If your company’s website or published content lags behind the competition, you’re not alone. Poor site performance is an issue that business leaders find challenging to troubleshoot — even though it’s a problem that affects many B2B organizations.
Fortunately, the issue is probably unrelated to your business model. More likely than not, anemic site or page traffic boils down to search engine optimization (SEO) challenges — and solving those SEO challenges may be easier than you think.
What does SEO mean for your B2B organization?
SEO is the practice of improving the on-page and technical attributes of your site or content to rank higher in search engine results. Although some SEO improvements may require more technical expertise, many improvements can be performed quickly on your website’s publishing platform.
The team at Walker Sands recommends the following quick SEO tips to boost your web ranking and site traffic:
- Research and include relevant keywords
Keyword research may sound daunting, but an effective keyword strategy can make or break your site’s SEO performance.
Ideally, keyword research should be performed by an employee trained in SEO analysis. But online solutions like Conductor and Semrush can help make the process easier and more accessible to employees who lack a technical skill set.
The inclusion of targeted keywords in your header, slug and metadata is an obvious best practice. But also consider opportunities to include related secondary keywords in body content.
Pro tip: Avoid keyword stuffing, or cramming too many instances of a keyword on a single page. Search engines often rank pages with excessive, unrelated keywords lower than those with just a few, strategically placed words. - Avoid repetitive metadata
Comb through the meta descriptions and title tags assigned to any published pages and organic content on your site. Search engines that identify pages with repetitive tags and descriptions are unable to properly assess the content and authority of these pages, and will likely rank them lower than pages with clear, original metadata.
It’s also important to pay attention to recommended character counts on metadata. Walker Sands recommends a maximum of 160 characters for meta descriptions and no more than 60 characters on title tags. Title tags and descriptions that exceed these character counts are more likely to be cut off in search results. - Include alt text on all images and media
Alternative text (alt text) is a feature primarily used for web accessibility standards. People with cognitive, visual and similar impairments may rely on screen readers to dictate web content and describe any logos, graphics or media on your web page.
Search engines rank sites that adhere to WCAG Guidelines higher than those that do not. Inclusion of alt text is a simple way to improve SEO and make your site more accessible to all visitors. But be sure to keep alt text under 125 characters per description. - Use header tags to establish content hierarchy
Including header tags on internal pages helps solidify page hierarchy and provides a clear organizational structure for site visitors. Capturing header tags in content can be as simple as using the H1, H2, H3 and H4 formatting options on your site publisher.
As a best practice, use one H1 per page and try to include your primary keyword for SEO optimization. When search engines crawl pages for analysis, they’ll prioritize H1s followed by H2s, etc. Subheaders should typically be H2s, with H3s or H4s only occurring as subheads for H2s. - Build authority with internal and back-links
One of the best ways to improve website SEO is with strategic, authoritative linking. Google ranks authoritative web pages higher, so it’s helpful for your site to include links to and from well-known, trustworthy sites.
To improve web authority, consistently include several internal links to published pages on your own site, e.g., a blog, landing page, etc. Working with external websites to create partnerships for backlinking can also enhance web authority. Guest blogging, press releases and news mentions are all great ways to build relationships that result in backlinks to your domain. - Update dead-end links
Every few months, it’s important to check up on the SEO performance of previously published web pages. Scan through pages with external links to ensure all links are still working properly and redirecting visitors to their intended destinations.
It’s common for second-party publishers who own external links to change URLs or take down a page entirely, resulting in “dead-end” links that hinder SEO performance. - Break up the flow of your content
For optimal reading and SEO ranking, break up chunky paragraphs to streamline content into clear and concise pages. The easiest way to do this is by including bullets and lists when possible.
Use of bold and italics in body copy can also help draw attention to key points for readers. While web content over 600 words tends to rank higher on search engines, it’s still best practice to eliminate the “fluff” from your writing.
Partner with a team dedicated to improving your SEO
Master your web redesign with the help of Walker Sands’ branding, web and creative capabilities. With a little help from our team of SEO experts, we’ll give your website and its content engagement strategy the boost they deserve.
Contact us to learn more about what our Walker Sands brings to the table.
