Hang on, just what is SEO anyway!?
Here’s what SEO IS
If you own, or are a director of a small to medium sized enterprise in the U.S. then it’s almost certain that you will be aware of the concept of SEO. But just in case you're not, it is a helpful exercise to spell out the working definition of the term, along with its potential benefits (definite caveats here that we’ll cover in this article!) So, here’s what SEO is:
- A collection of activities that are all aimed at improving the visibility of a business, company, or collective on search engines.
- Keywords are integral to SEO and any halfway decent SEO consultant will have a carefully drawn up keyword strategy as one of their first tasks of a new campaign.
- Content (text, images, videos) can be optimized with good SEO practices.
- With increased visibility on the search engines, theoretically more traffic should organically find its way to your site.
- SEO incorporates UX (user experience) as search engines favor sites that are easier and more pleasurable to use and navigate.
Technically anyone can conduct SEO activities, as social media posts, podcasts, and video tutorials all help to varying degrees with SEO. Where it can really pay to employ a specialist SEO consultant in the USA is working out which areas are best for your business to focus on, plus how best to outrank your competitors on the search engines so that potential customers find, and crucially click, your link above others in your niche.
Here’s what SEO Isn’t!
A quick Google search will bring up half a dozen or so results at the very top of the page. You’d be forgiven for thinking that those top ranking businesses / brands must have employed an army of SEO specialists to help get them there. As with many things in life, a bit of cash can buy you virtually anything! Yes that’s right, those top results high up the page on Google have paid money to be there (and lots of money at that).
Google is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world and their revenue topped $305.63 billion dollars last year (2023) and where does most of this colossal sum of money come from? Paid ads. Source; statista.com > Link
So, SEO is not paid ads, SEO is all about organic rankings and organic is always better than paid, with one exception…Paid ad campaigns can help businesses to get a quick boost up the rankings, whereas organic SEO takes time. Any SEO consultant in the USA who tells you otherwise is not telling the truth. You see the search engines require time to crawl, index, and review sites before they assign them a virtual score.
Organic SEO also takes time because there’s a lot of work to do. Keywords have to be inserted into the copy, technical off-page activities must be completed, and social proof must be gathered and displayed for potential clients to see.
SEO for B2B
Should you choose a specialist B2B SEO consultant for your B2B?
B2B is much more nuanced than B2C, particularly when it comes to onboarding and the sales cycles. This has significant implications for SEO, so the answer to the above question is yes, we would 100% recommend choosing specialist B2B SEO consultancy services in the USA over a generic provider.
In 2022 SageFrog conducted research that found that B2B’s ranked SEO as their top marketing strategy with 49% of B2B’s implementing it in some form. Content marketing came a close second place at 43%, and social media with 43%. We’d argue that all three of these activities fall under the same umbrella of SEO. Source; Sagefrog > Link
Let that sink in for a second. Virtually half of all B2Bs state SEO as their top marketing strategy. Read between the lines as to what that tells B2B’s that don’t engage in SEO; they are going to fail behind competitors who do!
Ok, so we’ve established that if you are in B2B you should be into SEO, but what are the distinct advantages of choosing specialist B2B SEO consultancy services from the US? Read on to find out!
Help with advanced targeting
Specialist SEO consultancy providers in the US will help B2B’s gain a deeper understanding of their target audience. With B2B it’s vital that the right positions within a company are targeted, so we’re talking decision-makers and this in procurement, people who actually have the authority to be able to close a deal with.
B2B’s are selling to clients who are looking to solve problems and enhance their business. These are long term, nebulous gains with an onboarding process that typically requires a greater investment of time, so it’s super important that relationships are given the appropriate amount of time to mature as the potential client is being guided through the gates of the decision making process.
Specialist SEO consultancy providers understand these sales cycle intricacies extremely well and build their marketing strategies around them.
Laser targeted content creation
As we’ve already stated, content creation is a significant component of B2B SEO. Specialist B2B SEO providers can help create highly engaging content for B2B’s that targets ideal clients and ultimately boosts their position in the search engine rankings.
The B2B content creation process should look like this:
Keywords - B2B SEO company conducts extensive keyword research to find relevant search terms within their niche. Keyword strategy incorporates long-tail, industry-specific keywords that have high search intent.
Content creation - The next stage is to produce content that is valuable for the targeted niche audience. Examples of this include detailed, informative blogs and articles that take a deep-dive into a subject and attempt to address pain-points.
Content optimization - With the high quality content created, a second pass by a professional SEO consultant will assess SEO performance and make edits based on content, structure, keywords, meta tags / titles, and URLs. Internal linking to relevant pages will help increase site authority and navigation.
Time to speak to the professionals!
If you’ve been pursued by the case we’ve made here for B2B SEO, why not speak to a specialist SEO Consultant right now to find out how they can help your B2B rise up the Google rankings with organic SEO.
Web Choice is a specialist B2B SEO service provider with extensive B2B experience and a wealth of social proof to back up their credentials. Head on over to now! > Web Choice
