by For everyone’s online business plans for 2022, a B2B SEO Strategy must be a primary consideration. At this time, you will find that many of your competitors may have scaled back on their online marketing during the pandemic.
Although the virus is somewhat subsiding with the new vaccines, many industries are far from fully recovered. So now is the time to use an SEO agency to help kick-start your 2022 search engine rankings.
Contents
Contents:
- Why B2B businesses should care about SEO more
- SEO – how does it work for businesses?
- The ever-changing SEO landscape
- How will SEO evolve from 2022 onwards?
- What impact has Google’s BERT update had on SEO?
- Google AI and its transformation of searches
- Conclusion
Why B2B businesses should care about SEO more
Even though SEO and SEO optimisation has been around for many years, it is still hugely underused as an excellent marketing tool in the B2B world. It is astounding when you consider industries such as engineering and manufacturing, especially niche areas. But why?
Firstly, many business owners still value old marketing techniques and values. Magazines and glossy leaflets, and promotional banners can have little or no ROI value in today’s society.
This is an outdated cycle, but human nature is when you have done something that got you off the ground and successful, it’s tough to move away from. Something new may be foreign to you and a world that you may be considered for ‘the younger generation’. So if you don’t understand the concept of an SEO Plan or B2B SEO, how can you know its potential?
It’s evident that SEO is complex and can be scary to consider. Even talking to an SEO agency if they are not talking simple facts, figures, timeframes, and results can lose a traditionalist immediately.
So in this article, we will talk about B2B SEO Strategy and SEO Services but not forget that SEO is not an overnight marketing solution. It will take time to see the fruits of SEO’s labour, so please consider that.
SEO – how does it work for businesses?
The basic principle of an SEO Plan and investing in it is to be at the top of Google’s results when someone searches for products and services in your arena or niche area online.
Statistics from Google now show there are over 8.5 billion searches every day! As shown below:
Source: Oberlo.com
They are considered free organic searches; please do not get this confused with paid advertising or social traffic. When an SEO plan works well, you will generate more awareness and subsequent leads and enquiries you would not otherwise receive.
Despite many businesses’ numerous and expensive marketing campaigns, your business can remain relatively unknown.
This is where Google and SEO have changed the global marketing dynamic. If someone sees your company near the top of the first search page when typing in a search relative to what you provide, they are likely to click on your business; that could be your next customer.
To show you the importance of being at the top on Google the illustration shows the click-through-rate (CTR), which on average is 28.5% for position one, while only 2.5% for being number 10. However, even lower at only 1.9% is pay-per-click advertising.
So imagine what having someone on a street corner handing out leaflets does these days?
Source: Google
So let’s take a quick example of a niche area in the manufacturing industry, ‘Aerospace composite materials’; this is a unique product. If someone were to search for that on Google off-the-back of strong B2B SEO, you would likely be one of the company’s people want to click on and know more about. That will give you more market exposure and push them further down the sales funnel.
Suppose your website is engaging and informative with good detail, and visuals. In that case, it will have brand impact, and that one click becomes a lead and potential buyer.
The ever-changing SEO landscape
It is essential to understand that SEO does not stand still – it is constantly evolving. Google controls its algorithm, no one else, so there’s no magic wand involved in any form of SEO.
It requires time and, in today’s digital world, the help of an SEO agency or specialists.
So why is it challenging:
Search algorithms are highly complex, and hundreds of factors can go into a single search query. Factors such as:
- Page usability
- Engaging content
- Page optimisation
- Domain authority
- Backlinks – these are just a few
Google are also in the process of recognising different aspects of:
- Natural language patterns
- Understanding synonyms
- User behavioural patterns
Understanding how humans ask questions when speaking through smart devices, not typing, plays a significant role in constant evolution on the internet.
Series of algorithms now rank not just one aspect of your business. This can result in any SEO plan that worked six months ago, suddenly not! – Hence you need professional help to achieve results.
How will SEO evolve from 2022 onwards?
