3 KEYS TO FINDING AN SEO AGENCY FOR RESULTS-DRIVEN B2B MARKET GROWTH

Do you have a business that sells products or services to other businesses? If so, you know that the key to success is getting your name out there in front of those potential customers.

But what if you don’t have the time or resources to do all of the marketing yourself? That’s where a B2B SEO agency can help you grow. These agencies specialize in helping companies like yours get found online, making it easier for your potential customers to find you. So if you’re looking for someone to help you get the most out of your website, consider hiring a B2B SEO agency.

How To Get Found In The B2B Market & Land More Customers

Of course, you want to increase traffic and rankings for your site. But an expert SEO agency will help you obtain leads, increase your pipeline, and grow your revenue. The agency works closely with you to achieve your objectives.

Search engine optimization (SEO) done well can boost your revenue by connecting you with new clients. The techniques of SEO work in a variety of industries:

? Software & Technology

? FinTech & Blockchain

? Professional Services

? Media & Entertainment

? Industrial & Manufacturing

B2B SEO is a tough task to perform. In this article, we examine the challenges to the industry and how the techniques and technicalities of SEO can help you find more of the right customers.

The Modern B2B Buyer’s Journey

When a business is searching for a product or service, they often start with the 21st-century approach—an online search. Search engine optimization boosts your search ranking so that your business appears at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).?

But, their search doesn’t stop there. They want the answer to their burning question. When your website delivers, that searcher then shares information with key decision-makers. Those decision-makers will look for deeper answers. And, before they connect with your sales team, they will want those questions at least partially answered. They’ll scour your website for the information they want.?

SEO can put your website front and center as the answer in every phase of the market cycle—marketing, sales, and service.?

Customers share their experience with others when a customer is happy with their experience. In the purchasing process, word of mouth has become the norm. Using a momentum-building process and a forward-looking inbound strategy, you can increase customer satisfaction, drive sales, and drive revenue growth.

Prepare Your Messaging

Modern B2B buyer’s journey requires appropriate sales playbooks, sales-ready messaging and positioning, sales enablement and a scalable sales stack.?

The modern B2B buyer’s journey raises the importance of strategic planning. In today’s market, strategy is not just about sales. It’s about how your support strategy will interact with your marketing strategy, including the age, buying stage and type of buyer you are trying to reach.

Your SEO agency works with decision-makers in your sales and marketing leadership to create pertinent and personalized funnel messaging for each deal stage.

Target The Target Market

Search engine optimization is all about making your website informative, clear, easy to navigate, and client-centric. There are steps to create and maintain a project that meets your business needs.

SEO works to reach the right people—your target market—and bring them to your website. The agency learns about your business services, your client base, your sales process, and how you nurture clients. Then they research the best topics and keywords to use in content and advertising to connect with prospective clients.

The Start-Up Association

When you decide to work with the SEO B2B agency, the first steps involve learning about your business, clients, and competitors. Then the agency researches insights into your competitors and designs methodologies to beat them. It’s the beginning of your B2B SEO strategy.?

All the information in this step is designed to create a strategy aimed at increasing your online reach and connecting with the right people.

After deep keyword and topic research, the agency creates topics for your website content designed to attract buyers and outpace the competition. They work with you to develop a production schedule for the website content.?

And finally, they will recommend the best platforms to share your information and services like email to connect with future and current clients.?

This process usually takes six to eight weeks. And once it is complete, the next step is to implement the strategy.

Implement the Strategy

SEO is an ongoing process. Your agency can work with you to start optimizing your website and using peripheral platforms. This is when the rubber meets the road as you work toward your revenue goals.?

Your B2B business can choose two main courses of action:

1. Consult with your in-house team with monthly tactics

2. Content production?

There are several factors to consider before choosing which path to take. Your main considerations are how much work you want to do in-house or whether you want the agency to handle the implementation.?

SEO Consultation

When you opt for a consultation with your in-house team, the SEO agency guides the strategy suggesting actions. Those suggestions are based on research and staying current with the latest SEO practices in order to design a program that gets the best responses from search engines.

The agency coaches your in-house team through the content marketing process. Usually, the service involves:

? Content calendars: a schedule of what content to produce and when.

? Content briefs: thorough outlines, wireframes, and technical recommendations for writers, designers, and promoters. Items like pillar pages, blog posts, product feature pages, etc. Your team knows the actions they need to perform to meet the calendar schedule.

? Play-by-play coaching: giving action items to your team to improve content performance. As your business continues with the service, the coaching becomes more sophisticated.

? Market intelligence: ongoing insights on competitor activity, content trends, and findings. This information is the basis for why certain content performs well in the current market.

? SEO Checklist: A list of keywords, phrases, and topics researched to attract customers to use in content production.

Consultation works well for well-funded B2B businesses that have the in-house resources and personnel to perform tasks.

Content Production Service

You may choose to have the agency do your SEO services for you, including keyword research and content production, so you can focus on serving your business clients.

