Search engine optimization is one of the least known marketing strategies, yet B2B companies who employ it reap incredible, tangible rewards. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is employed by large and small B2B companies alike as a critical, powerful tool in building brand awareness, strengthening brand or corporate positioning and image, generating sales leads, driving purchase decisions, and increasing revenues.

Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a website to ensure its pages are indexed with and positioned favorably by the search engines when you use sites like Google or Yahoo.

Why does B2B search engine optimization matter? Recent research indicates that search engines are the first place 64 percent of people go when considering a B2B purchase—and they do so long before anyone else knows they’re considering a purchase. The organic search engine results (the non-paid or non-sponsored links) are the ones they click first and most often. And if you’re not in the top ten, you may as well not be there at all.

If you’re not well positioned in the search results for the search terms B2B prospects actually use to find products and services like yours, you’re losing sales and sales leads to your competitors who are well positioned, can be found, and appear to actually be an industry leader (regardless of their actual status in the industry.) At the very least, a competitor who is well positioned in the search results is almost automatically considered another viable source from which your prospect can obtain the products or services you sell—and your job of selling just became more difficult; there’s one more competitor to fight for the business (and they appear to be one of the experts.)

In recent years, we developed a division dedicated to the unique issues of SEO. For more on search engine optimization and our process, visit Francis SEO or click on the case study above.