Business to business (B2B) ecommerce is one of the fastest growing sales models, with nearly 50% of all B2B purchases taking place online.
There are plenty of overlaps between B2B and traditional direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce—namely the ability to sell through a self-serve online storefront and use search engines to target potential buyers when they’re actively looking for a solution you can provide.
Studies have found the average B2B buyer spends 27% of the time in their purchase journey independently researching online. Two-thirds of them consult search engines during this decision-making process, beating online marketplaces and trade shows as the most popular channel for B2B product discovery.
This guide shares how to capitalize on this search engine preference with a B2B SEO strategy that can turn browsers into high value customers.
What are the differences between B2C and B2B SEO?
Sales funnels
The B2B sales process is much longer and more complex than direct-to-consumer sales, spanning up to five months. The decision-making process also involves up to eight stakeholders for enterprise purchases, compared to the sole buyer in a B2C transaction. Content needs to be easily surfaceable by multiple people, each of whom weigh in at different points in the decision-making process.
And with more risk on the line (often the larger financial investment associated with B2B products), buyers need more convincing before committing to a purchase. Content formats like case studies, white papers, and product documentation play a key role later in the conversion funnel. All of this content needs optimizing so it’s easy for buyers to locate when required.
Lower search volume
Traditionally, SEO “best practice” would be to find a keyword with a high search volume. The more people searching this, the better chance you have at monetizing the page targeting it … right?
This isn’t necessarily true with B2B SEO. Businesses that are evaluating different options likely care about a product’s specifications. This means they’re more likely to use long-tail variations (i.e., “wholesale vitamin C face masks”). The search volume of these variations is likely to be low, but the nature of B2B means these single customers end up spending more than individuals. You don’t need as high of a search volume to make the keyword targeting a profitable strategy.
Some B2B markets are also much smaller than B2C. For example, a keyword like “industrial HVAC system” has a much narrower target audience than a broader B2C term like “red summer dress.” The former will have a lower search volume than you’d expect for a DTC term.
Lower conversion rates
Because the B2B decision-making process is much longer and complex, it’s unlikely that a buyer will convert immediately after coming across your storefront in a search engine. Buyers need multiple interactions with your brand before feeling confident enough to buy. This means that B2B SEO has a lower immediate conversion rate than DTC strategies.
That’s not to say that B2B SEO is an ineffective marketing channel. According to Wpromote’s recent survey, some 23% of B2B marketers think organic search is the channel that’s most effective at driving revenue. This is true across all stages of the funnel: 19% think it contributes the most to achieving top-of-funnel goals, and 17% think it’s effective at converting B2B leads lingering in the bottom of the conversion funnel.
Multichannel marketing attribution can show the part your B2B SEO strategy plays in longer sales cycles. Buyers might initially discover your products or services through a search engine like Google, only to go on and view your social media accounts or visit the site directly. Multichannel attribution can surface the impact of SEO on these longer B2B sales journeys by giving the channel credit for the sale, rather than the channel a buyer used immediately prior to purchasing.
Build a winning B2B SEO strategy
Understand your target market and audience
Any marketing strategy starts with a strong understanding of who you’ll plan to reach. B2B search engine optimization is no different.
Understanding your target market helps identify the keywords and phrases they’re likely to use when searching for your products or services online. Without this knowledge, there’s a risk of targeting keywords that may drive organic traffic but fail to attract qualified leads or potential buyers. (When this happens, stakeholders claim that “SEO is dead”—in actual fact, you’re just targeting the wrong searchers.)
Quiz existing B2B customers to uncover:
- The pain points they’re experiencing and looking to find a solution for
- The goal they’re trying to achieve
- The technical jargon they use
- The type of content they consume
This insight also helps build the online user experience. Search engines like Google have openly said this holds weight in its algorithm: “Google’'s core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a good page experience. Site owners seeking to be successful with our systems should not focus on only one or two aspects of page experience. Instead, check if you’'re providing an overall great page experience across many aspects.”
Know your sales funnel and buyer journey
Now you know who your target market is, dive deeper and understand the typical path they take toward becoming a customer. This full picture view of your B2B sales funnel helps you prioritize resources when implementing a new SEO strategy.
Keywords used by buyers at the bottom of the funnel are the hottest leads, but competition tends to be fierce since other businesses want to claim the limited top spots. You might need to invest time into accumulating trust signals like backlinks, brand mentions, or customer reviews before claiming the top spot in a competitive SERP. It’s therefore not always the best strategy for a newer B2B brand that wants to see SEO return on investment (ROI) quickly.
A comprehensive view of the B2B buyer journey also informs the content you’ll produce. Buyers who interact with your brand for the first time might digest educational articles or top-level how to’s. Those closer to a purchase require case studies and in-depth reviews—all of which must be accessible through the keywords they’re Googling to find them.
