How to do B2B Keyword Research
Any top-notch content marketing strategy begins with high-quality keyword research. Keywords are the pillars of SEO. Without a proper search, it’s impossible to reap all the benefits of your marketing strategy.
While B2C and B2B keyword research is somewhat similar, several differences exist. It’s important to understand these dissimilarities and capitalize on them to stay ahead of the competition.
In this article, we’ll talk about starting keyword research from scratch and getting the most out of the discovered information.
Importance of a Smart B2B Keywords Strategy
Google uses various algorithms to figure out if your website contains a high-quality answer to the user’s query. The words people enter into the search box are matched with what your content has to offer. Even though the content isn’t the only parameter search engines evaluate when deciding on rankings, it’s often the most important one.
If the search engine associates the queries with the content on your website, you can achieve excellent rankings. As a result, your website will appear on the top pages of the search.
The words people enter in the search box are keywords you should be using to create your content. While this sounds simple, keyword search is hardly straightforward.
Keywords must be well-researched and analyzed carefully based on what your business offers, clients’ paint points, frequent question, and other parameters. In the world of fierce competition, many companies can compete for the same keyword.
Businesses don’t do as much research online as individual users do. That’s why the competition for the main keywords can be especially fierce. Figuring out which keywords work for your company and which don’t require serious analysis.
Step-by-Step B2B Keyword Research
When it comes to keyword search, it’s always tough to start from scratch. Thankfully, you can always take a peek at what works for the competitors. It could be an excellent place to start brainstorming.
Step#1: Initial Keyword Search
This step involves using the information you gathered from competitors and your website analysis coupled with whatever you came up with while brainstorming. Running this data through one of the research tools can give you a good amount of keywords to work with.
Keywords you get should:
Be relevant to your business
Have high to medium search volume
Have a reasonable difficulty.
After you run your keywords through the research tools, you need to prioritize the results. Don’t keep your focus on the most used keywords only. While they are important, the competition may be too fierce to get a sufficient ranking.
Use metrics like difficulty and competition level to simplify prioritizing. Meanwhile, make sure to contemplate the potential each of the keywords has for your business’s goals.
Step #2: Build Your Sitemap Around the Keyword Strategy
Integrate the keywords you’ve discovered into your website. Create pages that target a specific keyword. Use this keyword in the URL, Meta descriptions, titles, content, and anywhere else you can do it organically.
Remember, keyword-optimized URLs aren’t a ranking factor. However, they can simplify navigation and improve user experience.
In short, you need to optimize your website for keywords. This involves using a smart keyword optimization strategy.
Step# 3: Create Content for Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords may not have such a high search volume as your basic keywords do. However, they may be your best shot at targeting clients since the competition can be fairly low.
Use long-tail keywords in your content as much as you can in an organic manner. They can bring a substantial amount of high-quality traffic to your website.
Top B2B Keyword Search Tools
While brainstorming is an essential part of the keyword search, the majority of the initial work can be done by software.
Numerous keyword search tools exist on the market today. Most of them offer free features or trials. To use a keyword search tool, you may need to spend some time grasping how they work.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is the most popular keyword searching tool. It’s free and easy to use. The program is designed by Google so it helps gain valuable insight in what may work for this search engine. The major benefit of this tool is accuracy. The data you receive is pulled directly from Google servers.
To use this keyword tool, you need to create a Google Ads account. Unlike similar programs, all this one does is help with a keyword search. It doesn’t provide any traffic analysis, website reports, backlink breakdowns, etc. This contributes to the low learning curve of the tool.
SEMRush
SEMRush is a full SEO suite with many functions like backlink analysis, traffic evaluation, reports, and more. SEMRush is somewhat less accurate than Google Keyword Planner, but it gets the job done. The tool has a free plan, which is rather limited. To get some extra functionality, you would need to pay around $100 per month.
SEMRush has a nice dashboard. You get to see keywords and related keywords as well as search volume and CPC. You also get access to a trend chart that shows how often these keywords are searched for over time.
Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
Ahrefs allows you to figure out which keywords the website is ranking for. This knowledge is integral to seeing what works for your competitors. You can also use it to figure out how well of a job you are doing with your own website.
The tool also shows estimated search traffic and difficulty for ranking against a particular keyword. You can also figure out how your target keywords perform over a specific timeframe.
Just like SEMRush, Ahrefs is a complex SEO tool that offers numerous options besides the keyword search. It doesn’t have a free version or a trial and costs about $100 per month.
Jaaxy
While this tool isn’t popular like the others, it’s extremely straightforward. Jaaxy could be an excellent place to start. It’s a standalone keyword search tool with a medium learning curve. Jaaxy is an online app, so you don’t need to download it to the computer.
The accuracy of keyword results may not be as impressive as what Google offers, but it’s sufficient. The program offers an impressive variety of unique and long-tail keywords. The tool comes with a free version, which is somewhat limited.
How to Make the Most out of Your B2B Keywords Search
While you are taking full advantage of the available tools coupled with the brainstorming techniques, you can always improve your keyword search efforts. Let’s discuss several important elements of tweaking your strategy.
1.Start from your Clients
The majority of B2B content is never read. However, it doesn’t mean that the keywords inside it don’t work. To ensure better engagement, you need to think about your reader. Discover what the target audience may focus on and what could bring it to your website’s doorstep.
Take advantage of Linkedin and Ahrefs to figure out what kind of people the searchers for your content are. If you learn to think as they do, it’s possible to narrow down the number of keywords or even tweak the entire SEO strategy.
2.Figure out What’s Trending
You may be focusing on the right keywords but writing the wrong content. This could lead to high bounce rates and poor SEO results. Monitor your competitors to figure out what type of content works for your readers the best. This information could change from month to month.
Some useful tools you may want to take advantage of are:
Take advantage of industry magazines, websites, and blogs to adjust your content to follow the latest trends.
3.Beef up Your Content
Google algorithms seem to use hundreds of factors to determine the ranking of your website. While keywords are definitely part of them, they aren’t the only ones. However, they are among several that you can control.
Stay with the newest trends of using keywords in your content to improve its quality. The more value you put in the articles, blog posts, and website content, the better chance your keywords have at working for your benefit.
4.Don’t Forget About Other Pieces
SEO is an all-encompassing strategy. While keywords are its pillars, they are hardly the only thing you should be focusing on. From backlinks to online directories and from off-page efforts to metadata, SEO is a complex machine.
By paying enough attention to all the components, you can achieve high rankings and see your website on the top page of search engine results.
Tweaking Your B2B Keyword Search
B2B keyword search is an integral part of the search engine optimization process. It requires a special and often time-consuming approach to figure out what works best for your business and how you can outrun the competition.
While a big part of the keyword search can be done by using tools, the main part involves analysis. Figuring out which keywords to use can help you design the right content marketing strategy and allow your website to reach a high spot of search engine results.