3 Ways to Use Search as a Growth Channel for B2B in 2021

Unlike the B2C brand, B2B’s business is often characterized by:

1. Low search volume on Google.
2. High competition on almost available keywords.

And there is evidence to support this – usually, where the seven-year-old B2C company gets 500k visitors per month from SEO, the B2B brand with the same age can see only 15K visitors per month. (This assumes all the other things together.)

See the example below comparing zola.com (B2C brand) and yiedify.com (B2B):

Both of these sites were established around the same time (2013) and have published a lot of content. However, the difference in the amount of traffic they make it look like being married hasn’t done a lot of SEO, but it’s not the problem.

For example, when I use Mozbar to analyze optimization on the page they do in their articles about trust badges, I can say that they at least follow the basic SEO principles, such as having keywords focusing on their URL, page title, header, and description Meta.

I would say they are not too terrible in optimizing their content for SEO – if they optimize all their content as they do this in a badge of trust.

I mean here are: B2C and e-commerce business (usually) have more opportunities in SEO than B2B, especially in terms of traffic search.

But while it’s true, it’s also true that no matter how little a search visit, there are still many opportunities in SEO for B2B business.

Most of the time, what B2B brands lose in search traffic, they generate income – because their products/services are usually more expensive than those in B2C.

Long story short: There is an opportunity for B2B companies in the search, and this is how to use it in the future.

1. Start from bottom (not top) of the funnel

Each funnel starts above, but if you want to produce results as soon as possible, you must start your SEO B2B strategy that targets customers at the bottom of the funnel.

Ready to buy customers have been at the bottom of the funnel (above), looking for information that will help them make purchasing decisions. They often search with keywords such as:

1. “[Industrial] software”
2. “[Industry] tools”
3. “[Competitor] alternative”
4. “What are [competitors] good products/services?”

As a smart marketer, your strategy must prioritize reaching them with the bottom of the funnel content they are looking for.

You might know what Bofu content is like, but only so we are on the same page as what it is, see the examples of Bofu content from social pilot rating on page one.

I am not affiliated with SocialPilot, so I don’t know whether they start marketing their SEO content with the topic of this shoulder (search term).

But if they do it, it is likely that they are experiencing successful success (in terms of relevant product awareness and registration), because articles are ranked on the front page of Google for searchers looking for “alternative buffers”.

The point is, as a B2B brand, you will be better off prioritizing Bofu topics in your SEO strategy. This is a much better approach than starting along the road above the funnel, which will target finders who are not ready to make purchasing decisions (or register).

But you should start with Funnel content because that’s where the buyer starts their journey?
If you think your strategy must be to target the first visitor at the top of the funnel (know), you might assume that your prospect will first consume the content you know before you get to the bottom.

It almost never happened in real life. What often happens is:

1. Prospective customers know they have a problem
2. They are looking for google for solutions
3. Google shows them several solutions on page one
4. They read the reviews and support information to help them make purchasing decisions
5. They make a decision to buy or not buy

If you think back to the decision of the last purchase you make, this might be the route you took.

So not all times the buyer will start reading your funnel content, find your product, and then decide to start consuming your Bofu content. Sometimes they have been in Bofu and everything needed to convince them to buy your product is the right Bofu content.

2. Make your content t-shaped (for demand and lead generation)

You might think, “What’s content?” Let me explain.

On my agency (Premium content shop), we use “T-shaped content” to describe the type of content that does two functions at the same time:

This provides real value for your ideal prospects

AND

Produce relevant organic traffic, demand, and lead quality for your business.

This small illustration below must help you better understand our “T-shaped T content framework”:

In practice, this is an example of t-shaped content from Mailshake:

Right after the fifth paragraph article, they introduced CTA:

This is the T-shaped content part because of:

1. This guide is focused on helping potential customers MailShake – “Cold Email”
2. This guide is designed to use CTA to produce requests and lead for milkshakes

I often advise clients not to introduce anything about their products/services until the reader has scrolled around 40% into the content they consumed, only to avoid as far as promotion. And I don’t say put your CTA at the beginning of the article can never work – it can – but your readers must feel like you prioritize them to get value from content while trying to sell your own items.

In any case, making and rating on t-shaped content helps you reach two goals:

1. Build a brand that is trusted.
2. Make awareness and product directions for your product.

3. Don’t just rank content — rank “from-field-experience” content

One reason SEO gets a bad rap, especially among B2B marketers, is the amount of low-quality B2B content that ranks on page one at SERPs. And that’s because, while the Google algorithm can determine the search-friendly content, it cannot see if a relevant page for searchers, at least from a human perspective.

So, finally, the content ranking on page one meets the Google ranking standard but is not always a search standard.

As a B2B marketer, you don’t just want to meet Google’s requirements and rank on page one. You need your content to rank and impress your audience well enough to turn it into leads.

How did you do that? You need to write like a professional speaking to professionals.

Usually, this means you need to see what other industry professionals say or have published certain topics and spelling:

1. What you agree
2. What you don’t agree
3. What do you want to change about how something is done right now?
4. How you want to change or change it

Derek Gleason CXL reflects the same idea in recent tweets:

And as an expert in your field, this is a no-brainer: You will almost always have different opinions to share about popular topics in your industry.

For example, as SEO experts, you are most likely to have facts based on topics such as Google ranking factors, B2B marketing, technical SEO, etc. With this knowledge, you have all topics in your industry “from-field-experience” ideas that will help you connect with customers at a deeper level.

And when you create content based on your original opinion, experience, thoughts, or beliefs, you will not sound like anyone else and your content will stand out. Even if it’s similar to other competitor content, it will still have your original idea.

Conclusion

In this blog, you learn about the 3 Ways to Use Search as a Growth Channel for B2B in 2021. If you find this blog post informative then share this with others also.

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