SEO services for B2B, tech and finance sectors

When it comes time for a company to look for a new vendor, agency, or even new software, it turns out the people that work at these companies search for new options in the same way the people might search for a new pizza shop – they turn to Google. And when it comes time to validate that choice, the vast majority of those people won’t approach the company that offers that solution until they’ve consulted Google.

In many ways, Google has become the modern-day equivalent to word-of-mouth. And yet, we find that Search Engine Optimisation, SEO in the B2B, fintech and tech startup world is often overlooked and undervalued.

61%

of B2B decision-makers start the decision making process with a web search.
(Demand Gen Report)

77%

of B2B purchasers say they won’t even speak to a salesperson until they’ve done their own research.
(CEB)

67%

of leads are generated per month from B2B brands that blog compared to those that don’t.
(Social Media B2B)

What page of Google is your company ranking when people search for your product or service?

SEO services involve a combination of technical fixes and copywriting so that Google ranks your site high when people search for products/services that you offer. Amid the fallout from COVID-19, the priority placed on SEO is growing rapidly.

Now that face-to-face events, sales meetings and product demonstrations have come to a screeching halt, and online searchers have skyrocketed, B2B marketers have realised the difference SEO can make, particularly as consumers no longer respond well to ads.

The challenge however is there are over 200 factors that impact how Google’s algorithms decide where your web pages are ranked.

We understand the challenges for tech startups

SEO – The Etymon way

Many well-intentioned SEO consultants believe that SEO is merely improving positions on Google in order to generate higher traffic and their job stops there. However, our SEO experts beg to differ.

Ranking high on Google search is simply the first step. Once you’re there, you still need to capture trust and instill credibility so you can convert that traffic to leads. That requires storytelling, and storytelling requires strategic and creative writing skill.

Beyond the standard technical fixes, competitor SEO intelligence, and research of high volume search phrases (keywords), our SEO experts work hand-in-hand with our B2B-focussed copywriters to:

1. Find creative ways to utilise SEO keywords on your web pages without resorting to keyword stuffing and buzzwords

2. Recommend ways to enhance your off-site content strategy and blog topic calendar to get better SEO results

3. Create eye-catching metadescriptions and page titles that standout and encourage people to click-through to your site

4. Write headers and CTA’s for your site that increase the time people spend on it, thereby sending positive signals to Google

What do our SEO services entail?

Comprehensive technical audits

We constantly check your site’s website health score to make sure the percentage Google has given it is above your competitors and we analyse your website’s interaction with Google.

Progressive site technical fixes

We resolve the technical issues flagged by Google on a monthly basis. By fixing this combination of issues, errors and warnings your potential to rank higher increases.

In-depth keyword research

Our focus on the B2B sector enables our team to perform highly effective keyword research that reveals what high volume search phrases will bring more traffic to your website.

Actionable competitor intelligence

We consolidate reports that show the keywords your competitors are targeting and ranking for, backlinks they’ve acquired, and their website performance.

Strategic keyword optimization

We make sure all content you’ve published online, including landing pages and third party sites are vetted thoroughly through our SEO copywriting lenses.

Authoritative link building

We use our industry knowledge to identify highly relevant, trustworthy, non competing and high-domain backlinks that will help boost your websites credibility.

Detailed monthly reports

We deliver monthly reports that detail your website performance changes, site health improvements, keywords position movements, organic traffic growth and Google visibility.

Frequently asked questions

The honest answer is we don’t know. Most SEO experts will tell you it takes a minimum 6 months to see results, in some highly competitive industries we have had the same experience, in others we’ve been able to generate results within a couple of months. SEO services are a matter of trial and error and what works for one company and one industry might not work for another. However, as SEO is a new service offered by Etymon you can be assured we are committed to getting you results as fast as possible so we can show others what we can do. SEO results also depend on the severity of your audit findings and the amount of technical fixes that need to be done. Keep in mind that Google bots need time to index, and reindex your site and this happens on a recurring basis, the timing of which is beyond any SEO specialists control.

There are over 200 SEO factors Google takes into account when ranking a website and this algorithm changes frequently. The recent update in August 2013 was Hummingbird which focused on semantic search, earlier updates were called Panda, Penguin, and Pigeon. Algorithm factors include:

Page-level factors including placement of the keyword (title, meta descriptions, h1, h2, etc.), and the keyword density (how often the keyword comes up on the page)
Domain factors including domain age, registration length, history and associations
Site-specific factors including contact us page, and website architecture/site map
Backlink factors including quality and quantity of backlinks as well as Domain Authority
User interaction factors including site speed, bounce rate, and time spent on site
Content factors including the frequency, quantity and quality of content uploaded

Sort of. Algorithms will be able to determine what has caused a spike in your website traffic and will determine if this is a signal that your site has something users are finding valuable. Perhaps an authoritative site shared a piece of content marketing that you created in which case this would be favoured by Google. However, if your site experienced a load of bots or spammers that have been paid to visit your site over and over again then Google will know it is artificially inflated traffic and this will not help your search rankings.

As a result of the ever-increasing amount of B2B content online, search engine algorithms have become more and more advanced in order to deliver users the most relevant, and highest quality results based on their search query. Once upon a time, SEO only required stuffing a webpage with your chosen keyword and pointing as many links as possible to it to see fast results, but things have changed drastically. Such tactics in 2020 will cause more harm than good.

When it comes to B2B content marketing, it’s well accepted that people have short attention spans so it goes without saying that we need to give them the information they’re looking for quickly. Search engines also try to do this, they want to deliver high-quality search results fast. In Google’s eyes, there’s no point ranking a site highly if users have to wait a long time for the page to load. Worse still, Google bots might not even crawl and index your site if the page speed is really slow. Google says – “Google will reduce the amount of crawlers it sends to your site if your server is slower than two seconds.”

Similarly, if a user spends a low amount of time on site and your site experiences high bounce rates (when a user visits a site and leaves without visiting any other pages) it sends a signal to Google that your site’s user experience is poor.

Link Building is the process of actively seeking opportunities where a third-party site can publish your content and give you a link back to your website. This could be:

A directory website
Review and comparison sites
Wikipedia link building
Video platforms
Social media platforms
Beta lists and startup submissions (Betalist, ProductHunt, or Erlibird.)
A blog post or guest article on a site in your niche
Specialized discussion forums and Q&A sites (Quora, Reddit, StackExchange)
Local business directories (if you have a physical location)
Press coverage
Blog comments

Link building used to be about quantity over quality – now the opposite is true. Link building takes a lot of time and planning to be done properly, especially as Google has placed more emphasis on the quality of the content online.