SEO can be a very slow process but it is definitely present in the future of marketing. It usually takes 4 to 6 months for a website to start seeing any significant results but once it gets there, and providing the work is continued, it is very possible for a website to maintain a top spot for a specific search term even after the SEO has stopped. It is not a cheap course of action, but the investment and return on SEO is perhaps unbeatable.
Many marketing agencies will try to get you to invest a lot of money in ‘guaranteed results’ from paid for marketing such as Pay Per Click. While this can sometimes be beneficial, especially if a business has lots of key news that can be listed and found on search engines, it is not really a long-term solution. The majority of high-ranking organic search results will not be websites using PPC, but the websites who have invested time and money into search engine optimization.
SEO is an acronym that stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of improving a website’s visibility in a search engine’s organic results. This in turn helps drive traffic to the site via search engines.
What are SEO services?
In the online world, the best method of having your ads in the right place is through PPC & PPA campaigns. These are Pay-Per-Click and Pay-Per-Action. These are types of advertisements where an ad is put on a location and the company pays the host of the ad for every visitor that clicks on the ad to go to the company’s site. Action is similar except the company pays when an action is done on the ad (example being a purchase). This method is very effective since the host is only paid whenever the advertisement has an effect. Ads can be altered to increase effectiveness with time. This would be perfect for smaller businesses trying to get their product on the market. This concludes the first part about what are SEO services and how they can be beneficial for companies.
SEO services can be broken down into various types of internet marketing. These types of marketing are similar to primary marketing types in a conventional business. An example of this would be the use of commercials on TV to advertise a product. By targeting the right market with the right commercial, the chances of that product being sold increase. In the same way, a company would want to increase traffic to their website. The best way of doing this would be to have an advertisement in a location where their market is most likely to visit. If the ad is in the right place, it is seen by the right type of person who is looking for that product.
SEO services refer to Search Engine Optimization services. It is important for creating a very high-ranking site through a marketing campaign of different types. These campaigns would help increase the rank of the site on various search engines. A high rank is important because the likelihood of someone visiting your site is related to the results of the page within the search. A company can target the visitor traffic to their website through the use of information-based and graphical advertisements. These advertisements should be targeted towards the segment of the population that is most likely to require your product.
In the recent years, the internet has gained huge popularity. In this era where information technology has revolutionized the way people used to search and find information, time has become a luxury as X & Y generations move into prime spending time. X & Y generations believe in multi-tasking and enjoy eating fast foods. They live in an era where information is overloaded. Because of this time factor, people do not have time to purchase anything offline. Everything is done online, from learning to shopping. People are finding it convenient to sit at the comfort of their homes or internet bars or workplaces and seek the information that they require. For these reasons, online marketing has become essential to reach respective target markets. It has become a necessity to reach your niche market using the most efficient methods. This is where SEO service can help a company in a big way.
Importance of SEO for B2B companies
Most customers within a business-to-business (B2B) environment begin their research of a purchase with a general search. This means that they are seeking to identify the nature of a problem, potential solutions, and who offers these potential solutions. This search can occur anywhere, but most likely it will start at a search engine. It has been shown that the need for search engine usage in the B2B sector is paramount as upwards of 90% of business purchases now begin with a search. With no presence in the top search engines, a business is essentially invisible to a customer that is searching for a solution. Since that search represents a potential sale, we now have a lost potential for XX% of annual revenue. B2B markets are often niche or industry specific with a variety of distinct verticals. Due to the abundance of information on the web, a B2B purchase is a long sales cycle because there are often multiple people involved in the purchase decision and there are many alternative solutions to compare. At each stage of the sales cycle or purchase decision process, there is an opportunity for a prospective customer to use a search engine. Because of this, SEO is most effective in B2B environments since it can directly target the customers who are interested in the solution that your business provides. And it can do this at the point in time. For example, marketing managers in industrial automation software companies are more likely to obtain information about automation software at a time when they are seeking to understand technology solutions for their recent project. This might occur in a purchase decision stage or a project is nearing completion in which the software might wrench a change in a process.
Overview of Sotavento Medios
Sotavento Medios began with a strong interest in digital marketing and a goal to assist businesses in achieving success online. As the field of SEO and digital marketing progressed, we made a conscious effort to stay up-to-date and offer top-notch services to our clients. Through our unwavering dedication and focus on delivering high-quality work, we have become a prominent digital marketing agency in Singapore. Our team of professionals is knowledgeable in the latest SEO and marketing techniques and is committed to producing outstanding outcomes for our clients. The history of Sotavento Medios is characterized by enthusiasm, diligence, and a dedication to aiding businesses in prospering online.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Narrowing down to specific important keywords can help B2B companies rank against larger general consumer sites. Utilization of long-tail keywords is one way to accomplish this. Long-tail keywords are phrases of 3 or more words specific to the product or service a company is offering. For example, a company selling revenue cycle management services would have a better chance of ranking for “healthcare revenue cycle management outsourcing” as opposed to just “revenue cycle management”. Creating a page specific to each long-tail keyword is a good way to incrementally add pages and content to the site. This could help gain traffic or capture leads on very specific product searches. Keep in mind that while a long-tail keyword might be very specific, it is still possible to attain good search volume cumulatively across all long-tail keywords related to a single product.
