Type ‘B2B SEO’ into Google and press enter. You’ll be rewarded with 30.8 million results, offering ‘fresh perspectives’ and promising ‘high quality leads’. You’re experiencing the SEO while researching the SEO, finding yourself swallowed by SEO-ception.
Facing a wall of opinions and advice is overwhelming, so we’ve gathered some essential B2B SEO statistics to help clear the fog and make sense of the millions.
Decode search engines, increase your ranking
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89% of B2B researchers use the internet to gather information about purchases. 90% of them use search engines to do so. It’s essential to meet potential leads where they congregate, and B2B researchers flock to Google.
- Google (currently) has 71.98% of the search engine market share. It pays to learn their platform and optimise for it.
- 71% of B2B researchers start with generic search terms. Make sure you rank as high as possible for these terms by producing quality SEO content, and you’ll be found earlier in the buying process.
- The average length of content that appears on Google’s first page is 1,890 words. Research has shown that long-form content tends to attract more links and shares, increasing its ranking.
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50% of search entries are four words or longer. The use of long tail keywords capitalises on this trend.
B2B buyers want useful content
- B2B researchers won’t get in touch with a salesperson until they’re 57% of the way through their buyer’s journey. In translation, they’re ready to make a decision and look for the best price they can find. They’ll make an average of 12 searches before contacting a business for a quote, learning as they go.
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B2B marketers need to make the most of this 57% by drawing prospective leads in during their research phase. How? With relevant, useful and interesting content that establishes thought leadership and a trusted name.
- 61% of B2B buyers visit review sites before deciding on a service provider. A study performed by Clutch showed that each review a company gained on their site resulted in 20 new profile views. Asking existing customers to write reviews could result in a significant increase in lead-bearing traffic.
Content is key for SEO
- 96% of B2B buyers look for content backed by thought leaders, reflecting the importance of research and authority in converting leads.
- It’s also become clear that content with a specific topic tends to rank higher than broader alternatives, so zeroing in on an area of expertise is worth the effort.
- Businesses that regularly blog gather 67% more leads per month than those that don’t.
- Whether B2B or B2C, blogs give websites an average of 434% more indexed pages. Indexed pages mean more ways into your website – this explains the 67% increase in leads per month! Blogging is an essential SEO tool for boosting traffic, and more traffic means more leads.
The marketer's perspective
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47% of digital marketers try to perform full SEO audits every six months, while 29% do it every month. The frequency with which B2B SEO is audited reflects its importance and the speed of its development.
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72% of marketers see the creation of useful content as the most productive SEO strategy.
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87% of US-based B2B organisations use digital content marketing. This number increases every year, making specificity and authority more important than ever for SEO. Your competitors are working on their B2B SEO and constantly improving, so you should be too.
The average click-through rate for B2B websites is 2.55 percent. Of all the researchers that encounter your content, 2.55 percent will take further action and follow a link. Get one hundred views on your post, and you’ll see two and a half people taking the next step down your sales funnel. If it’s a thousand people, you’ve got 25. Get more traffic and the leads will follow.
‘Great content is the best sales tool in the world.’ So says Marcus Sheridan, the marketing guru behind The Sales Lion. He’s not just referring to building a good reputation amongst potential clients. If the stats we’ve gathered suggest anything, it’s that useful content gets you seen more often, and brings more potential leads to your door. Paying attention to your content could mean getting the edge on your competition in the B2B SEO arena.