Debunking 7 B2B SEO Myths That Are Hurting Your Success

When you are new to business-to-business (B2B) search engine optimization (SEO), it can be easy to believe false claims regarding what constitutes effective SEO strategies. Trusting these myths actually keeps you from optimizing your pages, and negatively impacts your rankings.

A reliable B2B SEO agency uses proven strategies to promote success. This article debunks the seven most common B2B SEO myths:

• Avoiding keyword research
• Using more keywords to rank
• Overlooking quality content
• Trusting sitemaps to increase ranking
• Creating content only when you feel like it
• Focusing on quantity over quality backlinks
• Missing out on mobile optimization

Want to know more? Let’s go!

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Myth No. 1: Keyword Research Is Not Necessary

Keyword research is the most critical step in optimizing B2B pages that many overlook. Some people avoid keyword research, thinking it's too time-consuming, believing instead that their pages can rank even without considering keywords or key phrases. Subsequently, they create content, ads, and descriptions without keywords or with the wrong keywords.

     Why Is This a Myth?

Believing that keyword research does not matter is not only a myth, but is an ill-fated way to start any campaign. If you do not conduct research, you may end up ranking for specific keywords that are not the search terms that your audience uses. This consequently can result in low to no traffic, leads, downloads, or sales.

Keyword research is the core of SEO. Without it, you can become invisible to your clients and prospects. While careful research takes time, especially in B2B SaaS, it is also necessary for understanding your audience, their needs, buying behaviors, and demographics. Thorough keyword research includes the following strategies:

• Define your scope before research. Consider the purpose. Are you filling content gaps or creating a new page?
• Focus on search intent. Find out how many people use your keywords to search. Use Google search, People Also Ask (PAA), and Related searches to discover what they are seeking.
• Check your competitors’ sites. Use your keywords to search for competitors through Google. List them and visit their pages to determine their keywords. Study any targeting gaps and opportunities.

Myth No. 2: Using More Keywords Is Vital To Increase Ranking

Not long ago marketers thought that in order to rank, you needed to pack the content with lots of  keywords. This meant using all the possible variations of keywords in your content, meta descriptions, titles, etc. This is called keyword stuffing, which is a strategy intended to manipulate organic rankings without offering any real value for users.

     Why Is This a Myth?

Putting as many keywords as possible does not raise your site's ranking. In fact, Google has added this practice to its spam policies for web searches, and sites that use this strategy can greatly suffer in ranking<.

Keyword stuffing is not only about using search terms. It includes listing phone numbers without adding value, and adding blocks of text about cities or regions with the aim of ranking the pages. This is referred to as “black hat” SEO, that everyone should avoid.

Besides using relevant keywords from thorough research, proper keyword usage is equally as important. Follow these tips:

• Place keywords naturally in your copy. Look for keyword phrases that make your copy sound conversational and natural. As much as possible, place them in the introduction and at the conclusion.
• Include keywords in your headings and tags. This helps Google understand your content, as well as enables users to quickly identify your pages.
• Add keywords to your URL. This practice helps search engines understand your content. Keep your URL short and relevant, so that clients can easily remember them.
• Improve file names and links using keywords. If you have files or software for clients to download, use the keywords to name the files. This helps users to identify and share your content.

Myth No. 3: Poor-quality Content Can Rank With Lots of Keywords

B2B SaaS marketers that believe keyword research is not necessary, also tend to accept that creating quality content is not important. They believe any content – even poorly written and optimized ones – can rank by simply sprinkling keywords throughout the page.

     Why Is This a Myth?

Content is crucial to ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you want improved visibility, create relevant, valuable, and well-targeted content. Plus, Google ranks user-friendly content higher. Create optimized content using these tactics:

• Produce content with valuable information. Research what content your clients expect to find online. For example, they may look for how-to instructions on installing software or troubleshooting videos.
• Create user-friendly content. Break your content into short paragraphs and place important information in bulleted points. Keep the language simple and use graphs, images, videos, and infographics to explain complex topics.
• Make content for your clients and not for search engines. Produce content that your clients want to read or see. Focus on unique content that engages them, like software comparison guides or reviews.

Myth No. 4: Sitemaps Are the Answer To Increasing Ranking

Some believe that adding a sitemap improves ranking on SERPs. Dismissing almost all SEO strategies, such as keyword research, proper keyword usage, optimizing content, and creating links, cannot effectively be replaced with using sitemaps.

     Why Is This a Myth?

Although sitemaps help Google bots crawl and index your pages, there is no guarantee that having one can improve ranking. To rank sites, Google relies on critical factors like user experience (UX), backlinks, and mobile friendliness. Sitemaps can help search engines discover new or recently-added pages.

