How To Get Qualified B2B Leads Using SEO

It’s one thing to do B2B SEO and get more website traffic, and it’s another to do B2B SEO and get more conversions.

But it’s a whole ninja thing to do B2B SEO that turns into highly qualified leads.

That’s exactly how we approach all our B2B client campaigns at Thinkplus, and this guide will teach you how we do it.

The Differences between B2B SEO and B2C SEO

There are a few important differences between SEO for B2B businesses and B2C businesses, but often the advice you read doesn’t take that into account.

Firstly, there’s usually a much longer sales cycle. B2C customers can have a sales cycle as short as five minutes.

Think, search, click, buy.

However, according to a study by SuperOffice, 75% of B2Bs have a sales cycle of at least four months.

So, you need many digital marketing touchpoints along the way.

Whoever at the business is in charge of finding a solution to the problem will need to do lots of research into your products and services before pitching it to their boss — let alone purchasing from you.

There will be lots of different searches happening — potentially from different people inside the organisation at different seniority and expert levels. So, we need to cater to all of those.

You also have some B2B-specific SEO tactics that you can use.

Comparison searches are one example, like this page from HubSpot called “Salesforce Sales Cloud versus HubSpot Sales Hub”.

HubSpot designed this page to target phrases like “Salesforce sales cloud alternative” and “Salesforce sales versus HubSpot sales”.

You’ll often see this in B2B, particularly in software, where people search for alternatives if they don’t like the pricing, features or interface of the software they’re using now or the other available options.

Another way that B2B SEO is different to B2C is the person doing the research might only sometimes be the end-user or decision-maker.

Sometimes they’re someone a bit more junior. They may be doing the research before handing a shortlist of options over to the end users and decision-makers to review.

This means that when we’re doing SEO, whether it’s the keyword research or the content, we need to target (and be accessible to) multiple levels of knowledge.

It’s likely the researcher will have a lower level of knowledge compared to the end user and the decision maker might have a level of knowledge that’s in between, so their searches and the content that they need to see will reflect this.

Let’s use software to manage a team, for example.

The HR team is looking for employee engagement software. They want to make sure that their team members are happy and that they’re offering them the benefits that mean the most to them.

Now, if the HR team gives this to someone to research, that person might be searching for simple things like “HR software”.

If you have a look on Google for “HR software”, you’ll see there’s a broad range of different types of software.

There’s accounting-type software only designed to manage payroll, employee engagement software and everything in between.

“HR software” is a very broad, very competitive term, and the purchase intent on that term isn’t that high.

Whereas if we think about a search term like “employee engagement software”, that’ll have a much lower search volume but a much higher intent.

You need to consider the potential journeys that different customers will go on in the same organisation. Keep that in mind as we go through the various phases of this B2B SEO process.

Keyword Research

When the SEO team at Thinkplus starts an SEO campaign, keyword research is one of the first actions taken. It underpins everything.

Keyword research identifies the phrases that we’re going after and that we want to rank for. It also allows us to map the keywords we’re targeting to different pages on the site to see if we need to add more pages.

The team also analyses the content already on the site to see if we need to add, change or optimise existing content.

Remember, anybody can do keyword research, and AI is making it easier than ever.

So, if you want sales-qualified leads to come in through your B2B SEO, you need to take your keyword research up a level.

Your keywords need to be phrases that high-quality leads are searching for.

These phrases won’t always be the ones that generate the most traffic.

They might not even have the highest search volume.

Remember, traffic doesn’t equal conversions. And even if it does, those conversions don’t necessarily equal highly qualified leads.

So, we need to be bang-on with exactly what our target audience is looking for.

Let’s go back to our HR software versus our employee engagement software example.

Employee engagement software is going to have a low search volume. It has much lower CPCs (costs per click) than HR software, which has higher search volume and higher CPCs because it’s broader and more competitive.

Screenshot from Semrush*

But, if we had to prioritise targeting one or the other, and we’re an employee engagement software business, we’re probably going to go after the longer tail, less competitive, higher commercial intent term first.

That’s not to say we won’t go after HR software. We probably will. But we need to get some traction, leads, and good-quality traffic to the site first. Then, we can expand by targeting some broader terms.

It’s a common mistake to go straight after the highest search volume and most competitive phrases, just assuming that they’ll be the biggest and the most productive for a business.

Often, it makes more sense to pick off some of the lower-hanging fruit that might be more valuable.

Now, if you’re not sure where to get started with your keywords, it’s a good idea to take the time to speak to your sales team and your customers to see what terminology they use.

There can often be a real disconnect between what the company thinks its audience is searching for and what they’re actually searching for.

We’ve experienced this as an agency of clients where there is a disconnect between the phrases in the language that the sales team, the product team or the delivery team uses.