Optimizing website content with targeted keywords is key in the search engine ranking process. The best places to insert keywords are in the <title> tag, headers, and body text. It is common for companies to make the mistake of overloading or “stuffing” keywords thinking it will improve their ranking, though this may not be the case. To avoid being penalized by search engines, it is best to keep keyword density between 5-20%. Another mistake is using flash media to display crucial text content. Flash is not readable by search engine spiders and the content contained within it is invisible to search engines. Instead, the use of alt text for flash and images can provide an opportunity to include some keywords. Submitting a sitemap and ensuring the site is easily navigable by both users and search engine spiders can help ensure all pages of the site get indexed.
Keyword research and optimization are critical to the success of any SEO campaign. Without performing this step, companies are missing a fundamental strategy to achieve higher rankings. Identifying relevant keywords is particularly challenging for B2B companies. One source of insight is to think about what the target customer searches when looking for your service. Use action-oriented set of keywords when possible. A good tool to exploit is using the “related searches” functions within search engines and the Google AdWords Search for similar terms – when you enter a keyword and click “Get More Keywords” it will return a list of keywords and phrases containing the keyword.
Identifying relevant keywords for B2B companies
B2B companies rarely target one specific keyword, but a wide range of products and services with a variety of applications. Because of this, it is important to cast a wide net when identifying potential keywords, and then gradually narrow this down to a core group of most relevant keywords. A keyword with a high search volume may attract a lot of traffic, but it may also attract a lot of irrelevant traffic. This is especially a problem in the B2B sector where visitors may be looking for a different application of your product than the one you are offering. High traffic and high competition keywords are often too generic or broad to be of much use. A visitor searching for “network security” could be looking for anything from a simple software firewall to a high-level intrusion prevention system. This keyword is also extremely competitive and generic. Trying to compete with the Symantecs and Ciscos of the world is an unrealistic goal for the majority of small to medium-sized B2B businesses. A better strategy is to target niche areas within the broader sector. Clients are likely to be more specific when searching for products in these areas, and the keywords will have lower competition. An example of this would be something like “medical device network security”. This is much more specific, has a smaller potential pool of customers, but these customers are more likely to be looking for exactly your type of product. The key is finding a balance between a keyword having enough search volume to be worth targeting, but not being so broad that it is too competitive and likely to attract irrelevant traffic.
Optimizing website content with targeted keywords
Before you jump into optimizing web content with keywords, let’s familiarize ourselves with what information search engine spiders are looking for when visiting your site. Search engine spiders are looking for clues to what your web page is targeting. Spiders are sophisticated but cannot read a website as a human. In the Meta Tags section above, we discussed how spiders read Meta tags for information, so now let’s move onto the web page’s visible content. This is where you want to place information-rich content containing targeted keywords in HTML text. Text is always a better way to go than graphics, Flash, or Java Applets. If this statement contradicts your creative design for the web, then understand that it’s a matter of priority. If your priority is to get the search engine spiders to easily understand what your web page is targeting, then it’s key to tone down on the graphics and make way for text. Your home page alone should have a significant amount of text (at least 200 words) that contains keywords and phrases for which you want to target. This doesn’t mean writing white text on a white background, an old spam tactic. This tactic will now get you banned from search engines. Write legible text that reads well to a human visitor with a focus on the targeted keywords. As a rule of thumb, if you read your web page out loud and you don’t sound robotic, then you’re doing well. If you’re tripping over keywords and it sounds nonsensical, you may want to revise.
Utilizing long-tail keywords for better ranking
An example would be a company that specializes in cloud computing for healthcare organizations. It obviously would be beneficial to rank well on “healthcare IT”, but that keyword is far too broad and is now being dominated by larger corporations. Implementing a long-tail keyword strategy starting with something like “healthcare IT solutions” can start to draw targeted traffic. From there “storage solutions for healthcare IT” and “cloud computing for healthcare organizations” are just a very small sample of the what the long tail strategy can accomplish. Traffic from the latter searches will be much higher quality than the first broad search on healthcare IT. Evidently the long tail strategy will be an evolving campaign going through various analytics and revising to find the most effective keyword phrases.