Aside from adding a sitemap, optimize your pages with prominent SEO strategies, including:

• Improving link-building strategies. Use proven link-building techniques that include promoting your pages on social media, broken link building, improving content quality, forum posting, and guest blogging.

• Promoting user experience. This encompasses improving site design, content, speed, etc. Keep pages consistent with your contact details displayed on each one. Enhance page speed by avoiding flash, reducing redirects, enabling caching, and compressing image files.
• Aiming for a mobile-friendly format. Adapt a responsive page design, meaning your pages automatically adapt to the screen sizes that clients use. Improve speed by avoiding pop-ups, and arrange content to display prominently on mobile devices. (More on this SEO strategy later.)

Myth No. 5: Creating Content Only When You Feel Like It

Developing engaging and valuable site content can be a demanding and sophisticated process.  For SaaS marketers who may have grown weary of this process, believe it is sufficient to only create content when they are up to the task.

     Why Is This a Myth?

B2B SaaS companies that use carefully researched keywords and content not only create valuable, high-quality content, but also show expertise in the industry. It highlights dedication to your field and clients, as you want to provide the best online information. If you create content once a month, a few times a year, or whenever you feel like it, you will allow competitors to beat you in rankings.

Eventually you will fade from the SERPs, as clients cannot find you using organic search. Hence, regularly creating content is crucial to ranking. Adding new posts, updating existing ones, and removing duplicate content are essential to SEO. Consider the following content creation best practices:

• Create content for every software product. Use your products as the primary keywords and create content around these terms.
• Explore various types of content. Try videos, infographics, podcasts, graphs, etc. Test and stick with the kind of content that works best for your clients.
• Refurbish old content. Update page stats, images, videos, and data. You can also turn video content into a how-to blog, or a podcast into a transcript post.

Myth No. 6: It Does Not Matter Where You Get Links as Long as You Get a Lot

Some B2B SaaS marketers have a “the more the merrier” attitude when it comes to backlinks, believing that higher numbers of backlinks will increase ranking. However, getting backlinks naturally is difficult. As such, some will resort to black hat SEO tactics like buying backlinks.

     Why Is This a Myth?

As previously stated, backlinks are critical ranking factors, showing that other sites perceive you as a credible and authoritative source. More backlinks mean more sites trust you, which guarantees a higher rank. A few quality backlinks are better than a large number of low-quality links. There is no assurance that the links you buy online are all from reputable sources. Additionally, you risk getting penalized by Google because buying backlinks is against its Webmaster Guidelines. Google discounts your links and demotes your ranking.

The best way to earn backlinks is to do it naturally, remembering that quality supersedes quantity. Here are ways to improve your backlinking strategy:

• Create purposeful and targeted content. Produce content that people will want to use. Develop formulas, calculators, graphs, and infographics that sites can use as references and, thus, create backlinks.
• Collaborate with industry influencers. Find and follow influencers on social media. Choose those who can represent your brand and spread your message effectively. Offer a free software version and ask if they can review and endorse your products.
• Try guest blogging. Contact relevant blog sites and offer to write a guest post and add your page link. Choose only reputable blogs that align with your business goals.

Myth No. 7: Mobile Optimization Is Not Important

Some marketers believe their desktop websites can help them attract clients, get more leads, and increase subscriptions. They also think mobile optimization is too much work, or is less critical than other marketing strategies.

     Why Is This a Myth?

Google’s mobile-first indexing involves ranking websites with a strong mobile presence. Your site's mobile version becomes Google's starting point for indexing and the baseline for ranking. Therefore, optimizing your site to look, feel, and function on mobile is essential to ranking on SERPs and overtaking your competition.

For a B2B SaaS company, having a mobile-friendly site reflects your expertise in software applications and services. It also shows you are ready to meet your clients searching for mobile software solutions. Remember these mobile-first optimization strategies:

• Ensure easy access to your desktop and mobile sites. Google recommends that mobile sites have similar meta robots tags as its desktop site version. This helps Google render and access your content for easy ranking.
• Make content similar across platforms. Similar primary content on mobile and desktop promotes consistency and follows Google mobile-first indexing best practices.
• Check images, videos, and other content. Use only high-resolution photos in supported file formats like PNG and SVG. Have similar alt text on mobile and desktop versions. Place videos, images, infographics, graphs, and tables prominently on the screen for easy access on small mobile screens.
• Add structured data. This helps search engines understand your content and highlight it during a search. Add the required properties and follow the guidelines. Validate your code through the Rich Results Test. Fix any errors as necessary.

Summing Up

When new to B2B SEO, easy-sounding strategy shortcuts can seem attractive. The truth is, these strategy myths waste time, money, and effort. For expert SEO help, Contact Digital Authority Partners today.