Why you need an SEO strategy for your B2B marketing in 2022

SEO is vital for businesses with an online presence and it will become even more important in the years to come. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, it’s essential to start developing an SEO strategy now. In this post, we’ll explain why SEO is so important and outline some of the key trends that you need to be aware of. We’ll also share some tips on how you can improve your SEO performance. So, if you’re looking to take your marketing efforts to the next level, keep reading!

Before getting into the details, you should know a few things about your SEO strategy that will manage your expectations. First, think of investing in your SEO strategy similar to investing in your 401k. You know it’s the right move, but it’s not fun, it can sting at times, and it’s prolonged gratification. Secondly, the rules of SEO are a moving target. Be on your toes for updates on technical SEO and content. Thirdly, don’t fall for quick schemes that sound too good to be true. Now that’s all out of the way, let’s dive into the nitty gritty.

So, who needs to consider an SEO strategy?

Any business with an online presence. Whether you’re an eCommerce brand selling to individual consumers, a Manufacturing company selling to a team of decision makers, a local retailer trying to standout and make a name for yourself, or anything else far and wide, you’ll benefit from putting an SEO strategy to work for your company and website.

What if you don’t sell anything directly from your website? Companies such as a Healtcare Tech company selling 5-figure pieces of equipment may think SEO isn’t as important. Not true! You’ll still benefit from an SEO strategy because over time you’ll start to be seen as an authority in your space, people will find your site along with your articles which will build credibility. Eventually, they’ll think of your brand when they have a problem that your offering can solve.

You can’t afford not to have an SEO strategy if you want your website to serve a benefit to your company. There are many benefits to SEO, but let’s outline few of the top ones.

When you set out to put a SEO strategy to the test for your website, there are two major components to consider. First, your website needs a strong technical SEO foundation. Think fast webpages, working links and forms. You’ll also need to make sure your site is secured with a SSL certificate and provide a XML sitemap. With a strong technical SEO strategy it means Google will be able to index and crawl your site (aka list your website in Google search results).

Armed with a solid technical SEO foundation, we’ll move into a quick rundown on the content side and the benefits it brings. When your content matches your level of expertise, you’re unstoppable. If you’re knowledgeable about the space your in and put that knowledge into blogs you’ll begin to see an uptick in web traffic. Not only that, but your traffic is higher quality than simple pay-per-clicks that charge you even when people don’t mean to click your ad and go to your site. What does this mean for your bottom line? A happy CFO. You’ll reduce your ad spend with high quality content optimized for SEO.

Overtime, as you continue to post quality content to your site, you’ll gain more credibility and become a thought leader in the space. This has perpetual benefits for your company. Unlike ads, your content never stops. The more credibility you have, the more backlinks you’ll receive from other websites which means you’ll organically expand your reach without having to pay for it to get there. Don’t forget that the more traffic your website is receiving the more leads you’ll have. So not only are you reducing your ad spend and other marketing expenses like ad creative, but you’re also increasing your sales activity with new inbound leads. This connects back to the content of your website. Optimizing your website content for SEO and your conversion rate go hand-in-hand. Just don’t forget to write for your customer’s problem, not your solution.

Here’s the thing though…

Everything mentioned above doesn’t matter if you’re not aware of Google’s rules on SEO. You probably realize Google is the grand poobah of SEO. You must stay up-to-date with their changes or risk being left behind by the king of search engines. Not only do you need to stay in the know with their changes, but you also need to understand that any updates to their core search engine could positively or negatively affect your website. Here are some examples of updates from their most recent releases in September 2022 regarding helpful content and their core update. You can also find their official release announcement on Twitter here.

The helpful content update from Google was one of the biggest changes we’ve seen in years.
Instead of writing for the approval of algorithms, Google is giving preference to content that best serves the reader. Say goodbye to those annoying articles that seem to just repeat your search phrase in several different ways without ever going in-depth on the information. If it seems like common sense, that’s because it is. When writing content, go back over your work and read it through a lens of “is this helpful” and “does this serve a purpose”. If you start there with a bit of keyword research (not stuffing), you’ll do just fine so long as you have a strong technical SEO foundation too.

Now what?

There are plenty of resources out there to put together your own SEO strategy. When starting out, consider the technical side first for your website and then follow with the content side. Depending on your technical level, you may be able to handle some of the updates to your website yourself. Top things to consider again are page loading, links working correctly, pages all working correctly, and optimizing for mobile. If you already have content on your website it’s wise to go back through and do an ‘audit’ of the content for quality and keywords mentioned. Another big no-no is duplicate content. Don’t do that.

Of course, there’s a million ways to approach your SEO strategy between all the consideratitons for your site’s technical setup and content strategy. Unfortunately, SEO strategy is kind of like dieting. There isn’t a one size fits all approach that works for everyone. You may to choose to do some of the work yourself whether it’s the technical side or content writing.

At the same time, you can accomplish a lot more if you find the right partner to assist. Depending on your capabilities, you may find it makes more sense to invest money upfront into a sound technical foundation and or content writing with a designated partner. If you find yourself in this position then you’ll learn a lot from our team when you setup a SEO audit here. You can rely on our team for technical work as well as dynamic copywriting.

Schedule a free SEO audit with us if you’re interested in learning how to improve your strategy.