Selling to executives – is it really that difficult? Though it may sound surprising, it is. And that’s not because of what you’re selling, but because you only have one chance to persuade top executives to buy your products or services.

Executives are busy people who have no time to watch long product presentations or to go through multiple product and service offerings. These people only have time for short “stories” and relevant “conclusions.” There’s no better way to provide relevant “conclusions” than adopting the right SEO strategy. On one hand, SEO allows you to offer C-level executives exactly what they’re looking for; on the other, it boosts your online visibility, which will eventually increase B2B traffic to your website and boost sales.

However, there are some obstacles that can hamper your business’s ability to achieve the results expected. Letting aside the obvious fact that some professionals choose products based on recommendations from business partners, familiarity with certain brands and personal experience, a series of factors (e.g. limited search volumes associated with very specific products/services, the wide variety of SEO techniques preventing product pages from ranking high in search engine and reaching a wider audience, etc.) can prevent your website from generating a high number of “quality” leads.

Since the online content marketing industry is extremely complex and volatile, our specialists have decided to reveal three key points an organization targeting C-level executives should focus on to develop an effective content marketing strategy, increase B2B traffic, and stay ahead of the pack in.

1. People First, Keywords Second

Business professionals may already be looking for your products or services. But the main problem is that you won’t be able to sell anything online if potential customers can’t find your website.

To make your site visible to your audience, you need to define your “ideal” customers and start publishing relevant content. If you offer hospitality property management software, for example, it’s imperative that you consider different buyer personas, ranging from resorts and inns to luxury hotels, and add customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations and goals to the “mixture.”

Coming down to content creation, it’s essential that you focus on the problems C-level executives deal with each and every day. By understanding their challenges, you’ll be able to come up with highly relevant topics. A few ways to get unique content ideas that will set your business apart from the competition include:

• Asking your staff – Since your customer service and sales teams are aware of the problems your prospects and customers face, and can indicate the terms people use to describe specific issues, they can give you valuable ideas for new topics and keywords.
• Connecting with your target audience – You can join social media communities, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and specialty forums to get in touch with your prospects and customers. Encourage them to be specific about their challenges and the solutions they consider appropriate for their businesses. Based on the information you receive, you can come up with new topics that specifically address your customers’ problems.
• Monitoring websites, industry publications and conference agendas – Visiting blogs and websites can help you identify questions your competitors didn’t answer. Also, you can read industry publications for the latest insights into specific markets, developments, innovations, etc., and check industry conference agendas to get great content ideas.
• Looking for complementary solutions – By using relevant keywords to describe B2B tools that complement the products and services you provide, you’ll improve your website’s ranking for a series of search terms, attract more visitors and buyers, and increase B2B traffic.

2. A Balance between “Too-General” and “Too-Specific” Keywords
General keywords, such as “hotel management software,” are highly competitive. Besides requiring a huge amount of bids for your website to rank high in search engines, general keywords may negatively affect your conversion rate because most searchers are looking for something specific. Conversely, using keywords that are too specific would mean that your website only appears for those terms, which will inevitably translate into low visitor traffic and conversion rates. To increase B2B traffic, you should: create articles that include general, specific and unique keywords; use well-converting keywords in different posts; modify the core keywords and change the title tags of the pages that are ranking high.

3. Follow a Certain Order
To increase B2B traffic to your website, you need to do things in a certain order. Start by developing a list of keywords and topics. Then, determine their relevance to C-level executives, try to find unique ways to connect topics with targeted keywords and identify authority websites for outbound linking.

Now that you know the basics of how to increase B2B traffic to your website, you’re ready to create and promote your content. If you’re still unclear about how to get more B2B SEO traffic, contact us at Captevrix today. Our professionals will be more than happy to fine-tune your content marketing “mechanism” to help you increase your website traffic and conversion rate.