Typically, the agency will produce educational resources related to the topics of your choice. The content production will use branded keywords, making it more relevant to your audience.

The agency produces a flow of original content in line with the strategy and needs of your business. This usually includes a mix of the following:

? Long-form content: ebooks, pillar pages, white pages, case studies, etc.

? Blog posts: researched, clear copy designed to speak to your target audience, written and posted regularly (e.g. 2x/week)

? Email automation content: campaigns for prospects and customers.

? Pay Per Click copy: keyword-researched ad campaigns to bring clients to your website. ? Landing page copy: focused, targeted landing page designed for action and qualifying prospects.

? Consulting services: Ongoing recommendations to improve your organic reach, focusing on attracting ideal clients to your services.

? Monitoring and reporting: Continuing monitoring of all SEO. activities, including making adjustments and refining methods. Monthly reports on all aspects of the comprehensive program.

Comprehensive content production serves B2B businesses that want to focus on serving clients.

What The B2B Agency Needs From You

Search engines work on data—bits of information. As a B2B marketing consultant, your SEO agency is skilled at collecting and using data to feed the best data to search engines. They do that to target specific audiences in specific places.?

The decisions the SEO practitioners make about creating your service is based on the information you provide. You may feel the details about your business are proprietary and the agency will sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to protect your data.

The agency needs the information to perform necessary tasks like:

? evaluate website structure and usability

? evaluate your current content on all pages

? research topics and keywords relating to your target audience

? recommend pertinent content topics: web pages, articles, blog topics, infographics, white papers, etc.

? understand the language your target market uses

? create advertising copy

? select appropriate social media platforms

? create and segment email lists

? create email workflows

Prepare To Be Prepared For Your B2B Marketing Agency

The following are examples of the basic information the agency will need in order to create a comprehensive SEO program for your B2B business. When you provide extensive information, the agency can make better decisions about your digital campaigns.?

Introduction

Basic information about your business, including its history, size, and products/service offering.

Marketing Team

Your wider marketing and digital marketing activities currently. Is there a single person who runs the team and how big is the team?

External Support

List other agencies or freelancers on any elements of marketing or PR strategy or execution.

Industries & Personas

Main industry verticals you target. Who makes the decisions as customers for your business? e.g. IT lead, CFO, VP, etc.

Competitors

Your top three competitors.

Geographic Targeting

One geographic market, or are you looking to acquire traffic and leads from multiple countries or regions globally?

B2B Buyer Journey

Your current buyer journey. How a prospect goes from first discovering you through to being a customer. Length of the typical sales cycle.

SEO History & Requirement

Previous experience with SEO, if any. If so, how and in what form?

Why did you realize that you need SEO assistance?

SEO Objectives

Are you looking to engage with an SEO agency and what are your objectives? What key performance indicators (KPIs) will you measure internally?

SEO Priorities

Do you want to focus on using SEO in specific areas of your business, products or solutions, or geographic markets?

Keyword Research

What SEO keyword research have you done that you would share?

What are relevant keywords/search terms/queries that prospective customers might use in your search?

Content & Copywriting

Do you have resources to produce content and copy to support SEO internally, or would you look for a provider to produce it for you as part of this engagement? Or a combination?

What would the content sign-off process be like?

Website & CMS

What is your current website and technology or CMS framework? When was it last redesigned/developed, and are there any plans to redesign it in the future? Does a developer have the expertise to implement technical changes that would require an SEO-centric approach? Do you have any microsites or other domains that we might want to consider?

Analytics, Data & Attribution

Can you share your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts?

Do you feel your website has good analytics and tracking, or does it need work?

Do you use a specific attribution model across your channels?

How many website sessions are there each month, and how much organic traffic is there?

What is the average number of leads each month through the website?

How many of those leads are qualified leads?

Is there an average value for a deal – or an example of some values if there is a range of products?

What’s the average lifetime value of a customer?

Do you monitor any other conversions on your website, and if so, what are they and what are the conversion rates?

PPC & Paid Channels

Are you running paid social advertising or PPC campaigns? Are you looking for any support with this?

Agency Fit

What are your goals in working with a particular type of agency, whether it’s on a proposition, a specialty, size, location, or any other criteria?

Budgets

Do you have budgets that you’re looking for SEO proposals?

Next Steps & Timelines

What will be the next step in terms of discussions with agencies, pitches, etc? What are your intended timelines?

As you can see, the information is extensive. SEO practitioners use this information to build a strategy designed for your business. A solid agency will tailor a program to meet your business needs, gathering the best prospective customers.

We’re Ready to Tailor Your B2B SEO Plan

A B2B SEO agency improves website technicalities for better ranking and conversions. At Erfolk, we have helped clients achieve better rankings in search engines and improve their conversion rates.

If you’re looking for an SEO agency that can improve your website technicalities and rankings, look no further. Our team of experts are experts in all things digital marketing and can help you get ahead of the competition. We’re here to answer any questions and work with you one-on-one to create a stellar SEO plan that will drive sales.