SEO for niche businesses can be challenging to start with.
Setting an SEO strategy detailing which topics to cover and if your target demographic is actually searching for them, can feel like a drain on your resources, especially if you’re yet to see tangible results from SEO.
However the relative lack of competition and saturation in the search results can also help grow your organic presence quickly.
I recently helped a business client’s website triple its organic visitors over 6 months. The client provides backend services to business customers who typically sign up for a subscription.
They came to us for help with increasing search traffic and ultimately, leads for their business.
As you can see, my agency was able to nearly triple their organic search traffic from 239 to 714 per day.
These results came from executing tactics in 3 areas:
- Content optimization
- Link building
- Technical updates
If you make improvements to each of these elements, you can expect to increase your website’s search traffic.
I’m breaking down the 6 steps we took below.
1. Content
The foundation of SEO is content.
Without it, you won’t attract any visitors to your website.
Instead of writing a ton of new articles, we focussed on identifying opportunities within the website, and publishing content that could help us earn backlinks.
Optimizing existing content
Optimizing existing content is an effective way to realize quick results. Eventually, you want to optimize all of your content.
But the site in question had a ton of existing content, so we needed to identify which pages to focus on first.
So here’s how you can replicate our approach.
- Make a list of all the pages ranking in positions 4 to 20 for their target keyword.
- Filter those pages and select our business’s most important pages
Your website’s most important pages are those that will directly increase revenue or leads for your business if they rank in the top 3 positions on Google.
We then pasted these URLs into Surfer’s Audit tool to help uncover easy-to-implement recommendations that could improve ranking.
Now check the following reports in this exact order.
- Exact keywords report
- Partial keywords report
- Page structure report (only red issues)
These reports will reveal critical keywords that your page is missing. Ensure that you implement these keyword suggestions as best as you can.
For instance, the Exact keywords report here has identified the lack of my target keywords in the page title and H1.
And the Partial keywords report here suggests using an exact phrase.
Fix the issues and then refresh the report in the top right corner.
Next, check that your Word count matches the top ranking pages in length and add more content if necessary.
For example, the report here recommends adding more content based on competitor pages.
Refresh the report again to account for your changes.
Lastly, work on the “Phrases” section report in the Terms To Use report. You can ignore the “Words” and “Numbers” sections here.
When you’re done, hit the “Refresh” button on the Surfer Audit report for the last time and double check everything is right.
That’s all.
Optimizing your existing pages is easy to do and for the most part – is a case of rewording sentences or adding/removing things as Surfer tells you.
Creating linkable content
Most people focus on ranking content that drives leads and sales.
That’s good.
But there is something else you should be doing too.
I will show you how we created statistics posts that earned links from big media publications without paying for them.
It’s like link-building on auto-pilot.
So, what are statistics posts?
Statistics posts are a round-up of key statistics, data and trends related to a specific topic or company.
Like this article about Amazon Prime’s key figures.
They are often very easy to create and rank for.
You need just a handful of links, a well-written post and a couple of custom graphics.
But once you rank among the top 3 positions for your target keyword, you can earn high authority links from big authority sites on autopilot.
Why?
Because journalists are always looking for statistics to reference in their articles. When they find a relevant statistic, they’ll often reference the source and link back to the site.
Statistics roundups make it easy for journalists to do their job, so we could sit back while those juicy high authority backlinks rolled in automatically from sites like Techcrunch and Gizmodo.
So how do you create a statistics post that earns links from authoritative websites?
The key to a great stats post is finding compelling stats to include in relevant topics.
Here’s how to come up with ideas for statistics posts.
Brainstorm a list of ideas in your niche. These could be,
- Tools
- Services
- Providers
- Manufacturers
- Brands
And anything else you can think of in your niche that you could compile a list of statistics about. This should give you a ton of ideas to start with.
But don’t stop there.
Think about hot topics and news in your niche right now.
Do some research to see what’s trending. We used Google News and looked for relevant topics covered by multiple news and media groups.