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Industry-Specific Keywords

Another thing to touch on with B2B keyword research is that new terms and acronyms are appearing daily, and keeping up can be difficult.

One danger with B2B SEO is that sometimes people focus too much on niche terminology that doesn’t get much search volume or recognition outside the businesses serving this niche.

I’ll give an example from the very early days of Tim’s (Thinkplus’s founder) work in SEO.

He worked with a massage company that went into offices to massage staff. In the industry, this is called “on-site massage”. When Tim spoke to the client, they said they wanted to rank for “on-site massage”.

Tim got them ranked top of Google for on-site massage. They saw the traffic coming through, but the conversions weren’t there.

It turns out that on-site massage is a phrase used by their industry — the massage companies themselves – and the search volume is them all Googling each other to see where they rank. Their customers weren’t using that phrase at all.

These days, we ask those questions up front and do thorough research before we get the client ranking for a term that doesn’t have as much search volume as they thought.

Optimising for Search Intent

Thinking about the search intent of your new and existing keywords is another ingredient for B2B SEO success.

Here’s an example — an accounting firm that wants to target self-employed people.

It might have a piece of top-of-funnel content, for example, a self-employed tax calculator.

This business is targeting self-employed people. It produced a calculator that self-employed people can use to work out what their take-home pay would be. People are searching for this.

Does that mean that the searchers are potential accounting business clients? Not necessarily. There are plenty of reasons someone would search for this that means they won’t become a customer. It’s going to have a low conversion rate and low commercial intent.

But, a percentage of these people will go on to need an accountant at some point, and this brand will want to be what comes to mind when they do.

So, for this to convert, you need to ensure that you have a call to action and content that’s relevant for that type of person.

If you have a self-employed tax calculator and your call to action is “Become a client of our accounting firm”, you’re probably going to have a bad time.

If you instead have a lower commitment CTA such as, “Download the guide to becoming self-employed” or “guide to making your self-employed taxes easy”, the CTA matches the intent and stage that the visitor is at,and they’re more likely to convert.

Let’s think about another term researched by a similar type of customer — “how to do a self-employed tax return”. This is someone in the process of doing their tax return. An accounting firm that does self-employed tax returns will want to target this phrase, too.

It’s not as commercial intent as “tax return accountant for self-employed” where someone’s directly searching for a tax return accountant, but this is someone who is at least searching for the problem that this business solves.

Below is a great example from Crunch. The CTA highlighting their self-assessment tax returns service fits perfectly in this guide about partnership tax returns.

Matching the searcher’s intent will also keep them on the page longer, which is one of Google’s ranking factors. They’ll bounce back to search if the content doesn’t match their intent.

Creating Multi-Level Content

We’ve talked a lot about how content impacts SEO, so let’s dive into that a bit more.

To get qualified leads, you need to create content that appeals to people who fit your business’s criteria for qualified leads.

There are a few questions you need to ask about your current and future content.

1. Are you targeting the wrong people?

This is something we often see when we work with businesses on our Brand Accelerator programme.

They aren’t clear on their audience, even though they think they are, meaning their content isn’t reaching the right audience.

Perhaps you’re putting together complex guides when your ideal customer actually has less knowledge, or vice versa.

Review the content that’s converting well (not the content that’s just getting lots of search traffic) and see if you can replicate that success.

You might need to update some outdated or irrelevant CTAs in your old content or create new ones for new content.

The below blog from Monzo has no CTAs, and doesn’t do a great job of connecting the blog content to Monzo itself. It’s unlikely this blog will be converting — there’s not even a mailing list sign-up here.

Another blog on the same topic from Survey Monkey uses CTAs and relates the content directly to their software.

Remember — the CTAs need to match the search intent and be relevant to the content. We’re going to keep repeating this until you can’t forget it.

2. Does your content stand out in your industry?

Does your content sound native and authoritative, or does it sound generic or like it’s been AI-generated 🤖?

If it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from a person, then you may want to revisit your tone of voice.

A personable tone of voice isn’t limited to B2C brands, and it’s something that can really help you stand out from competitors. That’s why all our content for clients has the tone of voice checked by our content marketers and editorial team.

3. Is your content overly complicated?

A trap B2Bs often fall into is creating only expert-level content.

Remember, not everyone coming to your site is an expert. They might be new to the industry or not even realise they have a problem that needs fixing or that there’s a better way of doing things.

They’re going to be making searches that show they’re having these problems or would benefit from your solution, but they just don’t know that yet.

Content is the ideal way to connect with them at their level. It’s not about dumbing down your content. It’s about communicating in a way that different experience levels can understand.

4. Are you targeting different touch points with your content?

With the sales cycle being longer in B2B, you must be prepared for more touchpoints. It’s unlikely someone will engage with one piece of content after finding you in search and then convert right away.