Plan a keyword research strategy
Keyword research is the process of uncovering which phrases your buyers search for when they’re looking for products or services like yours. SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs can help you find them. Customer feedback and visitor acquisition reports in Google Search Console can also point you in the right direction.
Contrary to B2C SEO best practices, search volume isn’t a key priority when shortlisting potential keywords. Buyers tend to use longer, more specific keywords when they’re looking for wholesale products. They also often use technical jargon that professionals would use.
Low search volume aside, evaluate the search intent for shortlisted relevant keywords. This determines where you’ll target the phrase and the content you’ll write for each.
We can break search intent down into four key categories:
- Informational. These keywords are shorter and used by people at the top of the buying funnel, such as “what is ERP software” or “lead generation meaning.” Searchers aren’t ready or willing to buy just yet. Instead, they’re searching for top-level advice, which you can serve through your blog.
- Navigational. Buyers searching for navigational keywords are looking for a certain page. Include them on product or blog category pages to guide potential customers in the right direction. Examples include “Shopify customer support” or “Google Gemini case studies.”
- Commercial. Keywords with this search intent are used by people who are in the middle of the sales funnel and want to further research their options. Examples include “compare email marketing apps” or “best warehouse security systems.” Integrate these into comparison web pages or product categories.
- Transactional. Buyers searching for these phrases are willing to do something. Examples include “buy industrial 3D printer” or “quote for business car insurance.” Target them on product or landing pages to help buyers who are further along in the B2B sales funnel complete the task, whether that’s buying a product or requesting a quote.
Plan a content marketing strategy for the sales funnel
A B2B content strategy is the nuts and bolts of how you’ll optimize your storefront for each keyword. Here’s what a typical B2B content strategy looks like and the types of content you’d create for each search intent bucket.
Blog posts
A blog is a place to educate and inspire buyers by providing answers they’re looking for with informational keywords using search terms like “what is” or “benefits.”
You can also treat blog posts as a way to educate buyers with a specific challenge or pain point. If a fashion retailer is Googling “AI trends in fashion,” for example, their pain point could be feeling behind or a fear of being overtaken by competitors. Your article could round up the latest AI trends—ideally with input from fashion or AI experts—to ease their concerns.
At this stage, your goal isn’t to sell your products (though you can subtly reference them throughout the content)—it’s to position your brand as an expert. You’ll cement your brand in their mind so that when a buyer is ready to search for alternatives, you’ve already shown your value.
Category pages
A category page is a collection of products. Buyers might need to locate them if they’re comparing different options. Use them to target commercial keywords that use phrases like “best” or “for” (e.g., “lighting systems for warehouses”).
Product pages
Buyers viewing a product page are further down in the funnel and looking at a product’s technical specifications, use case, or pricing.
Help them locate this information by targeting commercial or highly specific keywords throughout the page, including product descriptions, meta descriptions, and image alt text. For example, a B2B brand selling project management software could target phrases like “project management software for healthcare” or “customizable project management tool” on its product page.
Landing pages
Landing pages have one call-to-action; success is measured by how many people complete a micro conversion. It’s the best content format for transactional keywords that include words like “compare,” “quote,” “pricing,” or “demo.” You can use email forms to provide either type of content while simultaneously collecting a lead’s information for future retargeting.
Perform a technical SEO audit
The infrastructure of your B2B website ensures that search engine crawlers can easily access your website. Here’s a technical SEO checklist to work through when optimizing your B2B storefront:
- Review and monitor site speed and performance. Search engines want users to have a positive experience on sites they’ve recommended on the results page. Slow-loading websites don’t fit that criteria. Help Google’s search engine algorithm feel confident recommending your site by using a content delivery network (CDN), compressing images, and uninstalling non-essential apps. (This isn’t just beneficial for SEO—just a one-second improvement in site speed can improve conversion rate by 2%.)
- Optimize for mobile. Some 63% of Google searches happen on mobile. Increase the odds of your B2B storefront appearing in these mobile search results with a responsive design, limiting redirects, and implementing structured data.
- Check for 404s and broken links. Broken links contribute to a negative user experience since the user is stopped in their tracks on a page that no longer exists. Find these 404 errors inside Google Search Console and redirect the broken link to the next most-relevant URL. For example: If you’ve deleted a product listing for a pair of women’s gray trousers, redirect it to your “Women’s trousers” category page.
- Rewrite anchor text for internal links. Anchor text is the copy that’s used to link to another page. Avoid generic phrases like “Click here” or “Learn more” in favor of keywords that the linked-to page is trying to target. For example: B2B customer service.
- Remove duplicate content. Search engines penalize sites with duplicate content because it’s not sure which URL is best for a user’s query. Common culprits in B2B ecommerce include product or category descriptions. Rewrite these to make sure they’re unique for each URL.