Long-tail keywords are phrases containing over 3 words that are specific in nature. Although general keywords for the business are important to rank well on, often times these keywords are very saturated with larger companies putting forth a large effort and budget to rank at the top. By utilizing long tail keywords, you have the opportunity to promote your business to a specific audience and narrow down on a particular segment of your industry in which you specialize. If you are a company that provides a specific service over a product, targeting long tail keywords can be especially effective in drawing the right audience to your website. This works in alignment with the buyer persona concept discussed earlier, and is a great way to capture an audience when they are looking for a service in your industry. Long-tail keywords are generally easier to rank with because there is less competition, and the traffic drawn from these specific searches actually bring higher quality leads to your website. Long tail keywords have been said to attract the highest quality traffic to a website. This strategy is also bound to lower your bounce rate, for visitors will be more likely to stay since what they found is exactly what they were looking for. Long tail keywords can be implemented into blog posts and other informative content steadily to draw traffic over time.
On-Page SEO Techniques
For URLs, always include hyphens, rather than underscores. Hyphens are treated as ‘space’ characters, while underscores are not. Simplicity is key, and hence it’s generally best to avoid including too many folders. Always aim to place possibly the most relevant keyword in the URL. Do not change existing URLs if your page has been indexed by Google, as you will end up with 404 errors. If you have to change a URL, make sure you 301 redirect the old URL to the new one. For new pages in existing websites, it’s generally best to include the keyword within the website’s current URL structure.
One of the most basic areas of on-page optimization is optimizing URL structure and meta tags. This can have a big impact on your site’s SEO. Step by step guide for changing URL/Permalink structure in WordPress here. For Magento, it’s probably best to include this from the outset, as changing the URL structure can result in duplicated URLs.
On-page SEO is a massive topic covering several primary areas such as page content, optimizing for rich results (covered above), and optimization of meta elements. This guide to on-page SEO will help you with those.
Creating SEO-friendly URLs and meta tags
The longer your URL, the more your page will be diluted. Shorter URLs often tend to rank better than long ones. Whenever you get a chance, make the URL shorter, and remember to maintain your information scent. For example, if you have an ecommerce site, an intuitive URL would be: company.com/shoes/nike-red-airforce1.html. Compare this to: company.com/products.php?id=12345&category=5&subcat=17. Although this is a rough guideline, it is still best not to focus too much on the length of the URL and more on changes that are actually related to your content. Every page that is indexed in the search engines is given a title and meta description that users see in the search results. The information contained within them is what potential visitors use to decide whether they will click on your site or not. Therefore, it’s imperative that you create an informative and enticing title/meta description for all of your webpages. The easiest way to do this on a large scale is to simply manually create them for your most important pages and let the rest inherit the title/meta description from the page’s content. Step 5 will show you a good way to improve the quality of these on a global scale.
Optimizing website structure and navigation
Navigation refers to the method used to move around the site. This can include a bar across the top of the page, a set of links at the side of the page, or links within the text of the page. The best method will use clear text links and will avoid using drop-down menus and Flash-based menus. Flash menus are particularly bad because often they will only contain a link to a page and the search engine will not be able to see the page as the Flash file. Ensure that it is possible to get to all of the pages on the site from the home page, without clicking more than 3 times. This is crucial for spiders, especially if it is a large site.
A web page shape structure often occurs for retail sites which allow both consumers and businesses to buy products. There will often be two different sections of the site with little navigation between the two. The aim of the reseller’s page would be to navigate from one section to the same section on the consumer area. This can cause problems because search engines will often see the two sections as the same and can cause duplicate content issues.
The simplest way to determine structure is to draw it on a whiteboard or piece of paper. Take this example: A producer of business products has a main aim of sourcing more resellers for their products. The best page structure would be a linear one which would present all information about products available to resellers from the home page and then easy progression to a sign-up page.
Website structure can be defined in several ways, the most useful could be as a page hierarchy. There are several different types of organization you can use, these include a tree-like structure, a simple linear progression, or a web shape structure.
Website structure and site navigation is a fundamental element for B2B websites. This is of critical importance to the success of your website and is critical when determining best practice for SEO.
Enhancing website loading speed for better user experience
Website loading speed is a very important factor because it is related to user experiences. Faster website speed will make users happy and satisfied, otherwise slow website speed will make the visitor unsatisfied and it is very likely that the visitor will never return. A good website loading speed is an added value for your visitor. Not only that, search engine giant Google has announced that website loading speed has a significant impact on the search result page rank. Websites with faster loading speed have a chance to get a better page rank than the slower ones. This is why there are many webmasters that consider website loading speed as a part of SEO strategy.
Website loading speed is the time required to display the content on the specific page or website. It is also often described as time to first byte. Anyone who has ever browsed the internet will know how frustrating it is to try and access an unresponsive or slow website. People tend to leave the site before the content is loaded if it takes too long. Actually, there is a scientific study conducted by Akamai Technologies that shows that 47% of visitors expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. And 40% of visitors will leave the website if the loading process takes more than 3 seconds.
