SEO Tips From Semalt For Better Organic Rankings



Search engines like Google are essential for the visibility of the companies today. SEO - or search engine optimization - is the magic word here. Because the goal of ranking at the top of the relevant search queries on the Google results page is also important for the B2B companies in order to attract the traffic from the target group to their own website. So, this being very important for the visibility of the companies we wrote this article to let you know what the SEO is worth and its importance in B2B.

What does SEO mean? And is SEO worthwhile in B2B?

Search engine optimization's (SEO) measures aim to bring the individual pages of your web presence to the suitable search terms among the first ten search results. When we are calculating these rankings, the search engines use the countless factors and the user's signals.

Among other things, the search engines evaluate the structure, the technology and the speed of your website. However, the SEO quintessence is above all the content, that means, the content that you offer on your site. This is also rated and checked whether it is so good for Google, Bing and co; for a certain keyword or a search query.

Content is always good if it is fully answers the searcher's questions and if they are satisfied. The user's signals such as the length of stay, the click rate or whether a user visits only your site for a few seconds and then calls up another search result on Google.

B2B SEO is still somewhat differentiated from B2C SEO. Even if Google basically uses the same evaluation criteria, B2B and B2C SEO differ in the following points:
  • In B2B, the relevant keywords usually have significantly less search volume
  • The competition is much higher in B2C
  • Shops are used more often in B2C than in B2B
  • B2B is mostly dominated by more complex topics and therefore requires more complex content and technical jargon 
Nevertheless, SEO or Google is an extremely important channel for B2B marketing and should be firmly anchored in every marketing strategy. If you rank well in your industry, it will lead to a lot of traffic from the right target group. This in turn can increase the conversion rate and lead immensely. It also makes your brand known and your company is perceived as an expert in the respective subject area.

What is SEO and search engine optimization - a definition

SEO is an abbreviation for the English term Search Engine Optimization.

So SEO and search engine optimization are the same - sometimes the term SEO optimization is used, but it is rather colloquial and semantically incorrect.

This tactic - which is usually incorporated into online marketing - describes all the measures that companies or people take to rank organically (unpaid) better on the search engines. Because a good ranking for the right search queries means visibility in the target group.

If your search result (also snippet) looks promising on the search results page (also SERP) and is clicked by the searching people, you increase the traffic on your website with this good ranking. Traffic describes the number of the users who visit your website.

But the traffic is not the only positive effect that good search engine placement brings: If your website appears in the preferred topic for numerous search queries, this also has a positive branding effect - you will be perceived by the users from your target group as a topic expert.

SEO Marketing: When is Search Engine Ranking Good?

There is no clear answer to this question. Because it always depends on your target group. But some facts help to assess your own ranking positions:

The vast majority of the clicks come from the results on the first search results page. With the desktop version of Google, 10 results are delivered for the respective search query. In the mobile version, there are only 7. According to a study by Sistrix from 2015, 99.1% of all the clicks came from the first SERP.

But it is usually not enough to be ranked 8 or 9 with your search result. In the same study, the SEO tool provider also found that the clicks are distributed very differently, even among the first 10 results:
  • Accordingly, the first search result gets around 60% of all the clicks, the third snippet only gets 7.92% and the eighth result only 1.33%.
  • For B2B search engine optimization, this development is even more dramatic. 
  • In addition, Google features such as the Knowledge Graph and the Featured Snippet (we have highlighted further results on Google features in this SEO study) but also Google Ads, which are basically at the top of the SERP, offer additional competition that increases the number of the Shrinking clicks.
  • In addition, in B2B SEO you mostly use terms or rank for the search queries that have a very low search volume. With around 100 search queries per month and your website in eighth position, that would be 1.33 people per month that will end up on your website. In concrete terms, this means: In order to really get a significant amount of traffic, you have to rank your search results in positions 1 - 3 - especially in the mobile area.

SEO, SEA, SEM? Definition of the terms

In addition to SEO and search engine optimization, one hears and reads the terms SEA again and again; Search engine marketing, SEM etc. We clarify the terms related to search engines:

Briefly explained, SEM (Search Engine Marketing or English Search Engine Marketing) is the umbrella term that comprises the two tactics SEO (Search Engine Optimization or English Search Engine Optimization) and SEA (Search Engine Advertising or English Search Engine Advertising).

The big difference between SEO and SEA is that with SEO you use content quality, topic focus, a good technical structure and good user's signals to ensure that you organic (unpaid) rank well on Google for certain search terms. While with SEA you pay for a placement at the top of the search results page (SERP) for one or more keywords.

