If you have customers who are businesses that market to other businesses (B2B), and you work to promote their site in the various search engines and especially Google, you probably know that such a promotion process is completely different from the process of promotion of businesses that market to end customers (B2C).

In this article, I will try to focus on some of the important points that should be taken into account when starting such a B2B SEO process, and in particular, why the focus in this process should be different, why the work should be more intensive, and why the measurement should be done with completely different tools. 

There is a lot in common between B2B and B2C site promotion. There is no doubt that the aim is to provide real added value to the users who come to the site, to create a good user experience on the site, and to adapt the site to different needs.

However, there are a number of issues related to the journey of the business customers who come to your site, their needs, their search intent, and the objectives you wish to achieve through your promotion that differ in many ways from the promotion of B2C sites.

Typically, when an end customer performs a search, he or she needs information or service in an immediate or at least short-term manner. Such a customer usually goes to read the information on the first sites presented in the search results, consults with a person or two who are close to him/her, and comes to a decision on whether to make the purchase. Even for relatively expensive products - such as a car for rent or a dream vacation - the circle closes with a resolution of days or weeks.

In this state of affairs, the content strategy on the site should suit the person who is debating for several days or weeks on the subject and provide him/her with all the necessary information that will lead to the final decision.

In the B2B world, the situation is completely different. Many times, such searches lead to significantly more expensive products, and these require internal processes of tenders, legal approvals, regulation, and bureaucracy that may prolong the customer journey.

In this work configuration where organizations evolve, the ball is not always in the hands of the prospect who conducted the research. So you, as the promoter of the company that markets the solution to other companies, must be sure not to lose the customer's attention.

This means that the customer journey is usually much longer, during which you have to meet the customer in different places, answer more questions, and remove barriers from the organization's organs where the Internet user comes from, such as information security organs, privacy organs, data governance organs, legal entities, purchasing entities, etc. This is where you really engage with the research intent.

It is important to know first of all that an integral part of the promotion process will be the creation of content that is complementary to the initial research carried out by the client. Indeed, it is this content that helps to convince the relevant factors of the organization to make the decision and maintain permanent contact with this customer as much as possible through the content strategy of the website.

This is important to understand: the business customer who is sent to search for a solution to an issue that concerns the organization from which he/she comes is not necessarily the one who ultimately decides whether to make the contract with the company that provides the product or service. For this type of customer, it is much more important that no one can come to them with a complaint than it is to ensure that the solution will actually work in the organization in which it will be integrated. Therefore, in many cases, the customer will look for content that will help him/her substantiate the decision and show the managers in charge of the organization that it is logical and practical.

This is why the creation of content related to the standard, the responsibility of the product or service, and previous experience with other organizations is very important for the success of the process and as a creative factor also for the organic promotion of the site.

A second point that will be important to pay attention to is the timing of the searches of surfers in the B2B world. Since you, as a business, serve surfers who need your service as part of their work, it is much more likely that the searches will be performed during working hours rather than their leisure time.

Why is this important? Because of the content you create on the site, you need to market it in a concrete way that will address the business issues of the Internet users who come to you. In this way, they will understand that this is not a hobby or a pastime, but a real business and professional need for the services that you and other companies provide.

How does this affect the content and promotion strategy? Well, when you carry out a promotion process for businesses that market to end customers, you can incorporate elements of humor and lightness in strategic places on the site, like the meta headings of the various pages, the content articles incorporated on the site, the images you use and more.

When it comes to marketing to businesses that serve businesses - it very much depends on the niche. There is room for humor and creativity in the business world as well, but it will be much more important to ensure its proper dosage and its combination only in places that will not harm the seriousness, reliability, and professionalism of the business.

When it comes to B2B companies, the story is a little more complex. Firstly, the volume of searches, certainly on meaningful phrases, can be much lower. Secondly, in light of various market trends, such as new regulations, new developments, and the arrival of new services and new competitors, the way in which certain terms are searched for also changes. In addition, organizations that use the services of other organizations use professional slangs that will be difficult to be exposed to if one is not familiar with the sector.

The action required in this case for quality keyword research is to use advanced tools. In addition, you should conduct in-depth interviews with key people in the company, including marketing, sales, and support staff, to identify phrases that are part of the business jargon used by customers.

When it comes to promoting a B2B business, keyword research is a very important action and can be done relatively easily. There are a variety of tools that can help you find keywords. One of the latest generations of these tools is the Dedicated SEO Dashboard. 

The Dedicated SEO Dashboard is a state-of-the-art tool developed by experts at Semalt. This tool works in over 16 languages. It is the only keyword research tool in the world designed and developed to work in multiple languages, and it, therefore, works optimally in each of these languages. Moreover, this tool provides more up-to-date and comprehensive results as compared to other SEO tools.

With this tool, you can find more related and up-to-date keywords for the phrase you are searching for compared to others. This will allow you to categorize these keywords according to the business needs and decide on an appropriate promotion strategy that will generate great results for the business!

For B2C sites, it is relatively easy to measure the success of a campaign. The promotion company and the business can agree on common metrics such as increased organic traffic to the site. In addition, the increase in sales from organic traffic, the improvement in the average phrase on which the site is rated, and the improvement in the conversion rate of internet users can be agreed upon.

On B2B sites, the method of measurement and the purpose of the campaign can change substantially. Indeed, sometimes the recruitment of a major customer, the creation of new business relationships, and raising awareness of the company's solution in the market are much more important objectives than such and such ranking of the company's site on a particular key phrase. These are already results that are not easy to measure, and this is definitely an issue that needs to be considered when it comes to promoting B2B sites.

If you are investing time and resources in promoting a business website of a company that markets to other businesses, it will be important that you pay proper attention to the issues that differentiate this promotion process from the process of promoting businesses that market to end customers. Such issues are reflected in the goals of the campaign and how to measure its success, in the preliminary research of important keywords, in the customer journey that is characterized by more interfaces within the organization and for longer, and in the search intent of surfers who use the search engine to reach the business site.