Build Jargon into Your B2B SEO

If you're new to doing SEO for business-to-business websites, you face an interesting challenge. That's doubly true if you've done SEO for consumer-facing websites first. Some of the same rules apply, but others operate in exactly the reverse way. The biggest example of this involves your use of content, keywords, and jargon.

To illustrate my point, I'll describe two parallel purchasing situations. Your eleven-year-old niece enjoys looking at things under a magnifying glass; she's even been drawing pictures and taking notes. She asked you for a microscope for her twelfth birthday. You're a careful shopper, so you look up maybe three or four models online, compare features and prices, and ultimately buy one that's easy for her to use, but you think will grow with her. You've spent maybe two hours of your time and somewhere between $25 and $100.

Now, let's look at someone purchasing lab equipment at the college level for undergraduates, graduate students, or researchers. Or if you really insist on a business example, let's consider a purchaser for a pharmaceutical company. They will want much more capable microscopes; they will probably have a list of features the equipment must include, for example. They will spend a lot more money – and correspondingly, a lot more time looking for the right device. Bryne Hobard, writing for Search Engine Land, notes that your average B2B buyer “might read 10,000 words of copy before they start the purchasing process – half on the site they eventually buy from, and the rest on several other sites they consider.”

These purchasers are sophisticated; they are experts in their fields. If you talk down to them or simplify, they will leave your site in frustration because you're not really telling them what they need to know. If you're building a B2B website and want to reach these professionals, you need to choose your keywords from their language. This means you need to learn their jargon, and use it correctly.

This process requires that you immerse yourself in their literature. If you're selling products and services to lawyers, read the law blogs they read; ditto for corporate accountants. You might not understand it at first, but you can learn enough to tell your prospective customers what they need to know – and in as much detail as they need to know it. Even better, if you use the right jargon in the right way (and that's going to vary depending on the field), you'll be telling it to them in their “native language,” so to speak.