B2B SEO Services: Are They Worth Your Investment in 2024?

By Arturas Stukalo Updated on March 3, 2024

What is SEO, and What Does It Mean for B2B?

SEO is optimizing your website to rank higher in major search engines like Google. When you rank on the first search engine results pages (SERPs), you can increase organic traffic brand awareness and boost your online visibility.

Doing SEO for your website is not a one-time thing, though. According to Statista, recent shifts in machine learning, third-party cookies, and Google updates could change the SEO landscape. To rank higher or maintain your position on the first page of search engines, you need to continuously optimize your website.

The same thing goes for B2B SEO websites. If you don’t want to miss out on potential engagements and conversions, you must develop your SEO strategy all year.

Whether relying on an in-house marketing team or collaborating with a B2B SEO agency, monitoring and optimizing your website is the way to go.

B2B audience and the importance of precise targeting

Knowing your target audience is just the tip of the iceberg. When doing digital marketing, specifically for B2B, you have to segment your customers to cater to their more specific needs.

You can do this through precision targeting – a modern, data-driven marketing strategy that helps reach relevant people and organizations. Precision targeting provides you with valuable data sets about your audience, including the following:

• Demographics
• Behavioral patterns
• Business pain points
• Organization hierarchy

Typically, B2B audiences turn to Google to find the products or services that best fit their current needs. So, tailoring your messaging and content to specific audience segments could help you land highly qualified leads.

How does B2B SEO differ from B2C SEO?

What sets B2B SEO and B2C SEO apart is their target audience. A B2B campaign aims to cater products to other companies or organizations, while a B2C strategy focuses on individual customers.

When doing search engine marketing or other digital marketing services, there are specific differentiating factors between B2B and B2C. These include the following:

• Audience demographics and pain points
• Keyword research
• Content marketing
• Lead generation

Getting sales-qualified leads for both B2B and B2C takes different forms. Researching these varying SEO strategies in-house or outsourcing them to an expert SEO company is highly recommended for the best campaign results.

Our Tips for Choosing the Best B2B SEO Agency

Focusing on product development while doing your brand of SEO is a difficult thing to do. SEO covers only one aspect of your marketing strategy, which means you have many other tasks to complete.

It’s more efficient to outsource your SEO campaign to a reliable SEO agency, although you must be stringent in choosing who you partner with. Search engine optimization is not a short-term project.

To drive sustainable growth and visibility, you must establish a long-term collaboration with SEO agencies or your trusted SEO company.

Tapping into the professional services of SEO agencies requires a thorough check of this list of criteria:

• Experience: How many businesses have they successfully helped in the past?
• Skills: Are they adept in link-building techniques, inbound marketing, technical SEO practices, and content creation?
• Technical proficiency: What SEO tools do they use for research and measurement?
• Ethical adherence: Do they engage in full white-hat and ethical SEO tactics?
• Support capability:  Do they have a client support team readily available 24/7?

Don’t put your trust in one SEO agency right away. There are SEO agencies like Fortis Media that encourage B2B clients to schedule an initial consulting call. This will help you determine which SEO company best fits your current needs.

Essential Elements of B2B SEO

B2B SEO is more than just content; there are a whole lot of other elements that could boost your Google rankings.

Keyword research and strategy

Once you have navigated through the demographics of your customer base, the next step is to research what keywords you’ll use for your content strategy.

Researching keywords will show you what your customers are searching for, giving you a data-driven insight into your audience’s interests and needs.

If you’re in the process of researching valuable keywords, here are several tips that could help you:

• Aim for long-tail keywords that are more specific and aligned to your brand
• Identify keywords that are ranking for your competitors
• Utilize free or paid SEO tools for researching keywords

Your B2B SEO campaign is better positioned for success when you have the right keywords.

On-page optimization tactics

How do you make your beautifully written content visible on the first page of Google? You do that by enhancing on-page SEO elements, including:

• Heading and subheadings (H1, H2, H3, H4)
• Meta tags (meta titles and meta descriptions)
• Images and their alt tags
• Internal and external links
• URLs
• Schema markup

There’s also the argument on how much you should dive into a keyword-rich content strategy.

Google has already given more weight to informative content rather than keyword-stuffed ones. It’s now recommended to focus on crafting unique content, especially one that addresses the pain points of your customer base.

Optimizing the on-page elements could increase the visibility of your landing pages, product pages, and blog sections.

To make sure that you have everything covered, you could always consult the expertise of a B2B SEO agency.

Off-page SEO and strategic link-building

You need more than fine-tuning your website to increase brand awareness among your niche audience. You must get your name out there in multiple channels and means. This is where your off-page SEO strategy becomes essential.

These off-page elements of your SEO campaign can help bring in more traffic and engagement:

• Link building
• Social media marketing
• Online reviews and feedback
• Influencer marketing
• Brand partnerships and collaborations
• Professional networking

The prerequisite to all these is establishing a trusted brand – after this, positive reviews, linkage opportunities, and brand partnerships will flow.

You should also consider connecting with a B2B SEO agency, as they can expand your digital footprint on different platforms.

Navigating the technical terrain with tech SEO

At one point in your browsing experience, you’ve been annoyed by websites with slow loading speeds and spammy ads. These are examples of technical SEO or web development elements that have been ignored or overlooked.

