B2B, or business-to-business, refers to commercial transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer.
Some key aspects of B2B online are:
- E-commerce platforms and marketplaces focused on business purchases rather than consumer purchases. These enable businesses to search for, compare, and purchase everything from raw materials to components to finished products from other businesses.
- Online sourcing and procurement. Businesses can use B2B websites and portals to find suppliers and manage purchasing and supply chain activities online. This includes sending RFQs, receiving quotes, placing and tracking orders.
- Online payments and billing. B2B transactions move online, including invoices, purchase orders, and payments between companies. This improves efficiency and cash flow.
- Logistics technology. Supply chain visibility, shipment tracking, fleet management, and other logistics activities are increasingly managed online in B2B scenarios.
- Data exchange. B2B data like inventory levels, production plans, demand forecasts, and other operational information is electronically shared between partners in the supply chain, facilitating collaboration.
The goal of online B2B functions is to connect businesses digitally to improve procurement, supply chain interactions, and ultimately make enterprises more efficient and productive. The global B2B e-commerce market continues to rapidly outpace B2C e-commerce as well.
Regarding SEO for B2b websites, the same core disciplines of on-page SEO and off-page SEO apply. But the strategy, focus and types of content differ.
SEO considerations for B2B websites include:
- Keyword targeting – Identifying commercial buyer keywords related to products, parts, solutions etc. rather than consumer search terms. Keyword research tools help uncover these.
- Creating unique product descriptions, technical specifications, capability briefs and rich B2B content that targets industry-specific queries.
- Content marketing and blogging focused on educating around industry pain points, use cases, new technologies.
- More emphasis on optimizing RFPs, case studies, research reports and other gated assets to drive lead generation from commercial searches
- Local SEO is still crucial for geo-targeted searches from business buyers searching locally.
- More focus on optimizing for longer, more sophisticated buying cycles with multiple stake-holders and touchpoints.
- Cultivating industry experts and external recommendations to increase domain authority and earn backlinks from reputable commercial sites.