Engaging authoritative and trustworthy content (EAT) has played a significant role in recent years to help B2B SEO. With this change, we have seen blogs, copywriting and content writing exploding as well as insight pages, and content marketing.
People spend more time on the web today than they did in 2019, and people are looking for an informative company. If you are, they will not just potentially become a lead but also share your page or website with others. This will increase your online traffic helping your online presence get stronger in the eyes of Google.
But content can’t cut it alone. Many keywords are now so competitive that you can’t compete with the ‘Big Brand Culture’, therefore, wasting valuable marketing budget.
So if you take my advice and use an SEO team, ask them about long-tail keywords. They will have fewer people searching for them but have a high conversion rate as a rule of thumb. Larger companies that have run SEO campaigns over years won’t bother to target them with their budgets.
A higher intent from the user typing a more specific keywords phrase now leads to a higher conversion rate.
Your SEO team will look at updating product pages’ content and examine how people will more likely find you on Google.
What impact has Google’s BERT update had on SEO?
Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) came into play in 2019. It was the most significant change in online searches for five years at that stage.
Google described BERT as a breakthrough for ‘transformers’, which act like a sponge of knowledge that learns to process words together in a sentence rather than in singular order.
Google’s algorithm using BERT has strengthened by understanding the user’s search intent by analysing the words both before and after.
To simplify this section of this article, it’s about their ability to improve on understanding language. Therefore, addressing complex conversational enquiries, which can be highly significant if you are in a niche market and people apply informational searches.
Some experts are still of the opinion that BERT does not substantially impact a company’s SEO marketing. Still, I can only agree with that train of thought if you have poorly written SEO content. Then yes, your rankings will be punished if they are not being used in the correct context.
Although not new to SEO, engaging and content-focused around specific data and information that answers potentially technical questions will, without doubt, be rewarded.
Google AI and its transformation of searches
Across a plethora of industries and individual sectors, artificial intelligence (AI) is now a game-changer for searches.
With the vast advancement of search engines in the last decade and then two further significant Google updates in 2021, it doesn’t slow down or stop. Google constantly evolves and finds new technologies and advancements to service the ever-increasing insatiable need for knowledge and online information.
Still, at this current time, we cannot say that a search engine could be compared to a human expert in their specific field. However, Google’s appetite to get ever closer is apparent. They strive to be the complete definitive expert we use when searching across many subjects.
To move closer to achieving this goal and for complex tasks reduce the number of searches required to find sufficient information, Google recently announced a new AI-driven technology, its Multitask Unified Model (MUM).
MUM technology is multimodal; therefore, it can understand information taken from various formats such as:
- Dozens of languages
- Webpages
- Images – and more
MUM technology also uses what is called T5 text-to-text framework. Google considers this technology over 1000x more sophisticated and powerful than BERT.
Tapping into human intent and language that is more layered and complex is where the technology is headed. So, as explained earlier in this article, when the BERT upgrade came along, many companies had to change their SEO strategies considerably to take advantage or keep up with Google’s algorithm evolution. So I consider SEO Services not to be revolutionary anymore but more evolutionary.
Conclusion
SEO will evolve quickly beyond content and keyword strategy (it is already doing so in many forms). Taking user content and how and why they are wording and seeking the information using the terminology they type is paramount to enhancing the internet.
For brick and mortar businesses and B2B, tapping into this powerhouse marketing machine is what you will need to expand your brand awareness and workforce and keep up with your competition in the years ahead.
If you have been wary of SEO, now is the time to broaden your mind, take a leap of faith, and speak to an SEO agency. Please seek professional help, and guess what some of us in the industry are friendly people! Professionals are ready and willing to take on new business. They will be able to explain things to you in simple, down-to-earth terms and make sure you understand where every dollar of your marketing budget is being spent and why. Don’t hesitate to consider it, and good luck!
About the Author
Lancey Clemons is an experienced tech writer, digital marketer and content curation specialist. He has extensive knowledge of SEO services. In his free time, he likes to study new digital innovations, with a keen interest in crypto tech and blockchain.