- Optimize your URL structure. Search engines can easily contextualize a page if the URL structure describes what it’s about. Clear URLs can also improve the user experience. Something like “yourstore.com/product/mens-new-balance-sneakers” appears much more reputable and trustworthy than “yourstore.com/nbsneakers395.”
- Audit your sitemap. A sitemap is the master list of URLs on your website that search engine crawlers use to discover and index new pages. Shopify automatically generates a sitemap for every storefront to take this task off your plate.
Consider offsite signals
It’s not just your website that algorithms consider when evaluating where a URL should sit in search engine rankings.
In Google’s eyes, a site with a plethora of backlinks from reputable sites is more trustworthy than one with a smaller or less relevant backlink profile. Website owners must find your site useful if they’re guiding their own visitors there—a good sign that it’s worth indexing high in the results page.
Brand mentions work similarly. They’re unlinked mentions on other websites that are talking about your business. Although it’s wise to reach out to the site owner and ask for these brand mentions to be turned into backlinks, they still hold some weight. Search engines see that your site is useful enough for people to talk about it.
A quick Google search will retrieve a list of link-building techniques. If you’re short on time and want to make the biggest impact fast, prioritize things like:
- Directory listings, such as wholesale marketplaces or the Better Business Bureau
- Social media profiles on B2B sites like LinkedIn
- B2B review sites like G2, Google Business, or Capterra
A presence in these off-site directories can influence buyers’ decision to choose your products, particularly if you’re collecting positive reviews on them. Social proof is just as important in B2B as it is in DTC. Third-party endorsements from brands similar to those evaluating yours can not only drive traffic to your B2B storefront, but also build the confidence a buyer needs to shortlist your product or service.
Examples of B2B SEO
Microfiber Wholesale
Microfiber Wholesale has an online store to sell microfiber cleaning products to other retailers at trade prices. It identifies keywords that potential buyers are searching for and targets them on product pages to increase the odds of the URL ranking in related searches.
The product page for its microfiber cleaning wipes, for example, uses long-tail variations like “disposable cleaning wipes” and “10”x12” microfiber wipes” in its product description. There’s also related terms that help search engines contextualize the page, such as “germs” and “chemical spills.”
Brooklinen
Brooklinen sells bedding to both wholesalers and end customers through its ecommerce store. It’s built on Shopify, meaning Brooklinen can experience blazing fast site speeds that are almost one second faster than competitors, on average—and that’s before any minor tweaks to the layout or appearance of its B2B storefront.
“B2B on Shopify allows us to engage with these customers in a new way—kind of like a typical DTC customer but for B2B,” says Kelly Hallinan, senior vice president of emerging channels at Brooklinen.
Super fast site speed and a technical infrastructure that search engines understand alleviates pressure on Brooklinen’s team. Now, they’re able to spend 80% of their time working with customers who also self-serve through a B2B storefront that offers the same intuitive, branded buying experience that DTC buyers are accustomed to.
Branch Furniture
Branch Furniture sells office equipment to retailers through its B2B storefront. In an attempt to target buyers at the top of the funnel, it targets long-tail keywords like “how to set up your home office” and “office design ideas” on its blog.
Buyers searching for these keywords aren’t necessarily in the market for new office furniture. However, Branch treats the content as a way to build internal links to product pages using exact match anchor text. It links to its desk chair, for example, with the anchor text “ergonomic chair.” This tells both Google and search engines what the product page is about—and therefore, the terms it should rank for.
Turn B2B SEO into a lucrative sales channel
Search engines have the potential to drive thousands of potential buyers toward your B2B storefront. The seeds you’re planting today will come to fruition for months to come, making it a long-term and sustainable marketing channel for B2B retailers.
Shopify is the best-in-class platform to run a B2B and D2C business from a single stack, packed with B2B features like wholesale price lists, company accounts, and simplified sales reporting. Learn more about B2B on Shopify today.
B2B sales FAQ
What is B2B SEO?
B2B SEO is a digital marketing strategy that increases the chances of a B2B storefront appearing in the Google search results for a target customer’s query. It involves activities like keyword research, building backlinks, and optimizing the site from a technical standpoint.
How to build a B2B SEO strategy?
- Understand your target market and audience.
- Know your sales funnel and buying process.
- Plan a keyword research strategy.
- Plan a content strategy for the B2B sales funnel.
- Perform a technical SEO audit.
- Consider offsite signals.
Is SEO B2B or B2C?
You can apply SEO best practices to any B2B or B2C business. But when businesses sell SEO services or software to other companies, that’s considered a B2B transaction.
Why is SEO important for B2B SaaS?
SEO is important for B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies because it helps you improve your visibility. You’ll reach potential customers when they’re looking for advice, comparing options, or actively looking for software like yours.