Ask yourself this question,
What specific news frequently breaks on a subject in your niche?
These topics are perfect because you already know that journalists are writing about them and looking for data to reference right now.
The key is to make each post specific and focused.
The last thing you want to write is generic statistical posts because they won’t rank, and journalists won’t link to them.
For example, these are some ideas for evergreen posts that could potentially work:
- Remote work Statistics
- Gender pay Statistics
- Climate change Statistics
- Mental health Statistics
The sky is the limit when you are brainstorming statistics topics. Just make sure they are relevant to your niche.
You could also focus on brands, products, companies and services:
- Brand statistics (eg Facebook statistics)
- Product statistics (eg iWatch statistics)
- Service statistics (eg Zoom statistics)
You might even include locations in your ideas:
- US lottery statistics
- Arizona car crime statistics
- United Kingdom healthcare statistics
Brainstorm ideas and create the ones that are most likely to gain media coverage in your niche.
2. Technical improvements
Technical SEO is the foundation for strong results from content.
There is no point in spending your time, effort or money on link building and content creation if your website’s technical details are lacking.
Here are 3 things we implemented straight away.
E-EAT Signals
E-EAT is an essential part of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. That’s the handbook Google’s web rating team uses to evaluate the quality of search results
E-EAT stands for:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
Put simply – E-EAT signals prove to Google that you are a real and trustworthy business they can confidently send traffic to.
E-EAT indicators are becoming more and more important – especially in the age of AI content.
You must demonstrate each of these signals if you want to rank higher on the search result pages.
The good news is there are a couple of quick changes you can make to your site to boost its’ E-EAT signals.
How to add E-EAT signals to your website?
There are a few key must-have elements needed to improve your E-EAT signals.
We worked our way down the list below and added each of them to our site.
1. Implement name, address and phone number (NAP)
In prominent areas, add your business name, address, and phone number to your website.
In SEO, this is also called NAP.
Here’s an example of NAP in action in the footer of my SEO agency’s website.
Add your name, address, and phone number to your websites in these areas.
- Footer
- About page
- Contact page
These are the places that people will look to if they want to learn more about your business or get in contact with you.
NAP is essential for every website, even if you’re an Amazon affiliate website and especially if you run a business with a physical location.
Don’t have a physical address?
Get permission from your accountant and add their physical address to your website. Or you could rent a virtual address online, usually for a few dollars per week.
You can also use your home address, but not everyone is comfortable with doing that.
Need a phone number?
Use CallRail and pre-record a phone answering message if someone calls.
Then have any messages you receive sent to you by email.
I like this approach because it means we never have to be around to answer the phone when it rings.
2. About page
Your About page showcases who’s behind the business.
Google and website visitors should be able to see exactly who operates the business.
Here’s what your About page should have:
- Add an image to the page of the business owner and team members
- Include a bio for important team members
- Link bios to each team member’s LinkedIn profile
- List achievements, qualifications, and awards
- Write an “about the team” section
Add testimonials or reviews from real customers to your home page, about page and service/product pages.
This is a great way to boost E-EAT signals.
Adding organizational structured data
We used the Local SEO module in RankMath to add organization-structured data to our website:
It only takes a few minutes to set up, and we recommend doing so.
Once you have added it, use Schema Validator to ensure it was correctly implemented.
You should be able to see your address, phone number, social profiles and more!
Review advanced schema
In 2011, the world’s leading search engines created a standardized way for web page data to be structured.
It led an initiative called Schema.org.
Here’s why you should pay attention to schema data.
Schema data can,
- Attract more attention to your page
- Increase your click-through rate (CTR)
- Drive more traffic
Who doesn’t want that, right?
You can structure data like:
- Reviews
- Products
- Recipes
- Prices
- FAQ pages
- Category pages
- Opening hours
- Addresses
- Telephone numbers
- Events
And more! The list goes on and on.
