B2B E-Commerce SEO Tips and Best Practices
The Importance of B2B SEO (and E-Commerce)
The rise in e-commerce has unlocked tremendous potential for businesses nationwide to innovate and enhance how they deliver products. Many organisations – particularly nowadays – find that a large portion of their marketing budget goes towards paid advertising. However, recent turbulence in the UK economy has forced many brands to be more conservative with budget allocation. This is where strategic and cost-effective SEO (search engine optimisation) can come in handy, delivering high-quality results in the long term.
Over the years, many business owners have questioned the need for SEO and professional content writing when offline marketing like phone, email, and word-of-mouth referrals exist, or because targeting business to business (B2B), requires a different approach than marketing directly from business to consumer (B2C). However, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and given the rise in e-commerce and digital channels like Google, SEO will continue to prove a valuable asset for years to come.
Justin Aldridge from the SEO agency and accredited Shopify partner Artemis Marketing (celebrating its 20th birthday this year and with a proven track record helping businesses of all sectors) has compiled this short guide to help you unlock the best possible SEO potential if you sell products online to other businesses.
Maintain a B2B Focus the Whole Way Through
Your target audience and buyers are regularly searching for information, products and services on the internet, therefore, it makes sense to optimise your website to appear in front of them for an easy and seamless buying experience. A site visit is usually the first touchpoint for many B2B e-commerce buyers, with many turning to search engines as a primary method of identifying new partners or suppliers. Among the estimated 24 million e-commerce stores globally, this means competition is rife, with the UK being the third biggest e-commerce market in the world.
The fundamental practices of increasing your online visibility and driving sales through e-commerce SEO remain the same whether B2B or B2C. However, B2B brands must take note of some specific differences and strategies for maximum online success in e-commerce. These B2B e-commerce SEO tips and strategies can help businesses gain a valuable edge over their competition.
Understand the B2B Buyer Journey
One of the biggest distinctions between B2B and B2C SEO is the buyer journey and decision-making process. The B2C marketing funnel is usually centred around one particular buyer profile – the end user – and is, therefore, often easier to understand and optimise.
B2B purchases – even in e-commerce – tend to involve more consideration and research, with the target buyer (another business such as a supplier or vendor) often spending days or weeks researching products and asking pertinent questions about whether yours is worth their investment.
With B2C buyer journeys, the deciding factor is usually related to costs, convenience and personal tastes, whereas B2C conversions have much more determining criteria to factor in. A supplier, for example, may have multiple decision-makers and stakeholders who require convincing that your product or service is worth purchasing and attaching to their business.
As such, these transactions carry much higher value and, by extension, purchasing risks. Decisions have to be made rationally and logically, concerning not just the target business’s budget but also whether they can feasibly reap tangible rewards, cost savings, and improved revenue.
As a result, your SEO strategy needs to cater to the informational needs and unique pain points at each stage of this purchasing process.
Prioritise High-Value Keywords and Search Intent
While ‘quick buy’ transactional or commercial keywords (e.g. “buy gps trackers online”) are crucial for e-commerce brands selling directly to consumers, they tend to hold less importance for B2B products or services with a more complex sales cycle. The largest share of B2B sales (30%) takes roughly 1-3 months to close, according to a survey by Databox.
Instead, you’ll want to focus your keyword research and content strategy around:
- High-value, informational keyword phrases that buyers use throughout various stages (namely, awareness, consideration and decision).
- Mastering search intent by creating content to answer common questions and provide specific use cases to reinforce brand expertise and trust.
- Including long-tail keywords with high purchase intent (e.g. “solicitors practice management software“) which may be lower in overall volume but also less competitive.
- Incorporating branded searches as brand awareness and equity grows.
- Applying relevant keywords logically for on-page SEO purposes (e.g. in Page Titles, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, and alt text) without being spammy.
Creating in-depth guides, like-for-like comparisons and case studies (aligned with specific products, valuable keywords and their audience’s pain points) will prove pivotal in reinforcing trust. Ultimately, however, content is there to drive traffic to your site, and in the competitive e-commerce space, it’s important to establish which content is going to add the most value to your customers and also tick Google’s many boxes.
Leverage the Power of Content Marketing
With longer B2B sales cycles, your prospects need to be nurtured from the initial awareness stage all the way through to purchase and customer retention. Content marketing goes hand in hand with SEO and lead generation, and in a B2B context, buyers tend to engage with 3-7 pieces of content before engaging a sales rep, according to a recent industry report.
Some of the most effective B2B content assets include (but are not limited to):
- Articles and guides
- eBooks
- Video tutorials and webinars
- Case studies and testimonials
- Authoritative industry reports
- Research studies and whitepapers
- Product and service comparisons
- Interviews and panel discussions
Producing a broad range of high-quality, relevant content contributes to building authority and trust among your loyal B2B customers. If prospective businesses catch wind of your excellent service, product quality and flexibility, this can inspire them to reach out to you and open a new sales conversation. This is even more likely if they find what they’re looking for on your product or category page that’s ranking in a coveted top search engine results page (SERP) position.
Build Authority Through E-E-A-T
Google’s content guidelines place a strong emphasis on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) factors, even for e-commerce. In certain industries, customers want peace of mind before making a purchase, and any content exemplary of E-E-A-T will provide reassurance in spades.
B2C brands can leverage E-E-A-T through product and customer reviews, and while B2B brands can do the same to an extent, they can also take advantage of other assets that reinforce their industry expertise and reputation.
This includes:
- Business or industry accreditations/memberships
- Quality backlinks obtained in relevant industry publications or organisations
- Thought leadership content delivered by industry experts
- Proprietary research and data that serves a key purpose for the sector(s)
Utilising the above to help reinforce your product excellence will prove crucial in driving online e-commerce sales, however lengthy.
Seek Professional B2B E-Commerce SEO Help
Busy business owners have enough on their plates every day, and it’s unlikely that many will ever have the time to digest and apply all evolving SEO best practices. SEO is a constantly changing discipline, meaning that business websites can rarely ever succeed post-launch if no ongoing attention is given to them.
To ensure your B2B e-commerce brand is set up for success, it’s important to be prepared to adapt as search engines like Google update their algorithms, incorporate new features, and new technologies and opportunities emerge. Many B2B business owners prefer to entrust the services of a professional SEO and marketing agency that can monitor and optimise their websites on their behalf, saving them time, resources, and stress.
For business owners who want to focus on what really matters to them – growing and running the company – why would they want to spend countless hours making intricate, technical changes to their website? That time could be best spent on high-value tasks like finding new business opportunities, maintaining customer relationships, and identifying new markets or partnerships.
SEO – as part of a wider omnichannel marketing strategy – should be there to help you enjoy more of what you’re passionate about.
