creating profiles of your ideal customer by analyzing data from customer interactions.

This process includes identifying characteristics such as job title, industry, pain points, behavior, and preferences.

2. Focus on Relevant Keywords

Channel your SEO efforts with proper keyword research. Some of these keywords include:

Keyword Type Example Suited For
Products/Services “Inventory management software for SMEs” B2B companies that offer a unique product
Problem/Solution “How to manage remote teams” Most B2B companies
Superlatives “Best accounting software for small businesses” B2B companies in highly competitive industries
Reviews “Customer review of [product]” B2B companies with good name recall

Note that this is not an exhaustive list of keywords you should use. 

To further refine your strategy, consider using long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific phrases with a clear intent. We illustrated this in our example above, where we used “inventory management software for SMEs” instead of “inventory management software.”

3. Craft Thought Leadership Content

Your clients seek expertise in the solutions they seek. The best way to showcase that is to create content that showcases thought leadership.

You should discuss emerging trends, practical solutions, and other groundbreaking innovations in your industry.

Deliver valuable, insightful content through long-form articles or case studies so you can influence key decision-makers and build your brand reputation.

4. Develop a Strong Backlink Profile

Securing high-quality backlinks is essential for boosting your rankings. Backlinks from other websites signal that your website is reliable.

Some strategies to achieve this include growing your professional network, guest posting, and creating original content that other websites would link to.

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International B2B SEO Tips and Techniques

You must know the best international B2B SEO techniques if your offerings cater to a global audience. Take note of the following:

Focus on Languages

While targeting specific countries can yield good results, focusing on languages can also be effective.

For example, targeting the Spanish language itself rather than Spain. What makes this effective? You include other Spanish-speaking countries that can read your content, like Mexico, Argentina, and other Latin American countries.

To achieve this on the technical side, utilize language-specific keywords and ‘hreflang’ tags to cater to diverse audiences.

Get Accurate Translations

While machine translations may seem simpler, they won’t yield the best results. When you’re creating content for a multilingual audience, you need accuracy.

In their current state, machines do not capture language nuances the same way human speakers do. Your best bet for crafting content for wider audiences is to hire a fluent speaker of the target language.

Not only does this ensure accuracy, but also it makes your content more culturally relevant.

Adapt to Local Search Trends

Search trends, language nuances, and user preferences vary between regions. 

For instance, the smartphone adoption rate in the Asia-Pacific region can rise to 94% by 2030, so optimizing your content for smartphones should rank high among your priorities for this audience.

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List of B2B SEO Tools You Must Try

The right tools in your SEO toolbox are essential for boosting your rankings. 

Here are some examples of B2B SEO tools you must try to upgrade your strategy: 

Semrush

Semrush offers a comprehensive set of tools that can bolster your SEO strategy. Tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, on-page SEO, and competitor analysis can enhance your website’s performance.

It particularly excels in rank tracking as Semrush updates your tracked keywords daily. The keyword tracking tool, Position Tracking, also lets you automate progress reports and set custom notifications for ranking changes.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs provides industry-leading tools, including keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audits — making it an excellent choice for any B2B company.

Its standout feature is the Site Explorer, a robust tool for competitor analysis. The Site Explorer helps you analyze your competitors’ organic traffic, backlink profile, website structure, and paid traffic performance.

Additionally, the tool reveals the keywords your competitors rank for and how much traffic the keywords drive to their sites.

While both are excellent tools, using them to their full potential requires expertise and experience.

With TrioSEO’s 10+ years of experience in B2B SEO, we offer various SEO services from content creation to keyword research — all tailored to your B2B company’s requirements.

We provide personalized strategies to meet our clients’ needs and have successfully scaled businesses to 6, 7, and 8 figures.

Jumpstart your success with our expert B2B SEO services.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

In this FAQ section, we’ll address the most common questions on B2B SEO best practices to optimize your strategy further:

Is SEO Effective for B2B Brands?

Yes. About 23% of B2B marketers claim that organic search is one of the most effective digital marketing channels for driving revenue.

Hence, prioritizing SEO can attract more qualified leads, increasing conversions.

What Are the Major B2B SEO Trends?

To stay ahead of the competition, you must keep in mind the following B2B SEO trends:

  • Human-Written Content: The increasing demand for human-written content stems from its authenticity and ability to engage readers.
  • Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT): Search engines, especially Google, will continue to favor content that showcases knowledge, credibility, and reliability.
  • Mobile-Friendliness: Google highly recommends creating a site optimized for mobile devices, as mobile-first indexing will continue to play a role in your performance.

What is the Best SEO Approach for a B2B Business?

The best SEO approach involves a mix of effective SEO techniques:

  • Understanding your audience
  • Crafting content that addresses pain points
  • Building authority
  • Optimizing on-page elements
  • Researching relevant keywords

Conclusion

An excellent B2B SEO strategy entails using tools for in-depth keyword research, competitor analysis, and other techniques. These strategies can expand your digital reach locally and globally.

Don’t want to do the heavy lifting yourself? TrioSEO’s team of experts, backed by 10+ years of experience, can craft SEO strategies that boost your site’s organic traffic and generate targeted leads.

Our services include crafting relevant B2B content, conducting in-depth keyword research, optimizing on-site elements, and more.

Let’s boost your online visibility with our personalized B2B SEO services!

TrioSEO - Steven Schneider

Steven Schneider

Co-founder, CEO of TrioSEO

Looking for a 100% hands-off solution to drive high-intent traffic to your website? We’ll cover everything from A-Z: strategy, writing, editing, uploading, analytics, and more. 

Get started and our team will conduct a free SEO audit to outline opportunities and low-hanging wins.

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