In one our previous articles we talked about how to increase user trust in your website to increase leads and conversions. B2B buyers today are looking for social proofs that show you’re trustworthy, and these include displaying trust marks, testimonials, and awards, among others. You can have all these factors present on your website, but the truth is, you can’t just sit there and wait for buyers to visit your website.
In this article, we will talk about B2B software sales strategy and show you how you can bring in organic traffic and increase the click ratio for your B2B software page.
Content marketing firm BrightEdge reported that in 2014 organic search drove 51% of traffic to B2B websites, lording it over non-organic channels. Paid search accounted for 10%, while social media only registered at 5%. The conclusion is that while you should keep your budget for paid and social media tactics, you should also focus on search where the big slice of your buyers are coming from.
Piggyback on someone else’s SERP
Ranking high in organic search based on your choice keywords is difficult and it takes time. But there’s a faster way to achieve organic ranking: ride on somebody else’s ranking websites. Here are three great sources of click-throughs that can come from organic search.
1. Guest post on top-ranking sites
Popular news sites like Forbes may accept your guest posts if you can project an aura of expertise.
Many top media sites offer guest blogging for perceived thought leaders in their respective fields. Sites like Forbes, HuffingtonPost, TechCrunch, Wired, Time.com, and The New York Times rank high in SERP and they accept articles from external parties, which can be you. As owner/founder/top official of your company, you are an authoritative voice (or ought to be) about your product category.
Of course, top sites have strict editorial criteria and even before submitting an article, you should learn their guidelines and align your proposed topics along these lines. You can also target niche sites, for example, a project management site or an interest group for accountants, that are relevant to your software.
Once accepted as a guest author, you can ask for a backlink to your website as part of your credentials. Keep in mind to write on topics that are closely related to your product category (not your product), for example CRM or learning management, and use the category as a keyword in the article. When people search for this keyword, it’s likely that the top site where your article is posted will give you the SERP exposure.
2. Get more exposure on review sites
Here’s how a product review looks like on FinancesOnline.com
Review sites are ranking high in SERP because of two things: communities of buyers use review sites to find leads and read user comments during their initial product discovery stage; and these sites often add new content on a regular basis as they review more new products, which adds to their SEO strength. In many cases, review sites rank even higher than a product site, using the product as the keyword. If you’d like to feature your B2B product on such website have a look at the list of top 5 review platforms for B2B software.
The good news is, you can easily piggyback on the popularity of review platforms, because you are their target. In fact, even before you know it, your software might have already been reviewed by these sites. But don’t be content with simply appearing on these review sites. Remember that your competitors are also present there and are constantly vying for buyers’ attention.
Instead, leverage the marketing tools being offered by the review site to your benefit. For example, here on FinancesOnline, you can get more exposure and generate more leads by activating buttons directly link to your homepage and free trial page, thus sending more clients your way after they’ve read your review and became interested in your product. You can also opt for a comparison highlight feature that makes your software show up as a suggested alternative when buyers compare it with similar products. It’s also possible to distinguish your product from your competitors by winning awards and quality certificates that are often given to apps leading in their category. These will both highlight the specific features your product is goood at as well as clearly indicate you’re a top player in the market and you offer a quality product.
When buyers search for a product category and they land on a review site, having your product highlighted by awards or simply showing up higher because of a priviliged position gives you a better chance of getting your clients’ attention and, as a result, converting that attention into sales. If you’d like to learn more about with us or your product is not yet in our listing you can get in touch with us here.
3. Promote your blog and content
Here’s our media release about FreshBooks achievements published on Yahoo! Finance.
In the HubSpot State of Inbound (2013), 79% of marketers who blog reported a positive ROI for inbound marketing. More specifically, 82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a buyer through their blog versus only 57% for those who blog monthly.
However, don’t just repurpose content for the sake of posting articles; rather, create original, insightful articles, putting emphasis on their educational value rather than their marketing potential. Readers love to read articles that answer their questions or enlighten them about issues that relate to your product. In fact, many of these potential buyers are likely to start their search using a general keyword (as opposed to a product keyword), which your blog article can capture.
Likewise, blogging shouldn’t be limited to your corporate website. To fully maximize your blog materials, why not conduct an outreach campaign and have some of your articles posted as a SaaS guest post on other sites? Simply contact the editors or administrators of your target websites and pitch your story. In most cases, they’ll request an original article (different from your blog post), which means tweaking your blog content to suit their readers.
By creating more backlinks to your site, you’re increasing its SERP value. Your blog is also a rich source of press materials that you can feed to media sites, one of which may just happen to need your article.
However, keeping a steady blog and content marketing funnel may consume your time and energy. In which case, you can tap an external editorial team that specializes in B2B marketing and can work with your calendar and develop the articles on a steady schedule. Here in FinancesOnline, our B2B experts can sit down with you, identify topics and issues that best highlight your software, develop these topics into full-blown content, and distribute them across relevant top sites.
4. Put your webinars and tutorials on YouTube
Here’s Wrike promiting their tutorials on YouTube
You’re probably already hosting a series of video tutorials about your software. You can leverage these by breaking them into webinars and uploading them on YouTube. Here are two good reasons why you should do this:
- Google gives preference to YouTube in SERPs
- YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the second most popular search engine
However, you must create quality video content because at the end of it, your viewers’ engagement with the video is factored in by Google when calculating SERP. Engagement includes likes, dislikes, shares, and average view duration. As for the latter, the longer the audience watches your video, the more important it is in the eyes of YouTube/Google and the more likely you are to get a favorable ranking.
Many high-ranking videos fall into one of three categories: tutorials, how-tos, and review videos, which are all related to your software tutorials.
Next, optimize your video for the right keyword. Use long-tail keywords or specific phrases. For example, don’t just use CRM for keyword, use BEST CRM FOR SMALL BUSINESS. Buyers are searching for specific ideas in their minds and your keyword should reflect that.
Likewise, optimize the video description (this can be accessed from your YouTube account settings) by writing a 200-word long copy using your keyword and some variations. For example, how to manage an agile team, managing agile teams, agile management techniques, etc. These are all focused on agile management that are related to your project management app. Just remember not to duplicate or over stuff the description with keywords or you can get penalized.
Lastly, place a clear CTA (call-to-action) pointing to your product site during and at the end of the video. With luck, one of your videos will one day rank in the top SERPs.
CONCLUSION
We hope this article on B2B software sales strategy has helped you. Organic search is still the best channel to get clicks to your product website. But why wait for your site to rank on page one, when you can piggyback on other sites or leverage your video tutorials to get organic leads.
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