The Essential Guide to B2B Search Engine Marketing

    The Essential Guide to B2B Search Engine Marketing

    B2B Search engine marketing optimizes online ad campaigns and website presence to enhance brand visibility in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

    What is B2B Search Engine Marketing?

    Business-to-Business Search Engine Marketing (B2B SEM) is a digital marketing strategy that allows customers to easily find the brand through their preferred search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It is an amalgamation of various digital marketing campaigns to attract potential customers to the brand’s website by increasing brand presence through all the big search engines. Search engine marketing is essential for B2B businesses because the majority of the businesses’ purchase cycles start as a simple search.

    According to a report by Gartner titled “The B2B Buying Journey,” the R&D teams spend almost 27% of their purchase cycle time researching online to find a potential solution for their operational challenges and bottlenecks.

    Organizations that want to embark on a journey to embrace B2B search engine marketing need a thorough understanding of the keywords the client might use to search for a solution to their challenge. CMOs must consider creating a perfect balance between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to accomplish their SEM goals.

    What are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising?

    • Search Engine Optimization

    SEO strategies enable organizations to get better rankings for their website in organic search results. This digital marketing strategy is about constantly making the website’s pages attractive and adhering to search engines’ ranking algorithms. B2B enterprises with their web pages optimized according to the algorithm rank on top for all users’ Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). Digital marketing teams, while drafting an SEO strategy, need to consider all the opportunities they can seize to rank the website on the first page of search engine results.

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    Businesses with better rankings will have more visibility and higher conversion rates because users only click on the top few links. SEO and public relations have various similarities. With these two prongs of an outreach plan, organizations can achieve desired results and reach a relevant target audience, even though it may take a quarter or two to achieve the desired results.

    • Pay-Per-Click Advertising

    Paid Ads are an internet advertising strategy that B2B businesses can leverage to drive direct website traffic. One of the most significant reasons businesses need to consider this SEM approach is that the advertiser only pays if the users click on the ad.

    B2B organizations can pay a pre-decided amount to display text-based advertisements in search results. The users will engage with the ad based on the campaign agenda or set Call-To-Action (CTA). Digital marketing teams can gather client data, drive traffic to the website or promote an offer through these display ads.

    The advertiser will have to pay once the user completes the CTA set for that particular campaign, irrespective of how many times the search engine displays the Ads to the users. With so many perks and better results, pay-per-click advertising has become a preferred advertising channel compared to traditional print advertisements. PPC advertising helps B2B businesses overcome all the barriers of traditional advertising. By leveraging a PPC campaign, digital marketing teams can display their ads on the first page of SERP all day long without paying a dime unless users click on the ad. Designing and implementing paid Ad campaigns will help to attract targeted traffic immediately. However, business leaders must ensure that the campaigns are optimized in real-time to get a better pay-per-click advertising ROI.

    Search engine optimization can take months to deliver expected results, but pay-per-click advertising delivers real-time results. Hence businesses need to have a perfect amalgamation of SEO and PPC to ensure they are successful in search engine marketing.

    The Difference Between B2C and B2B SEM

    Like the difference between the industries, the big difference between B2C and B2B search engine marketing is the different audiences. Marketing teams must understand that how businesses make purchase decisions differs from what happens in the B2C industry. B2B purchase journeys are long, complex, and involve multiple decision-makers. Hence B2B search engine marketing must be different to penetrate the right market and engage the right decision-makers. Following are a few ways that portray how B2B search engine marketing differs from on that the B2C landscape:

    • Intricate Sales Funnels

    The sales funnel for a B2B organization is intricate compared to B2C companies. B2B marketing teams must consider all the circumstances, factors, and needs to develop a strong B2B sales funnel through all the digital channels. Business decision-makers must strategically consider, research, and plan before making a final purchase decision. Digital marketing teams need a different SEM strategy to attract and engage with clients at every sales funnel stage. It is crucial to rank among all the SERP results to engage potential customers. From the awareness stage to the decision stage, organizations need different strategies to influence the customer at every step. B2B marketing teams need to have an in-depth understanding of the ideal buyers’ persona compared to the marketing teams of B2C brands.

    • Low Search Volume Keywords

    Another way that B2B SEM differs from B2C is that the keyword’s search volume is lower. B2B organizations must adapt to the audience’s needs and serve them accordingly to strengthen their sales funnel. The success of search engine marketing in the B2B space entirely depends on the organization’s capability to identify the right keywords and efficient content strategy for a specific audience.