Don’t make that same mistake. For users to stay longer on your website, optimize these SEO elements:

• Page loading speed
• Mobile responsiveness
• Web development and navigation
• XML Sitemap
• Schema markup
• Canonical tags
• Hreflang tags

If you’re unsure where to start, you can always think of how to make your website easier to access and navigate. You can also request technical SEO audits, one of the SEO consulting services usually offered by a B2B SEO agency.

Benefits of SEO for B2B Businesses: Is It Worth the Investment?

Do you want to create content that will organically drive more traffic to your B2B business? The answer lies in SEO.

Enhanced online visibility and organic traffic

Search engine optimization should be the ultimate driver for your website’s organic traffic. Recent data shows that 53% of website traffic comes from organic search.

When done correctly, your pages could rank first in search engine results. That should be your goal, as the first Google desktop search typically gets an excellent click-through rate of 32%.

When you rank high in Google, you’re not only potentially converting online sales, but you’re also increasing your brand’s authority.

Your B2B customers — potential or existing — will remember the name of your business and will rely on you for future solutions.

Lead generation and conversions

The ultimate goal of your B2B business is to convert leads into actual customers. To do this, you need quality leads that are specifically aligned and relevant to your products and services.

One of the best values of SEO is that it offers quality leads, especially if you have optimized your meta tags and keywords.

When it comes to lead generation and conversions, here are several benefits that SEO services can do for you:

• Targeted traffic for more quality leads
• Local and international SEO for more accurate reach
• Analytics tools to measure your lead gen performance

SEO can help bring your business sustainable, long-term growth, starting with lead generation.

Building brand authority

Building brand authority is not just about launching a great product or service. It could also refer to becoming a reliable source of solutions, even for potential customers who haven’t converted yet.

You can do this by rolling out an educational and relevant content marketing strategy that you can optimize through SEO. Instructional guides, how-to articles, and whitepapers can boost your brand authority and expand your reach into other niche audiences.

Even if you don’t immediately convert your viewers into paying customers, you still get to build a loyal customer base, which is one of the main goals of search marketing.

Measurable impact on ROI

Unlike traditional marketing tactics where it’s difficult to accurately measure results, a digital marketing strategy like SEO comes with analytics tools that you can use.

Whether you partner with a B2B SEO agency or do the work by yourself, there are SEO tools that will make your life easier.

Depending on the metrics that you want to measure, these SEO analytics and marketing automation tools can help you:

• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Semrush
• Moz
• Ahrefs
• Woorank

Constantly monitoring your SEO performance gives you information about your ROI (ROI). This makes for a more efficient digital and content marketing effort, particularly if you can optimize low-performing campaigns immediately.

DIY SEO for B2B: Can You Create Your Strategy?

Is it possible to create your own B2B SEO strategy? Of course, it is possible.

However, do you have the expertise and resources to implement a DIY SEO digital strategy? That’s the question that you need to answer.

If you want to do your own search engine optimization, here are the crucial factors that you should consider:

• Do you have an SEO expert who can build and train a team?
• How much bandwidth can your B2B SEO team accommodate to meet the needs of your growing business?
• Do you have access to SEO tools and technology?

Since SEO is just a part of the entire marketing playbook, more businesses are outsourcing this work to B2B SEO agencies. B2B and SaaS companies are using this strategy to focus on product development and other marketing avenues.

Building a long-term partnership with SEO agencies or an SEO company is more efficient; you’re driving organic search traffic while creating a product that resonates with your customer base.

Regarding SEO digital marketing, it’s essential to cover all bases. Otherwise, you’ll be encountering hurdles in these areas:

• Repurposing existing content
• Investing in paid advertising strategies (paid search, paid media, and PPC advertising)
• Acquiring more qualified leads
• Getting a higher ROI from social media marketing
• Building quality links from authoritative websites

You can avoid these hurdles if you have an in-house team of B2B SEO experts. But if you don’t have a team and you’re just starting on this journey, it’s best to bring in an SEO consulting expert or outsource to an SEO agency.

Usually, you’ll get the whole package when you connect with B2B SEO agencies like Fortis Media. We are marketing experts who will do your content optimization, content marketing PPC advertising strategy, social media marketing, and other crucial SEO services.

A B2B SEO agency can help mitigate your digital marketing concerns, so don’t hesitate to book trials or consulting calls with them.

Future Trends in B2B SEO: Our Predictions for Search Engines

Search engine algorithms are not the only evolving aspect of SEO. The equation should also consider technology and customers’ means of getting information.

Take a look at these upcoming trends and changes in search engine capabilities:

• AI-assisted algorithms
• Voice search
• Visual content optimization
• Geotargeting
• Mobile-first indexing
• Semantic keywords
• Featured snippets

Get ahead of the game by vigilantly monitoring updates from Google and trusted news sites like Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Land. A B2B SEO agency or SEO company could also help you here, as they typically have the inside scoop on upcoming updates.

B2B SEO Services: Key Takeaways

Getting through the SEO tunnel is a long and winding journey. Continuously optimizing and monitoring your campaign could be tricky, as you also have other business matters to attend to.

This is where a B2B SEO agency can help. You have SEO agencies like Fortis Media that offer complete SEO services, so you don’t have to worry about a single thing.

Establishing a productive, long-term collaboration with a B2B SEO agency should help you reach your goals more efficiently.