You need to understand your buyer’s journey so that you can be at the top of search for all the searches they’re making throughout this journey.

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On-Site Optimisation

Next up, check that your website is still optimised for search.

It might have been fully optimised at one point but is starting to fall behind.

Consumer behaviour is changing all the time, so you might find that pages ranking for specific keywords aren’t getting the traffic they used to.

You also need to check in on your website’s health and design. Just like the keywords, this is one of the first things we check at the start of client campaigns. There’s no point sending traffic to a website that’s not going to convert.

If you’ve had your design for over three years, you likely need an upgrade.

You need to review your website’s speed too. Google wants to send users to websites that load fast so they get a good experience, so the faster, the better.

Your site may have been fast once, but years of adding images, videos and code that you no longer need is going to take a toll.

You can use Google’s PageSpeed insights to check on your site’s speed and use a heat mapping tool like Hotjar to see where visitors are getting stuck on your site.

Link Building and Digital PR

Backlinking is another core part of B2B SEO that’s useful for getting qualified leads — not just by increasing the ranking of your website.

External linking will help you get in front of high-value leads in the places they already spend their time, such as online trade publications.

For example, here’s Salesforce being mentioned in a blog about CRMs and again in another blog about choosing a CRM for you.

By getting featured, you not only get a backlink, but you’ll also have the chance to connect with potential customers/leads who are ready to buy.

Some publications will feature you without payment, especially if you have access to some excellent data that is relevant to their audience. But be prepared to invest a bit of money into getting featured if you want to get links from well-known publications.

Our digital PR teams create amazing content but are also relentless when it comes to securing links from publications. It’s all about building relationships with these publications and understanding the type of content that they will want to publish.

Conversion Rate Optimisation

It’s great having loads of traffic, but not so great if it isn’t converting.

Some of the steps above will have helped you get high-intent traffic on your website that’s ready to buy, but these steps will help you capture a higher percentage of that traffic.

Conversion rate optimisation is another element of your website that you can’t set and forget. It’s a key area our dev team tackles when updating client websites, as it underpins your entire site.

We even doubled a client’s conversion rate thanks to a swish redesign and great conversion rate optimisation.

And CHAS loved it so much that we handled their recent website redesign, too.

Without good CRO, your traffic may end up on a nice-looking site, but they won’t convert.

Lead capture is a huge part of conversion rate optimisation.

It’s likely you already have some lead capture elements on your site. Mailing list sign-ups, calculators, or many many downloadable guides like Hubspot has.

But when was the last time you reviewed them?

Just like with your keywords, you need to be aware that trends change and people are looking for different things.

Another issue we see with lead capture is lengthy forms. They cause friction, and we don’t want that.

We build forms with good intentions — simple and easy to use. But then one team asks for something to be added, then another, and another. You don’t notice because it’s just a small change at a time, but you’ve ended up with a form with too many questions.

The reason extra questions get added is often due to unqualified leads coming through.

But, if you’ve optimised your SEO to reach more qualified leads, the traffic reaching those forms will need less filtering and, as a result, less questions.

Measuring Success

OK, you’ve put all this great work into place… but how do you know if it’s working?

First is lead quality. Make sure you’ve set out parameters for what makes a quality lead, and check that everyone in the company who is involved in the leads process understands this.

Then, compare old and new lead quality to see how your changes have impacted your leads.

Another way to measure success is lead quantity.

Your overall leads might drop. DON’T PANIC!

Refer again to lead quality. If you’re getting fewer leads but more higher quality leads, then you’re on the right track.

If you see a drop in leads overall, A/B test some changes. It might be that you’re nearly there, and some slight adjustments will lead you to success.

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How To Get Qualified B2B Leads using SEO – Conclusion

Getting qualified B2B leads through SEO takes work, but the payoff is huge when you get it right.

By truly understanding your target audience, optimising their search intent at all stages, and creating outstanding content tailored to them, you’ll draw in the right traffic.

Combine that with a fast, well-designed website that converts like a champ, some epic digital PR to get featured in the right places, and diligent conversion rate optimisation, and you’ve got a lead generation machine on your hands.

It’s not an overnight process, but stick with it. Even if lead numbers initially drop, focus on the quality of those leads. A few high-intent prospects hoping to become customers are better than thousands of time-wasters.

Consistently generate industry-leading content, build authority and trust, and guide those precious leads through the funnel.

That’s what it’s all about — delighting the ideal customer with the perfect solution to their problems.

SEO is simply the catalyst to spark that connection.

With the strategies outlined here, you’re well on your way to cracking the code of getting not just any leads… but incredibly qualified ones primed to become your next big client win.

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