In addition, some other terms are of general interest for the search engine marketing:
  • Ranking: The positioning of your website on the search engines.
  • SERP: The search engines results page.
  • Snippet : The individual search result, composed of the URL, the title tag and the meta description.
  • Featured Snippet: A particularly highlighted search result that is displayed at the top of the search results page and provides a concise answer to the search query.
  • Crawler : An algorithm that examines and evaluates your website.
  • Indexing / De-indexing: Here you specify whether a certain URL of your website should be searched by the Google bot (also a crawler) and listed on Google.
  • CTR: The click-through rate describes the relationship between the impressions and the clicks of your search results on Google.
  • Short Click / Return to SERP: When a search result is clicked on Google, but the user clicks back on the search results page within a few seconds - without having performed any interaction on the page.

Why should you optimize for Google?

The importance of SEO has increased immensely in the recent years - also for B2B companies, because research and searches start more and more frequently on the search engines - especially Google.

In a global comparison, Google is by far the most important search engine. This is followed by Microsoft's Bing and in the third place, Yahoo!

The global market shares of the search engines (as of January 2020)

Google (87.16%)

Bing (5.57%)

Yahoo! (2.83%)

Search engine usage

This means the rankings that actually bring you traffic to the website, Google SEO is almost exclusively relevant. By the way, the mobile search is even more dominated by Google.

From 2019 revealed that search the engines are the most important point of contact on the Internet. 92.6% of the respondents use this frequently, but at least occasionally. This puts the search engines at the first place among the most frequently used functions on the Internet.

This means that the potential customers also search online specifically on Google - for the solution to their problems. If you are not ranked for the right searches, there is a high likelihood that these potential customers will not consider you as a provider, or will not notice you at all.

SEO tips for the content marketers

Content marketing is increasingly used in creating the long-term promotional campaigns for the companies. There are more and more specialists in this field, but the prepared content still contains some basic SEO errors. Yes, precisely with SEO, because although the content marketing's content must be of high quality, it should not be forgotten that it should comply with the basic principles of SEO. That is why we have prepared an entry where every content marketer will find a list of things worth checking in terms of SEO. See if there is something for you among these that will improve your activities. 

SEO tips for content marketers - what will these bring to your work?

It is commonly believed that SEO texts are the inferior texts, used only for the positioning. That's why many people are surprised when it turns out that the content marketing has so much to do with SEO. In the end, it's the SEO help your content to get better visibility in the search. Therefore, it is worth taking into account the advice of the SEO specialists that will make the content better refined in terms of the search and the people who are actually interested in your website's product or service will find it. SEO and content marketing should be implemented simultaneously for a reason.

Which SEO tips are the most important to the content marketers?

The SEO tips concern usually the most common mistakes related to the preparation of the content marketing's content in terms of the website positioning. So find out below the most common errors.

Wrong selection or omission of keywords 

Here we will take a simple example to better understand. Let's take the texts about men's fashion for an online store, better keywords will be "men's fashion", "men's clothes", instead of "fashion" or "clothing" (with the latter, women looking for tips may come across for myself). So how to choose the key phrases to well position the website and at the same time to maintain a high quality of content? The keyword planning tools can help. One of the basic and free tools of this type is the Keyword Planner from Google. You can also use other applications and free or paid programs available on the Internet. It is also good to get to know the possibilities offered by Google Trends.

No website optimization for SEO 

We previously mentioned the keywords, but the website optimization for a search engine is not only about texts. The graphics, the links to the subpages and whether the templates adapted to the resolution of various devices are also important. In this matter, the SEO tips are very important as it impacts directly the preparation of the website, the publication and the subsequent search engine positioning. 

Lack of monitoring of the visibility of the articles and the user behavior 

It often happens that people who prepare the content for the websites do not examine how it is perceived by the people who receive the content. Whether it gained the visibility on the Internet or not. If an interesting article has been written for a given keyword, it is worth checking the position from time to time and, if it needs, to take the necessary actions to improve the position.

No links to the page  

We have already written about the importance of the content distribution on the blog. From the point of view of the website positioning, it is very important to get the links of the pages that are a sign for Google that someone liked our content and recommends it. When you publish your text on another portal and there is such a possibility, it is worth signing the authorship with an active link, it is not only a good solution in terms of the website positioning, but also makes it easier for the others to find the author's website on the Internet. 

Changing the website address 

Another mistake made by the content creators is to change the address of the page on which the article was published or moving it to another subpage without redirecting it. If such an article has already been promoted on the Internet, all the work is wasted, because the Internet users will end up at the old address. Also, Google's robots will not transfer the power to the new subpage, because Google's engines will not know where the article has been moved.

Conclusion 

As you can see, SEO is always associated with the content marketing and the complements high-quality content, allowing a better website preparation and increasing the number of the recipients, thus a higher position in the search engine.

Interested in SEO? Check out our other articles on the Semalt blog.

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