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Making it easy for Google and other search engines to find and rank your company’s business-to-business web pages used to be all about what we now call “black hat” techniques: stuffing, stacking, misdirecting, cloaking, swapping, baiting-and-switching, and all sorts of other nefarious tactics.
Google has gone a long way toward changing that in the last two years. Three significant updates – known as Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird – to Google’s search algorithm are eliminating these tactics, and punishing them. If you use these techniques, Google may sentence your web site to its version of the Phantom Zone.When Google users enter their search terms, they want Google to point to the pages that best meet their needs. Google’s updates are making it easier for Google to do just that, by finding and ranking web pages based on how well they meet the needs of the Google user.
There are six simple things anyone can do to help Google find our B2B web pages and treat them fairly. Keep in mind, Google sees only text. It is blind to everything else. So we’ve got to create text that Google’s web-bots can easily recognize, quickly analyze and accurate rank.
Identify your keywords
We need to decide exactly what our web page is about. What is the subject of the page? Do we want to answer a question, solve a problem, or just to provide information our customers are likely to seek for online? (For example, this post is designed to answer the question: “What can I do to get Google to pay attention to my B2B web content?”)
Once that is settled, we have another question to ask: If prospects or customers are looking for a page like ours, what are the search terms they are most likely to use? What you need is what we call a “keyword,” which can be a single word like “widgets” or a short phrase like “widgets for oil producers” or “how to use a widget.”
You can start by brainstorming with your marketing, sales and PR teams. If you need help, there are plenty of online tools, like Google’s Keyword Tool. If you want to get serious, put together a focus group of prospects and customers to do their own brainstorming, or take an online poll, or (if you have a strong Facebook or Twitter following) try crowdsourcing.
Do your best to narrow down your choices to just a primary keyword (or key phrase). If you have runner-ups, you can always work them into your post’s body text. But it is important to agree upon a primary keyword as the foundation for creating a web page that Google will love. For the purposes of this page, I’ve narrowed my keywords down to this phrase: “SEO for B2B.”
According to my research using Google’s Keyword Tool, Google users rarely enter this search phrase. So why use it? Because anyone who does use that search phrase is likely to be someone who is really interested in this information. Also, there’s very little competition for that phrase, so I have a better chance of ranking high on a search results page.
Include your keyword in your page’s web address
Also known as the URL, the web address is the page’s unique identifier. For example, the URL for this page is http://rustycawley.typepad.com/realityincopywriting/2013/11/seo-for-b2b.html. Note that I included my key phrase for this page as a suffix to my site’s main URL. This will encourage Google to point users to my page if they enter “SEO for B2B” as a search term.
To add your keyword to your page’s URL in a content management system like Wordpress or Typepad, just use the keywords as your post title before you save the post for the first time. Once you have save the page and created the URL, you can enter the actual title of your post and save it without altering the URL. If you have questions, check with your webmaster.
Include your keyword in your post title
A copywriter has two jobs when it comes to a post title. First, work in the keyword to get Google’s attention. Second, write an eye-catching title that piques the interest of prospects and customers, and causes them to click on the Google link. Remember the 3-30-3 Rule. We have three seconds to get attention; if we can get the web readers’ attention, we earn about 30 seconds of their time; if we can keep their interest for 30 seconds, we can earn another three minutes or more. This process starts with working the keyword into the title, and encouraging Google to flag it for the client’s prospects to find. Google is more than just a search engine; it is a form of social proof. When a web page appears at or near the top of a search, Google is essentially recommending the page to the user. It’s a form of “word of mouth,” and that makes it a powerful tool for marketing and sales.
You may notice that my headline uses “Google” instead of the keywords “SEO” or “search engine optimization.” That’s because in general my customers and prospects are not familiar with those keywords. But they know Google, and I’m counting on Google to recognize that went I say “Google” in this context, I mean “SEO.” It’s a small risk, but there’s little point in attracting Google’s attention but missing the audience’s attention. I will keep an eye on my Google Analytics. If I see Google is bypassing this page, I’ll change the title to one that Google likes better.
Work your keyword into your post's text
But do it judiciously and logically. If you use the keyword too many times, Google will think you are stuffing your text, and will downgrade your page. A good rule of thumb is to include your keyword in the first paragraph, and again in the second or third paragraph. After that, use your exact keyword sparingly, about once every 200 words or so. Feel free to use synonyms, or phrase variations, or even some of the runner-up keywords that came out of your research. Once you get past the title and the first couple of paragraphs, focus your efforts on creating a useful, informative, entertaining web page that your customers will enjoy and share. That’s the kind of page that Google is looking to recommend.
Include your keyword in your page’s meta description
Of the six simple things we can do, this is the one that requires a little understanding about how web pages are built. The content management systems that create web pages – like Wordpress and Typepad – are designed to include a brief, 160-word description of each page. This is essentially an executive summary designed for Google’s benefit. It is one more way that Google finds and ranks pages.
This is usually an easy process. You may be able to take the first two or three paragraphs of your text, and boil them down to 160 words or fewer. Assuming your are in Wordpress, go to your dashboard, then go to “posts,” then go to the post you are writing. Scroll down to the metadata form, and drop in your summary, and save it. If you can’t find the metadata form, ask your webmaster to add the form to your dashboard. If you are using another system, talk to your webmaster about establishing a process for adding a description to every future post.
Here is the meta description I added to this post:
Are Google and other search engines ignoring your online business-to-business content? Here are six simple things you can do right now to improve the SEO – search engine optimization – for your B2B web pages. Anyone can do this. You don’t need to be a web geek.Add your keyword and your runner-ups as your page’s meta tags
In the metadata form, you will find a form for adding individual keywords as “tags” to help Google and other search engines find your page. Just create a list, separating each keyword or phrase with a comma, copy it, and paste it into the form, then save it. You can add, subtract or alter this list as needed. Don’t get carried away. Focus on the keywords that are most important.
Here are my tags for this page: SEO for B2B, SEO copywriting for B2B companies, B2B, business to business, SEO, search engine optimization, B2B SEO, B2B copywriting, SEO copywriting, B2B-SEO copywriting, B2B copy, SEO copy, B2B content
Bonus tip
If you really want to improve your page’s SEO, ask your really good customers or friends to create links to your page. They can do this via their hub sites, or on Facebook, or through re-tweets, or by recommending your page on Reddit, or by adding links to any other online medium.
Ask your webmaster to include sharing tools to every post on your B2B web site. Sharing tools allow readers to easily create links to your post via social media. The easier it is to share your post, the more likely readers are to do it.
All of this is very, very important to improve your SEO for your B2B content. For Google, a link is a vote. It tells Google that others consider your page to be an authoritative source of valuable information about a specific subject.
Links make it easier for Google to rank your page highly.
Which reminds me
If you found this page useful, please share it with your friends or peers. You can use the sharing tools on this page, or you can add a link to your home page.
Many thanks for your consideration.
