If you’re a B2B business owner, a robust and targeted B2B local SEO strategy is the Holy Grail for your website’s enhanced visibility as well as increased sales and revenue.
Did you know that a majority of business buyers prefer to work with or deal with local companies? A Thomasnet.com 2021 survey on B2B companies’ search and purchase habits found that 72 percent of the respondents always or usually prefer to procure from local sources, while only 10.8 percent of them always or usually prefer to source globally.
It’s not surprising to know why local B2B searches prevail over their global counterparts when B2B buyers get more flexibility, control, time, and speed to the market while reducing supply chain and transport costs.
Furthermore, nearly half of all Google searches have local intent, a stat reveals. When a B2B buyer is searching for a company on the internet, it’s more likely to look for a local supplier or vendor.
All this tells why B2B local SEO is crucial for every B2B business. A B2B local SEO strategy can help B2B businesses to attract potential clients in and around their areas of operations.
At PeddleWeb, we have helped many B2B businesses with our highly strategic and relevant B2B local SEO techniques. In this blog post, we list 13 key B2B local SEO strategies for industrial businesses. If you are looking to implement B2B local SEO, this blog will be extremely valuable for you.
- Run a technical website audit
A technical website audit is like a complete health check of your website. A thorough audit can find out all issues with your website and makes sure that the site complies with all crawling and indexing specifications. It focuses on a website’s performance and structure and will enable you to find the problems with your site’s visibility in your locality.
To perform a technical website audit effectively crawl the website to find out if there are any errors or problems. Use some reliable site audit tools to identify any issues with indexation or crawlability. After that run an on-page SEO audit and perform a link profile audit. Find out the site speed and check the HTTPS content and website security.
- Analyze some top-performing competitors
Your best-performing competitors can teach you a lot about the right B2B local SEO strategies. After all, they have earned the results by taking some extremely strategic and precise actions. The onus lies on you to find out what are the things that make them the top rank holders.
The first step to effective competitor analysis is to find out the best-performing ones in your area of service. After listing them, go to their websites and look at their key SEO metrics using sophisticated tools. Take a closer look at their websites and look at their best-performing organic content. Also, research their backlink profiles and find out their link-building sources.
- Perform a SWOT analysis
After analyzing your close competitors, it’s time to perform a SWOT analysis that will help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Find out what makes you better than your competitors as well as list out the weaknesses. Find out the opportunities where you can do better local SEO and find out the threats to your local SEO efforts.
- Perform local keyword research
Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Likewise, local keyword research is imperative for local SEO. The Thomasnet.com 2021 Industrial Buyers’ Search Habits survey revealed that B2B buyers used more targeted and precise keywords to find local suppliers. That’s why it’s extremely essential to keep the local intent of the search terms in mind.
Conduct thorough research and find search terms industrial buyers and internet users in your locality use to find local B2B businesses. Use phrases like (keyword) in (your locality) and (keyword) near me to verge upon customer search behavior. After finding the right local keywords, keep a list and aim to use them strategically.
- Localize on-page content
When it comes to creating on-page content, being a local expert and making the content location-specific can immensely help a B2B business with local SEO. Customers in a particular location may have unique needs from customers in different locations. Apart from that, local influence and cultural influence play a key role in shaping their buying decision. Addressing that effectively can strike a chord with the local clientele base and can enhance sales and revenues. Consistently create high-quality and valuable content that addresses the needs of your potential customers in a particular locality. Create different types of content for different stages of the customer journey. Make your blog posts, website pages, and other content the one-stop solution for frequently asked questions in your area of operation.
- Focus on local link building
Building high-quality links are one of the most effective B2B local SEO strategies. A study by Databox revealed that a third of SEO professionals devote considerable time to building high-quality external links.
There are many ways to build high-quality links. Make sure to link internal web pages for better navigability and user experience. Gather external links for authority and visibility. Collect links back to your website from a wide range of local sources including chambers of commerce, online newspapers and magazines, industry-related websites, local directories, partner websites, and other organizations.
- Optimize your Google Business Profile
As you must have known by now, Google Business Profile is extremely important for local SEO. Using it, you can display all necessary business information including business hours, categories, images (even videos), logos, products, and services.
If you haven’t already created a Google Business Profile, create one as soon as possible. If you have already created one, make sure to optimize it. Make sure the profile is complete and the name, address, and phone number (NAP) are accurate.
- Use local business schema markup
Local business schema markup will enable you to display key information on search results and make your business appear in the snippets as well as a knowledge graph. Use local business schema HTML markup to structure business address, departments, hours of operations, reviews, etc.
- Optimize local listings
A local listing, also known as a local citation, is the listing of a business in local directories, location-specific blogs or websites, specific apps, or social media. According to the 2021 BrightLocal Business Listings Trust Report, nearly 90 percent of customers use Google, while 48 percent and 32 percent of them use Facebook and Yelp, respectively.
While searching a range of lists, select the ones that are reputable and trustworthy. Keep the NAP accurate and consistent across all the listings. Apart from business information, several local directories and websites have enhanced citations that include product images, information on products and services, promotions, and additional features resulting in quality lead generation.
- Leverage online reviews
Did you know that 70 to 95 percent of buyers view online reviews before making a buying decision? Positive online reviews can inspire trust and give them the confidence to make the purchase. But for B2B buyers online reviews matter a lot. As per a study conducted by software review company G2 Crowd, 92 percent of B2B companies are more likely to buy a product or service after reading a reliable review. An Avanade research found that 61 percent of B2B buyers look for reviews before contacting a business.
- Aim for greater community engagement
Engaging with different local communities is extremely crucial for B2B businesses. Some of the excellent B2B communities are the chamber of commerce, local service groups, or other local business organizations. You can engage with several B2B communities in many ways. Sponsor or take part in local events. Join hands with a charity or non-profit organization. Team up with like-minded businesses or co-market with partners.
- Optimize for mobile devices
Did you know that mobile devices account for more than half of B2B search queries? Optimizing for mobile devices is one of the most effective local SEO tactics. Use a responsive web design to make your website work like a charm on all devices including smartphones, tablets, and personal computers. Compress and optimize the images and avoid using Flash.
- Leverage social media
Social media helps B2B companies a lot in enhancing their local visibility as well as generating quality B2B leads such as LinkedIn, which is an excellent tool for B2B lead generation. As per the latest stats, the professional networking platform alone accounts for 80 percent of B2B leads. A HubSpot study reveals that the social media platform is 277 percent more effective than other social networks for generating leads. Social platforms such as Instagram and Facebook come with local components that can add instructions and geo-tag businesses.
Taking everything into account,
Over the years, the search intent has become more local in nature and a majority of buyers are looking for local businesses when they want to buy something. With an increased focus on local industrial sourcing and procurement, every B2B business must adopt B2B local SEO strategies to attract visibility in their area of operation. At PeddleWeb, we have created highly strategic and targeted B2B local SEO strategies for a wide range of B2B companies. If you are looking for effective B2B local SEO strategies for your business, contact our team of SEO experts to know what we can do for you.