For example, if you publish recipes, schema can generate additional data like ratings and prep time displayed next to your search result.
If you want to drive targeted traffic from Google, it really pays to use schema-structured data across your site.
How to check for schema
Before adding schema data to your site, you need to see if you’ve got any on there already.
Use this free schema validator tool. Type in your page URL and click Run Test.
All detected schema markup on the page will be displayed on the right side.
You’ll also be able to see if there are any warnings or errors that need addressing.
Check your homepage, category pages, content pages, product pages, event pages and review pages, and anything else that is important to your business.
Which schema to use?
The schema data you add to your site is different for everyone.
Why?
Because there are over 30+ different types of schema, and not all of them are relevant to your site.
For example, at SearchLogistics we use,
- Speakable
- HowTo
- Dataset
- CollectionPage
- FAQ
- Article
- Video
- Product
- Review
- Person
- WebPage
- Organization schema
That’s the schema that's relevant to our site and content. Now, you need to figure out what’s relevant for you.
Head over to this page and look at the types of schema that Google supports.
Make a list of which schema types are relevant to your site and implement them using SEO plugins like RankMath.
3. Simple link building strategies
Link building is hard work. It is the last pillar of SEO to focus on and is often the most challenging.
Even with the best link-building strategies, it still takes a lot of time, effort, and skill to see results.
This is why many business owners choose to outsource to link building agencies.
Here, I’ll show you how we approached building backlinks to get these results.
Which pages should you build links to?
It’s important to make sure that you are only building links to pages that will increase your revenue and where you stand a good chance of winning the number 1 position for your target keyword.
So I am going to show you precisely how to figure out which pages you should be building links to on your site step by step.
Identifying target keywords:
First, we identified keywords that were currently ranking on the first three pages of Google. You can see this data in your Google Search Console Search results queries report.
Then, pick out the ones that are the most commercially relevant to your business.
Ultimately, you want to create a shortlist of keywords that are ranking on the first three pages of Google that will bring sales or leads to your business.
It's best to avoid highly competitive search terms and focus on more targeted keywords with lower search volumes that appear later in the buying cycle.
The real trick here is being strict with your keyword selections by focusing on sales and leads rather than the search volume.
Next, we calculated the link gap to assess the difference in the number of backlinks between our page and higher-ranking competitors' pages for the same keywords.
How many links do you need?
I will explain how to roughly calculate how many backlinks you need to break the top three rankings for a given keyword.
Knowing this is important because once you know how many links you need, then you can figure out how much to budget for your target keyword.
Start by searching for your target keyword and look for sites of similar authority to yours ranking on the first page.
Then, use the free Mozbar extension to look at the backlink profiles of each of the top three results to figure out exactly which types of links are currently powering the top three rankings on average.
For example, in the image below, we can see the number one position has a couple of backlinks.
However, you'll see that only 5 of those have a domain rating of above 30.
Clicking back to the results, you can do the same thing for the next 2 positions to find the number of links that have any meaningful authority.
Based on this method, you can calculate the backlink gap. You will often find that it would take just a few good links to compete with the current search results of your page.
This is also helped by the fact that DR sites with similar authority to yours, or below are ranking with no or a few links.
This means that you could estimate that if you were to build just three or four solid links, you would get good results on this keyword.
We were able to replicate this same method to help a client recover from Google’s Helpful Content update.
This is how you decide which pages to build links to, whilst also knowing how many links you need to build at what cost.
Results
These strategies help us improve organic clicks by 3x in just 6 months.
Takeaways
Success in B2B SEO comes from a combination of efforts on technical, content, and link building.
By implementing a comprehensive approach that included content optimization, E-E-A-T improvements, and a robust backlink strategy, we achieved significant improvements in our client's online visibility, search engine rankings, and, most importantly, lead generation and conversion rates.
Please ensure you implement the steps I’ve shared with you above on your website because seeing more results like this would be great.
For B2B companies looking to drive business growth, investing in SEO is vital to growth.