Implementing schema markup for rich snippets
The added benefit of rich snippets is that by making your results more visible and providing more information, this will result in higher CTR. For these reasons, we would advise you to make use of schema to achieve rich snippets on your website.
A rich snippet is a result on a SERP (search engine results page) that includes extra data which can be shown in many formats. For example, if you search a recipe you may see the duration it takes to cook and the calories; by implementing schema and providing the correct information this can then be shown on the SERPs page of your website.
Schema is a type of microdata that makes it easier for search engines to parse and interpret the information on your web pages more effectively so they can serve relevant results to users based on search queries. Furthermore, if the information on your web pages can be properly understood by search engines, they can then provide more informative results for users such as rich snippets.
Again, this subsection should be written in an informative tone. You should assume that your intended audience knows what schema is; generally you should be addressing web developers and/or SEOs in this section.
Off-Page SEO Strategies
A quality backlink is one that links to your site using your keyword. So, try to find previous companies or business contacts who are willing to help promote your website using the anchor text that you’ve specified. Avoid using backlinks with the term “click here” that lead to your homepage. Take it step by step, backlink by backlink, and do it slowly and gradually. If you’re too aggressive, it will be seen as link manipulation, which is something that search engines hate.
One way is to build backlinks to your website. Backlinks are still a major factor in search engine results. However, you need to be careful about where these backlinks are coming from on the web. Unfortunately, automated backlink software is no longer useful today.
Brand and page authority are still important in determining search engine results. It’s not just about what you do on your site, but also how well your brand is recognized on the web. I remember it took a week to beat Microsoft in terms of Windows, even though I was running a Windows Vista blog. But then again, how can I increase the authority of my business website?
Building high-quality backlinks for B2B websites
Link building is a fundamental aspect of off-page search engine optimization and is probably the most important factor for determining a website’s search engine ranking. Backlinks have always been the bedrock of the internet, and search engines to this day utilize backlinks as the most heavily weighted factor when determining search engine rankings. The landscape of SEO and link building is always changing, and today, the importance of building high-quality links has never been higher. It is no longer sufficient to just have a large number of links; the emphasis now should be on high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites. In the eyes of search engines, a high-quality backlink is defined as a link from a site that is regarded as having a high level of authority (site authority is dependent on factors such as relevance of content and overall popularity of the site), and the link itself should be associated with the keywords of the page it is linking to. The following is a description of link building tactics that can be of benefit to B2B (Business to Business) websites and any B2B SEO campaign.
Leveraging social media for SEO benefits
Connecting with your customers and turning them into brand loyalists is also an important point. Usually, some of them may have a website, blog, or even a personal social media page. Having them as someone who is close to you increases the chance of cooperation to get backlinks from their website through guest posting. If they have high credibility and many followers, you can ask them to promote your brand, which indirectly can also increase your brand and website exposure.
The key to successful SEO leveraging with social media is being able to create content that can be easily shared and establishing valuable connections with your followers. The more your content is shared, the more people will read it. This condition will give you a higher possibility of getting natural backlinks, especially if some of your followers own a website or blog. They may use your content as a reference in their writing and put your URL link as the source. With more shared content, your brand and website will also get wider exposure and a higher possibility of being mentioned on other websites, which means more chances to get backlinks.
Leveraging social media prior to the remainder of the whole text tends to look like the social media referral traffic has benefitted you a lot in the process of using social media for B2B business. While it is not absolutely wrong, the main point still lies in the SEO benefit you can get from it. Social media referral traffic may have its own roundabout way of supporting your SEO method, which will be discussed later on. But in this section, we will first discuss how to maximize your social media use directly to support your SEO.
Guest blogging and influencer outreach for brand exposure
A similar strategy is to conduct influencer outreach. An “influencer” is an individual thought-leader in an industry with his/her own popular blog or site. These individuals have their own audience and are highly regarded in the industry. Often, if an influencer is interested in a concept, he/she will write about it and the audience will follow suit. The idea with influencer outreach is to get these individuals to recognize the brand and create content in relation to it. This can be accomplished through various means such as offering free products or services, affiliate programs, or even consulting positions. In exchange, the influencer will usually request a link to the site or product in question. The result is increased brand awareness, a more favorable reputation, and improved search engine rankings.
One of the most effective ways to increase brand visibility and connect with a larger audience is through guest blogging. This entails creating content for other blogs in the industry in exchange for a website link or author information. Guest blogging is beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, the website is exposed to a larger audience. As a new company, simply getting the brand recognized is difficult. Guest blogging provides an opportunity to reach out to a larger audience and connect with it. It also helps establish the company as a “brand name” in the industry, building the brand’s reputation with each post. Perhaps most importantly, quality content from a guest blog post can greatly improve the site’s search engine rankings through the acquisition of quality links and increased site traffic.
