No matter how beautiful your website, there is no guarantee that your B2B customers will find it and make a purchase. That is the role of SEO and modern marketing, and it is what Design &Promote, a top Chicago SEO, web design, and Internet marketing firm, does best by using techniques that help customers find your site and make them interested in what you have to offer.

How B2B Shopping Works

Current statistics indicate that 93% of B2B shoppers research online before making a purchase, a figure which is even higher than the rates for consumer purchasers, which is at 80%. Trade shows at 38% and word-of-mouth at 59% have a role to play in the buying process, but most B2B buyers go online. Given the importance of the Internet, how do you get buyers to find you, interact with you, and make a purchase?

The job of modern SEO is to make your company and your product or service easily found by Google and to make you the solution for a consumer problem. Good strategy recognizes the realities of buying behavior, especially for B2B purchases where impulse purchases may be less frequent. The sequence is research, compare, and then buy.

In the research phase, most potential customers are searching for a solution to a problem. If they need a reasonably-priced, engineered housing to use in an electronic product, they may start out very open-minded about specifics. The part could be metal or plastic. It could be injection molded or cast. It could come from any supplier who could get it to them within a short timeframe.

Finding A Good Solution For A Business Problem

To start out, they might do Internet searches for such terms as:

• Engineered metal parts
• Close tolerance custom housings
• Best way to make housing for electronics
• Low-cost processes to make electronics housing

These search terms may bring up a variety of websites, blogs, videos, and articles that can be general or specific. The more qualifiers they put in their search term, the more focused the results will be. As they read some of the material they find, they narrow down the options and get better search results by using more specific terms.

Once customers see solutions for their problems, they can start comparing processes, materials, and companies through additional searches. After reviewing these results, they may be ready to go into the buying phase, where they are more interested in price, discounts, shipping speed, shipping cost, and location. Subsequent searches might be worded as “low-cost sand cast parts” or “injection molding housing suppliers.” Your company name does not come up until the comparative or buying stage.

Long-Tailed SEO In Chicago To Get Results

Good SEO practice guides potential customers through the process. Older SEO practices did so by using techniques in the back end to propel websites to the top of searches, but modern practice concentrates on content based on a phrase (long-tailed SEO). By using focused content that anticipates the specific problem that customers may have and then offering solutions, you can position yourself to be on the customer’s short list of companies that would help them solve their problem and then capture the sale by convincing customers that your quality, price, and customer service make you the best choice.

The content featured in your Internet presence should utilize long-tailed SEO that is based on how customers ask questions. Google has incorporated this thinking into recent updates, and Design and Promote uses this technique for SEO in Chicago. For information on how we can make this work for your company, contact us today.