Last updated on August 16th, 2017 at 04:12 pm
Excellent SEO is essential to generate quality leads, but while the B2C sector has always been strong in excelling in this arena, the B2B industry tends to lag behind. Many companies might be making fatal mistakes in their SEO techniques.
Here are a few common SEO problems that B2B companies often face, and their suggested solutions.
Problem #1: Content is not searchable
Link profile is essential in maintaining a good standing on search engines, but some small mistakes and oversights might sink your content rank. Link equity can sometimes decline when designers put in meta robot tags on web pages they’re redesigning and then forget to remove those tags when the page goes live.
Solution: Manage exclusions
Check the Top Pages in your webmaster tools and see what pages have the most link equity. It will also show you what pages are being excluded from web crawlers. Then you can dig into the coding and see what’s going on. Sometimes great content can end up being excluded because of a forgotten tag, so go in there and remove the unwanted coding. You should also check your robots.txt file to make it isn’t blocking any important search content either.
Problem #2: Keywords are ineffective
SEO is all about finding the right keywords and using them in your content, but not all keywords are made equal. Some don’t mean as much to your users as they do to your company, and this is where some B2B enterprises get stuck.
Solution: Research user intent
When researching keywords you should consider user intent as well as popularity. Look for the keywords that generate the most intent with users and you could revitalize your entire content marketing strategy.
Problem #3: Best content isn’t being indexed
You’ve got loads of content on the Web, but for some reason it’s not appearing in search results. Without proper communication to search engines your content doesn’t get noticed, so you need to tell Web crawlers what content you want to be indexed and what it’s all about.
Solution: Create a sitemap
Use Webmaster Tools to create a sitemap and submit it for indexing. A sitemap tells the crawlers what your content’s meaning, how the website is structured, and what pages are the most important. This one task can make a tremendous difference in getting your pages to the top of the search pile.
Problem #4: Unsure how effective your SEO is
Sometimes it can be difficult to gauge how the success of your SEO strategy. You’re getting page hits, but are those hits leading to sales or conversions? You’ll need to come up with a plan.
Solution: Monitor relevant KPIs
As with any type of analysis, you need to examine the right variables. Use Webmaster Tools to look at: keyword sourced traffic, branded vs non-branded traffic, popular entry pages, ranking rated over time, link traffic, inbound links, and social media traffic. Given what all these things tell you, you can adjust your SEO efforts accordingly.
Want more SEO advice? Read what Neil Patel said about the other mistakes your B2B company may be making.
Photo via PalmBeachSEOPros
