Actionable SEO Tactics for B2B Startups
While the concept of search engine optimization (SEO) may seem complex and daunting for many B2B startups and medium-sized organizations, there are several key SEO tactics that organizations can take right now to improve their search rankings.
Continue reading to learn some actionable SEO tactics for B2B startups.
Local SEO
If your organization provides a service or product that caters to a local audience, you’ll want to maximize online exposure to drive these prospects to your website and aim to convert them into customers.
As a first step, make sure you claim and optimize your Google My Business and Bing Places for Business. There’s a verification process that takes place when you claim a business listing in Google in which Google will mail you a postcard to your organization’s physical address with a pin to verify your business. This verification process lets Google know that your business is legitimate.
Ensure your business completes every question in the listing for maximum exposure including:
· Company/product photos (upload at least 3 photos)
· Hours of operation
· Business category
· Business description
· Services offered
A survey from BrightLocal noted that 79% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Take some time to monitor online reviews and always be polite and professional if you feel that replying to a review is necessary. Google factors in what reviews you have, if any, and the better your reviews, the higher your business listing will appear.
On-Page SEO
As defined by SEO experts Moz, on-page SEO is the practices of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. Ensuring your web pages are optimized for search can also give your B2B startup a leg up against your competition.
Here are some on-page SEO factors to consider:
Title Tag
The title tag or page title is an HTML element that identifies the title of the specific page you are on. As seen in the screenshot above, the title tag appears as the blue (purple if you’ve previously clicked on the search result) text in the SERP (search engine results page). It also appears at the top of your web browser in the tab, as well as in social networks when users share content.
The title tag is an important on-page SEO factor as it helps tell search engines and users what your web page is about. The recommended length of a title tag should be between 50–60 characters long and should incorporate your primary keywords followed by your brand name (Primary Keyword — Secondary Keyword | Brand Name).
Meta Description
The meta description is another HTML attribute that provides a short, descriptive summary of a web page. They appear directly underneath
Meta descriptions do not directly impact your organic rankings. However, having a well-written and compelling description can attract web users to click on your search listing versus someone else’s, and the more people that click on your listing (increasing the clickthrough rate of that page), the higher the chances are of increasing your search listing rank for that page.
The meta description can range in length but it’s recommended to keep them between 50–300 characters in length to avoid the descriptions from getting cut off. Also, be mindful of avoiding duplicate meta descriptions across your web pages.
URL
URLs are also important for SEO and having an optimized URL structure comes with several benefits including:
· A better web user experience by using easy-to-understand text in the URL
· A slight increase in ranking factor as search engines use URLs to determine the relevancy of the search query a user inputted.
When publishing a new page, make sure your URL is simple and not too long, accurate to ensure users know exactly what to expect on the page and includes relevant keywords.
Create High-Quality Content
57% of marketing professionals reported on-page content development as one of the most effective SEO tactics. By creating high-quality content that provides real value to your audience, you can increase the likelihood of improving your search rankings and SEO overall.
Here are a few website content ideas to consider that can improve your SEO results:
· Implement a blog for your business (if you don’t have one already) to continually provide valuable information on various industry and product-related topics that your audience is likely to be searching for.
· Create an FAQ page on your website that descriptively answers the questions your B2B buyers may have when researching your product/service and the challenges they address.
· Develop a short company overview video and a collection of product-related videos as they tend to attract more users who prefer to consume content visually. In fact, 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
Additional Considerations
Ensure you have a mobile-responsive, well-structured and fast website as Google is adding more weight in their ranking signals for websites with these qualities.
Run a page speed test on your website via Google PageSpeed Insights to get an analysis of how well your website performs on desktop and mobile devices. With Google recently announcing page speed becoming a ranking factor in mobile search this year, it’s important to make sure your website is running at full speed.
Incorporate internal links throughout your web pages to make it easier for users to navigate from page to page and avoid having users bounce from your website.
SEO For the Win
You don’t have to be an SEO wizard to increase the odds that your business’ website will be found when online searches take place. Take the first step by applying these B2B SEO best practices and you’ll be on your way to winning more customers.
