Search engine optimization for B2B companies differs significantly from how it works in the consumer world. It’s about volume and more about relevance. The most important thing is not how many people are searching for a particular word or phrase. The most important thing is that the right person will find you and your site. Therefore, we usually talk about qualitative SEO in B2B. But how do you think about qualitative SEO?
33 points to prioritise in B2B SEO
Here we’ve compiled the 33 most important items that affect your ranking at Google. We have divided them into different blog posts and here is part 3 about HTML. The ambition is not to be comprehensive. Google has over 200 key ranking signals and over 10,000 subsets from which they originate. In addition, they make more than 900 updates per year. But by following the basic principles of your SEO as we present here, you will cover up the most important ones.
3.0 HTML
HTML is the underlying code used to create a website. The search engines can pick up signals from specific HTML elements. Here are some of the most important ones to utilize if you want to succeed with your SEO work.
3.1 Titles
Does your title tags contain keywords relevant to the pages?
The HTML titles are still the most important signal to the search engines to get them to understand what the page is about. Therefore, it is important to think through which words and phrases you want each page to be found and used by formulating unique, descriptive titles that are easy to understand – and thus easy to find.
3.2 Descriptions
Does your meta description contain information about what the pages are about?
Meta descriptions are one of the oldest and still most important search elements. Some claim that the meta descriptions do not affect rankings, but there is still reason to spend time formulating a good meta description. It is often, but not always, this as the search engines choose to show up in the search result as the snippet. A well-formulated meta description serves as an ad and helps you sell the search results to the person who is looking for. And it does not take long to write, so write it!
3.3 Structure
Are you structuring your data to facilitate listings?
The search engines work hard to understand the content on your side and all you can do to ease is of course good. By providing search engines with data linked to the content, it becomes easier to categorize. There are many different ways to do it, but it’s good to stick to specific standards. For example, Google has good guides on how to mark the content of your pages.
3.4 Headlines
Do your headings and subheadings contain relevant keywords?
Headlines tagged with H1, H2 and so on help search engines understand how your page is structured and what’s important. Always use an H1 for the headline and at least some H2 and H3 for your subheadings. If the keywords and search phrases you want to be found for are in one of your headlines, chances are that you will be higher up on the organic list. But always be user-friendly and keep in mind that your headlines should also help ease reading.
3.5 Stapling
Do you use the words you want to find in excessively many times?
To mention the word or phrase you want to optimise for a certain number of times on your page is of course good. But using these too many times and stacking them on each other can have the opposite effect. Google and other search engines look through this and read that it does not make content readily accessible to the recipient.
3.6 Hidden
Do you use colours and design elements that hide the words you want to be found on?
This is an old trick that you should avoid and as the search engines learned to look through. An example is whether you type your keyword or search phrase a large number of times in your footer with the same colour as the background. In this way, the visitor is not disturbed that the words are there while the search engines know they are there. But as has been said, it has a reversal effect and you can easily be punished by the search engines for that type of activity.
Part 4 is coming soon
This was the third part of a series of blog posts about SEO for B2B companies. Next blog posts are about what to think about in confidence. So keep your eyes and ears open!
