Optimize a B2B SEO strategy for your tech company and website

The SEO panel at FINITE Fest produced tactical tips you can apply to your B2B SEO strategy and boost growth for your tech company.

What content do you need for B2B SEO success?

To hear more B2B SEO insights from the panel, FINITE members have access to the full discussion – Apply here for a free membership and join B2B tech marketers around the world to expand your career.

FINITE Fest, the free one day virtual conference covering B2B tech marketing trends, was proudly supported by Clarity Performance.

Here are the key takeaways: 

• Is content the most important aspect of SEO? 
• How do you produce B2B content to rank for different stages of the funnel? 
• How will the new page experience update affect how marketers do SEO?
• How can you get started and drive growth with SEO on a lighter-weight budget?
• Is it worth ranking for lower search volume keywords?
• What’s the future of SEO?

Is content the most important aspect of B2B SEO? 

Content quality should be your first priority when it comes to B2B SEO, because people will lose trust in your brand if you’re at the top of their search but don’t provide what they want. To make high quality B2B content, it should be relevant, easy to understand and digestible for readers. Many SEO tools have a readability score. 

“Content should be your first priority when it comes to SEO.” – Sonia Dorais

It is better to have less high quality content than lots of low quality content on your website. You need to look at the performance of pages to determine whether certain content is worth keeping on your site. If one page only has 5 clicks over 6 months, it might be best to send it to the drafts folder. 

“Keyword search isn’t just a metric, there’s always a person on the end of that search.” – Aaron Barefoot

You should ask the question, is this piece of content unique enough? Is it worth having it’s own URL? A URL should be a unique resource link. 

To further help you decide which content should remain on your site, take a wider look at the entire content ecosystem. Does it all work together towards company goals and does it validate your company’s offering? 

How do you produce B2B content to rank for different stages of the funnel? 

For companies with multiple personas, suiting all of them means you’ll have to make a lot of content for everyone. For global markets, be aware of the different terminologies used across geographies. E.g. Credit control is used in the UK, but it’s accounts receivable everywhere else. This local language affects how and what people search, so content should apply to both. 

Different pieces of content should be used for different user intent. On a top level, these could be navigational, transactional and informational types of intent. Under these brackets comes more specific types of content, such as thought leadership and commercial content. These specific types further need their own considerations, like how you should make thought leadership content reactionary and up to date with latest industry trends. 

“We always want to be thinking commercially.” – Aaron Barefoot 

Every piece of content should point towards your core offering in some way, whether that be directing a user to a landing page, or educating them about the product or service you offer. Your website is more than just a shop window, it’s an inbound marketing machine. Guide your prospects through their own buyer journeys with content that moves them toward a purchase. 

Link types of content so that they benefit each other, by pointing your commercial content to your editorial content and vice versa. This ensures the prospect is aware of your offering and is educated on their own pain points. 

How will the new page experience update affect how marketers do B2B SEO?

When thinking about B2B SEO, you might not consider a user’s page experience and how this affects ranking. In actual fact, it affects it a lot. 

“A website is inherently an SEO product… Whatever happens on that website, good or bad, is part of SEO.” – Aaron Barefoot 

Google is becoming more and more performance oriented, so speed, accessibility, largest contentful paint, security and its mobile experience all play a role in SEO. Google now has a section on Google Search Console, so you can see page experience metrics and how well your pages are performing on these. 

Read 5 ways to improve page load speeds for SEO

In relation to content, it should drive people towards your site, where they should have a seamless experience. 

How can you get started and drive growth with SEO on a lighter-weight budget?

• A/B test every single page and use that performance data to improve on content and conversions
• Repurpose content so none of your time and resources are wasted. Instead they are improved upon 
• Sometimes B2B SEO tactics are as simple as changing the font of your content. These tricks are cost effective

“Working with the right people helps to create very good content and to know how to allocate it in the right places.” – Lyat Avidor Peleg

Is it worth ranking for lower search volume keywords? 

It’s better to monopolise 10 or 20 people than not, because one or a few of those visitors could turn into leads. Low search volume keywords are valuable because they’re easier to rank for, but topical relevance is key. Your associated content should be straightforward, specific and related. 

“Low search doesn’t mean low value, it just means they know exactly what they want.” – Aaron Barefoot

However, if there’s no search then there’s no point in creating content around it. That would be speaking to a non-existent audience and would be a waste of time and resources. 

What’s the future of B2B SEO? 

The pandemic has impacted the future of events, making them virtual, accessible and much cheaper than trade shows. 

“We’re able to generate the same amount of leads without the traditional, super expensive trade shows. Focussing on virtual events and using SEO to drive traffic to those events.” – Sonia Dorais 

B2B SEO can boost virtual events by directing traffic to event pages. 

The panellists were Sonia Dorais, CEO at Chaser, Aaron Barefoot, Global SEO Lead at London Stock Exchange Group and Lyat Avidor Peleg, CMO at Precognize Innovations. Moderated by Alex Price, Founder at FINITE.

If you’re interested in using B2B SEO to generate qualified leads, drive pipeline and grow revenue, get in touch with the Clarity Performance team today.