Understand where you can best reach your customers by mapping out the journeys they take

Christopher says: “I work with B2B customers, so my focus is on them succeeding with SEO. In B2B, customer journeys are very long, with lots of touchpoints and lots of influences.

I recommend that you map out the customer journeys for your desired prospects. That way, you will really understand the importance of SEO because a lot of those touchpoints are going through organic traffic today.

Map out your customers’ touchpoints, get a feel for where they are likely to be on that journey, and then tailor content to suit that point on the journey.

Typically, the person in charge of the SEO budget in a B2B company (the CMO, the e-commerce manager, etc.) will have a hard time convincing others about the importance of SEO. This is definitely something that enables you to show how many of these touchpoints SEO can tick off.”

What does a typical B2B user journey look like?

“One thing about creating a model customer journey is that they are often very black and white. Real journeys, however, are very back and forth.

When you’re mapping out a typical journey, if it’s very chronological, then it starts with doing the initial research where users discover that, sometimes, the solution they thought they were looking for is different in the real world.

From there, when they grasp the solution that they need, they can take a deep dive into that solution before contacting the company.”

Are comparison websites like G2 (if you’re talking about B2B SaaS) a traditional initial touchpoint where someone would be researching?

“It’s not an initial location but, when they’ve done a lot of research and are choosing a solution, G2 is a crucial touchpoint.

As a company, you don’t decide the web page, but you can do everything possible to get reviews for your product on a website like G2. That’s how you can influence the buyer’s decision. Third-party comparison sites are very important when you map out the customer journey.”

When you are doing SEO for B2B brands, are you thinking of a fairly linear customer journey?

“When working with structure in SEO, you will go with a linear approach.

However, when you have your insights, you need to understand how you can use your resources in the best way possible. That means starting from lower-funnel content and working your way backwards into the journey. Of course, you also need to be identifying the USPs of your solution when people are searching.

It’s a question of resources because you can’t do everything. If you have limited resources, you would start with bottom-of-the-funnel content – and even the questions that existing users ask. That’s low-hanging fruit.

Most companies have an FAQ on their page, but people tend to go to Google when they’re looking up a question about what they bought, and they might find your competitors instead of you.”

With FAQ pages, is it best to have all the questions on one page or have different pages for each question?

“It depends on how Google wants to display the results, and how deep you need to go with the questions in order to rank.

I usually prefer one page per question, but it depends. The way it should be done is very contextual.”

When you’re answering questions, is the B2B buyer looking for video or do they generally prefer text?

“Again, it depends on context. Video is definitely part of the game. A lot of the time, the questions that users have about solutions are how-to questions. That’s where video plays a major role.

It’s not black and white. It depends on the nature of the question, the likely intent behind that question, and the solution which serves that intent.”

What types of content are currently successful for B2B SEO?

“Previously, we saw big 10,000-word guides ranking at the top of Google. Now, though, Google has become much more fragmented. You need to be more specific in what you are aiming at, by really trying to understand the intent behind a query.

Lengthy blog articles and extensive guides can still work. With that kind of content, you go big or you go home. It’s very much about matching the intent of what the user is looking for.

You can still play around with infographics, calculators, guides, expert panels, etc. – whatever enriches the user experience and pleases the search engine.”

How do you determine what content to write about?

“The better you know the user, the better your content will be.

For example, in the B2B space, I had a client who tracked the fact that a keyword with a search volume of 10 monthly searches actually generated an order of $1 billion. Search volume is not such an important game in the B2B space as it is in B2C.

It’s very important to know the user and not get too disturbed by things like zero search volume keywords when you’re looking at third-party tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush.”

How do you truly understand the user? Is it through conversations with people in the business and with users/customers, or can you rely on data from sources like GA4?

“To understand the user, you need to understand the business first – and you understand that via first-party data. That means getting people together in a room, who may not know anything about SEO, but they know a lot about the customers. That could be product managers, sales managers, account managers, etc.

Try to do a first brainstorm of who your typical user is and what they are searching for. Then, in the second leg, you can support that with data from any tools that you prefer.”

What is the traditional way that B2B organisations tend to try and gain awareness and leads and how do you persuade them to focus on content?

“Historically, B2B organisations have relied on offline marketing; whether that be through catalogues, standing in a booth at an expo, contacting people by phone, or having meetings. It’s definitely very traditional in that sense.

To persuade those businesses that it could be more effective to focus on content, you can first show them how their competitors are doing online. Some will be crushing it while others won’t have made any moves in the market. Benchmarking against your competitors is always a good starting point.

Secondly, you can look at business cases from other industries, where the organic search from Google might be 50-70% of traffic. The company that you’re working with might have organic traffic, but it’s usually either brand-related or coincidental. That sort of comparison is a good way to get a project started.”

How do you get content for B2B brands ranked highly on search engines like Google?

“You have to put more emphasis on content in B2B, compared to B2C. You really need to get the company writing, producing, or at least proving content.

Link building is always important but, again, it depends on the context. Many B2B companies have links because they typically have a broad network of partners that they’re cooperating with and linking to. It depends on the context, but link building can be part of the strategy. There always has to be a technical foundation in place as well.

Then, when it comes to content, you have to figure out how to become a topical authority in the area that you want to dominate. That’s definitely part of it.

Of course, whether it’s in B2C or B2B, Google has become much more economical when it comes to indexing pages. Therefore, a lot of it is about how you can offer content that is not fluffy and has been compressed for Google. That’s part of the new way you have to be critical about what you are publishing, in a time of AI content.”

Do you have to be hyper-focused on the question that you’re trying to answer and the intent behind the question, rather than creating content that is too broad?

“You still want to answer all the questions there are. You need to present yourself almost as a Wikipedia for your topic area because you are creating content for the users but, at the same time, you are also telling Google that you are the topical authority in this area.

This is also why those 10,000-word guides worked much more effectively a few years ago than they do now. Now, it’s more about creating a topical map that covers everything in your topic – even those geeky questions.

It’s not necessarily wrong to produce a 10,000-word guide, though. It’s all about context. If that’s the appropriate type of content to produce for your user, then it could be right, but don’t just produce a 10,000-word piece every month and expect to succeed.

You can have a lot of success with an extensive guide, but it’s not necessarily what I recommend to my clients when it comes to becoming a topical authority and covering the different intents along a customer journey.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Take a step back and actually look at and understand the customer journey. Focus more on touchpoints and trying to connect the dots in that journey.

You can create a search journey map that shows the different stages that your prospects are going through, as well as the different channels that they will be on. That will then show you the kind of content you need to build in order to push them further down the funnel.”

Christopher Hofman is SEO Strategist at HofmanSEO, and you can find him over at HofmanSEO.com.