Over the past years, I’ve worked for SEO agencies working with many B2B companies. Today I wanted to share some key components of a successful B2B SEO campaign.
What I mean by “key components” is how SEO is handled and executed for a B2B company so that it achieves success as efficiently as possible. Many SEO campaigns have different methodologies, but in my experience the best campaigns all have the processes listed below in common
NOTE: There’s no “one size fits all approach”
Before we get into the components of good B2B SEO, we must first understand that every website is different
When someone has a goal of decreasing their body fat percentage, we all know that nutrition is a huge success factor for that goal. People may argue the best way to achieve this goal, but we can all agree on one fact:
Optimal nutrition for each individual is different.
Human bodies of different size, weight, heritage, genetics are all diferent. So the same prescription of food will not work for everyone.
This principle also applies to websites. Websites have different sizes, ages, industries, goals, KPIs, etc. That’s why you can’t apply the same methods you’ve learned to every website.
This is the first step to being a good SEO. Then come the processes.
Run Your Own Tests
All SEO experts know that testing is the key to understanding. Put simply; If you don’t test how changes you make impact your website, you’re just having blind faith that you changes will achieve the desired outcome. I think it is time to change that thinking, challenge your existing beliefs and test all changes. Kevin Indig believes this is why:
- We don’t know all ranking factors and their algorithmic weight, so we mostly have to work based on assumption and correlative studies.
- Ranking factors and their weight constantly change.
- Much of the data presented about ranking factors is outdated
- Google often misdirects SEO’s rather that definitively answering ranking related questions.
- Different ranking factors may be applied to different websites / industries.
Because of this, we need to test how the SEO changes impact your site by setting up a test framework and find out the answers. Once you have the results, it can make a good case to increase your investment in SEO because you have the data that proves the ROI.
Measure the changes
SEO is a numbers game. The goal is to increase rankings, to increase traffic, to increase revenue. Measure these numbers to
- Define your goals & KPIs.
- Set up a dashboard report
- Measure updates against KPIs.
- Measure performance (traffic, conversions, time on page/site, etc)
The things you can measure are practically infinite. Each site is different, so work backwards from your main goals to determine the KPI’s which make the most sense based on your goals.
Document your changes
Documentation helps you to keep track of your testing and measuring efforts. It ensures you preserve the knowledge in your organisation and helps you learn from experience.
This will:
- Help you show you what worked and what didn’t in the past.
- Onboard new staff to get up to date on the history of your SEO
- Develop some SEO related intellectual property in your organisation
A data-driven approach like this will ensure your future success in SEO. The most important thing to know in your B2B seo campaign is to know what changes caused what result.