    • Fewer Conversion Rates

    Low conversion rates are another significant challenge of B2B search engine marketing compared to B2C. However, one crucial factor to consider is that the ticket size compared to B2C is higher in the B2B industry. Organizations can focus on driving more relevant traffic to the websites looking for a product or service to increase the conversion rate. B2B marketers must understand their niche audience in-depth and why and how they offer solutions to the client’s problem to ensure SEM success.

    Best Strategies for B2B Search Engine Marketing

    These are a few strategies that business leaders can consider to enforce an effective SEM strategy to lure and convert customers:

    • Define an Effective SEM Strategy

    Before organizations embark on a journey to embrace search engine marketing, they must have a coherent strategy. The marketing teams must determine their total addressable market, needs, and preferences. Moreover, business decision-makers must understand how their solution fits the client’s needs and define a marketing strategy. Marketing teams must also understand competitors competing for an online presence in the same niche and industry.

    • Select the Best Keyword Phrases

    Keywords are the foundation of every SEM strategy, irrespective of the business type or size. Selecting user-centric keywords that potential customers might use to look for a solution is crucial. Marketing teams must also use these keywords in their Ad copies to create an impact. The presales teams can leverage various tools available in the market to explore and select the right keywords for their SEM campaigns.

    • Create Educational content

    Even though businesses run SEM campaigns to gather more leads and acquire more customers, they need not have to embrace a direct sales approach to attract customers. Marketing leaders can enforce a content marketing strategy that educates users about recent industry updates and best practices to overcome their bottlenecks. Offering the best tips and strategies through SEM helps enhance brand value and increase online presence. Offering interesting but instructional content to potential customers increases engagement and improves client relationships.

    • Enhance the Website for Organic Search

    Once the marketing teams focus on keywords throughout the buyer’s journey, they must ingrain them in the digital marketing campaigns. CMOs should ensure that their digital marketing teams optimize B2B website content to make them out of high search volume keywords. Marketing teams should prioritize creativity in writing the website and Ad copy content to attract customers. Enterprises must optimize their sites regularly according to the search engines’ algorithms to get a better organic search rank. It is essential to have sites that get indexed by search engines like Google and Bing.

    • Ensure Quality Links

    Enterprises that want effective search engine marketing campaigns need a strategic plan for quality link building. This process involves getting inbound links to the brand’s website from the website the target audience frequently visits. One crucial aspect marketers need to consider is getting high-quality links from trusted sources to rank better on the SERP.

    • Draft and Execute an ROI-driven Paid Search Campaign

    Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is an effective way organizations can leverage to seize compelling ROI-driven marketing opportunities. This digital paid Ads approach helps businesses overcome all the limitations of traditional advertising. Marketing leaders need compelling and relevant ad copy that lures the customers, engages them, and boosts the ROI.

    • Evaluate Success

    Enterprises need to have effective strategies implemented to measure the success of their marketing campaigns. As B2B search engine marketing involves driving targeted traffic, organizations need to integrate web analytics to track traffic increased from search. To ensure a surge in the volume of targeted visitors, marketing teams need to track the organization’s position and ranking on the search results.

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    • What are the Benefits of SEM?

    There are various benefits of embracing search engine marketing for B2B enterprises. The following are a few benefits:

    • Drive More Traffic to the brand’s website.
    • Gather More Leads
    • Penetrate through a wider target audience
    • Search engine marketing strategies are consistent.
    • Less expenditure on marketing operations.
    • Get a competitive edge in the industry.
    • Offers flexibility and scalability
    • Optimizes Local Presence
    • It helps better customer engagement.
    • What are the Drawbacks of SEM?

    Along with the immense benefits of SEM for B2B enterprises, it has a few drawbacks. Following are the drawbacks businesses need to be aware of:

    • Additional exposure than the target audience
    • Black Hats SEO strategies can have a negative impact.
    • Which Companies and Industries Need B2B Search Engine Marketing?

    All companies, regardless of their size or type, should design and implement effective search engine marketing strategies to get a competitive edge and reach a wider range of audience.

    • When Should Businesses Start SEM?

    All companies must have a search engine marketing strategy embedded in their basic DNA, planned from the start of their business. However, if they do not have effective SEM strategies, they need to start soon.

    • How to Start Search Engine Marketing?

    It can be challenging for businesses to implement effective search engine marketing strategies for their success. Business leaders can hire an in-house digital marketing team to start their SEM initiatives. However, organizations that do not have sufficient resources or funding can outsource their SEM campaigns to third-party B2B digital marketing agencies.

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