B2B SEO has a specific character that differentiates it from other business models. It deals with other businesses not a consumer as a person. The B2B keyword research strategy also needs special treatment. You have to struggle to find the most precise, enough search volumes, and creative keyword ideas.
In this blog post, we will guide you to perform a killing B2B keyword research to increase sales and gain more new customers with SEO strategies. Besides, we will use Sequence Stats to conduct keyword research.
Why Is B2B Keyword Research Important?
Now people go online when they are searching for everything, which is important for your B2B marketing. If they cannot find you online, it means your business does not exist, ever. That is the common logic of how all businesses should be easy to find.
Google or Bing have complex algorithms to display the best result for users' queries. If your business cannot catch their attention, then what is the point of being online?
A keyword is an inseparable element of B2B SEO. Once you find the most precise for your business, you will have the potential to appear on SERP. The problem is that you have a long list of competitors doing the same thing. So, how could you beat them on the SERP?
The answer is to do precise keyword research and implemented it in your SEO marketing strategy. To enhance your website and SEO activity, you better have one SEO tool that could really help you. Let’s uncover the strategy after this.
The Challenges of B2B Keyword Research
Conducting precise B2B keyword research can be challenging for an SEO specialist or marketing strategist. It commonly targets a specific audience or niche with a unique characteristic. Here are some of the challenges.
Finding The Right Audience
The audience of the B2B model is called decision-makers since it is not only one person who decides to purchase B2B products. They could have different views on what is needed for their company.
That is why you need to define the target audience and their behaviors when searching. You might need to ask questions such as
What type of business do you want to target?
Where is their target market?
What role do you want to target? Is it the executives or else?
Those questions might inspire you to conduct more precise keyword research.
Low in Search Volume
Usually, B2B keywords have low search volume compared to B2C SEO. Take a look at these keywords:
B2C Keywords
Medication reminder app
Best mobile phone in 2022
Best laptop for engineering students
B2B Keywords
Medication reminder app provider
Best mobile phone suppliers
SEO service for enterprise
Those keywords target different type of consumers. The keywords for B2B have pretty much lower search volume rather than B2C keywords. It is because B2B targets a more specific customer with a specific query.
This becomes a challenge in doing B2B keyword research. You not only have to find a high-relevant keyword, but also consider the volume to drive traffic.
Small Keyword Ideas
Small keyword ideas can happen when you target long-tail keywords for your B2B SEO. It is because the keyword research tools have a small database of their variation. You will need to be creative most of the time.
If you understand your target and their needs, then you will know what keywords should be targeted. To do that, make sure you know what your target types on the search engine when they are looking for their needs.
How to Conduct B2B Keyword Research
Commonly, keyword research begins with entering seed keywords into a research tool and you pick any keywords you think are potential. This is not a wrong step, but you need more than that if you want to beat the competition.
After you understand the importance and the challenges of conducting B2B keyword research, now here are the outstanding strategies you can implement.
Conducting Keyword Research for Each Sales Funnel in B2B
The B2B sale funnel has longer stages compared to other marketing. It goes from Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, Evaluation, and Buy. Each stage target different keywords, which is why you need to conduct it separately.
Figure 1: The illustration of the sales funnel in B2B marketing.
Let’s differentiate the stages into three parts; top, middle, and bottom funnel. Here is the explanation.
Top Funnel
The op funnel keyword targets the audience who does not have any idea of your business yet. Thus, in this stage, you need to build strong brand awareness. The top funnel covers the awareness and consideration stage.
You can start your keyword research for your content to build brand awareness. For example, you can use your blog or other relevant platforms to post high-quality content that leads visitors to your product page.
You can pick seed keywords that are general yet potential to drive traffic. Open your keyword research tool and start collecting them. In Sequence Stats, users can have up to 1000 keyword ideas once they conduct keyword research.
Middle Funnel
The middle funnel in B2B marketing consists of consideration, intent, and evaluation stages. Here you can educate the visitors about what they are going to get with your product. Demonstrate how your product is the answer to their needs.
That is why the keyword you should use must be precise and used on the most strategic page. The landing page is the perfect place to educate the users about your products' excellent and unique selling points.
You can use keywords that contain powerful words such as “advantage”, “benefits”, and any word related to the excellency of your product.
Bottom Funnel
The last is the bottom funnel which decides whether the decision-makers are going to purchase or not. That is why you should put it on your product page effectively. You can choose the keyword for your pricing which can assure the customers that this is the best product at a reasonable price.
To do such keyword research, you need to evaluate the seed keyword you use in product-focused topics. You do not need to worry about the low search volume because as long as it is relevant to what your customers need, then it is fine to take it as your keyword.
That is why you need to understand the searchers’ intent and what brought them to your product page at the very beginning.
Mind Your Competitor
Besides evaluating your keyword research strategy, you need to take a look at your competitors’ strategy. It is fine to look up SERP #1 and make sure you can do better than them.
This is part of B2B keyword research. You need to know their top pages and the top keywords which has benefited them. Luckily, you can do it with ease in Sequence Stats Domain Watchlist. You can monitor your competitors and compare their performance to yours.
Keyword Research With Sequence Stats
Keyword research is an activity you do repeatedly. If it is not done right, then you will need extra work to fix it and it will hinder your B2B SEO from success.
That is why we repeatedly suggest you have one SEO tool that could help you cover all SEO marketing activities. Here is how you could do precise keyword research in Sequence Stats.
The Keyword Research Module
Sequence has the exact module that helps you conduct precise keyword research for your B2B SEO marketing.
First of all, log in to your Sequence Account and go to the dashboard page.
Figure 2: Sequence Stats Dashboard page
Click the Keyword Ideas menu in the top navbar. Here you can submit your seed keyword and get up to 1000 keyword ideas.
Figure 3: Keyword Ideas page in Sequence Stats.
Or, if you want a free keyword suggestion list, you can go to the sidebar and click the Keyword Suggestion menu. Then, Sequence will show a long list of keyword suggestions based on the keyword you track using Sequence Stats.
Figure 4: Accessing Keyword Suggestions through the sidebar
Domain Watchlist Module
As we said previously, mind your competitor while doing keyword research. In this SEO tool, you can monitor your competitor's domain and get valuable data such as the average ranking, market share, brand position, top pages, and top keywords.
Figure 5: Domain Watchlist page in Sequence Stats
You can add any domain of your competitor and monitor its performance. Then, you can decide which way to go to beat them in the SERP.
That’s everything. If you are a B2B SEO specialist, then you will definitely need this tool as your helper and you can more focus on multiple projects. Go register yourself and start your precise keyword research and track your keyword rank now.