B2B copywriting can be quite challenging. Instead of your regular consumer marketing lingo: “Everything you need, all here, and 20% off today,” B2B copywriting requires your message to be crafty, intuitive, and all the while persuasive. Now, copywriting for SEO in a B2B market can be even tougher. If this is where you find yourself, here are a few tips to help you succeed.

Watch the lingo - Seek to use generic terms on the page. In most cases, B2B searchers are more likely to use generic terms than brand names. Branded names tend to be unusual and unique to your offer, so a user looking for one of your brand names will likely find your site quite easily.

Focus page copy - Search Engines seek to classify a page by its main focus. After you have determined the keyword or phrase for your web page, keep the content focused on that keyword. If you have multiple products or offerings, it is better to create multiple pages to focus on each. You will just spin your wheels if you try targeting multiple keywords on a single page.

Don’t forget long-tail key phrases – If you decide to target a page to multiple, themed keywords, look toward a broad keyword and an exact phrase (i.e. long-tail). While the keyword focus of the page may be “green energy,” your target prospect for that page may also be entering words like “solar panel,” “environmentally friendly,” and “renewable” when searching for their solution. Good B2B SEO copyrighting seamlessly includes these long-tail words.

Detailed copy is good - In the B2B arena, having detailed, on-page content is a good thing. It gives you the opportunity to explain the features and benefits that may distinguish your offering. Also, longer copy is good for the search engines. It gives them a better opportunity to determine the focus of the page, and they really like that.

Keywords in the headers – Search Engines place emphasis on H1 headers. It gives the search-bots the opportunity to get a better idea about the content and focus of the page; thus, when possible, it is a good idea to incorporate your page’s keyword in the header tags. In some cases, the keyword may not work in the header, so incorporating an image underneath the header with your keyword in the ALT tag is a good alternative strategy.

Internal linking and anchor text - Internal linking is a good tactic. It helps bots find other pages on your site, and, in doing so, the anchor text used for text links can help with SEO. Before you start writing, know what pages can fit with the content you are about to write. Then see if you can craft your content to incorporate related keywords of your other pages within the anchor text of the hyperlink. Remember, you want to make it seamless, so ensure that you are not just stuffing in keywords. Good B2B copywriting flows smoothly through the desired anchor text.

Using the above mentioned methods should greatly support your B2B SEO copywriting.  Above all else, make sure you lay out a plan for your on-page content beforehand. When in doubt, defer to your company’s message to communicate with your target audience. A site that reads well should always be the top priority.

Most of us have been told at some point and time to use moderation and not over indulge. This advice holds true when it comes to negative keywords in paid search campaigns. Just like over indulgence, too many negative keywords can hurt your paid search campaigns.

Negative keywords are designed to help tighten the focus of your campaign. Let’s say you’re a jewelry company that only sells solid silver jewelry and your company bids on related keywords. Negative keywords that could benefit your campaign are “how to clean”, “wholesale supplier”, “how to make”, “gold and”, etc. All of these could potentially be negative phrase match keywords.

Negative phrase match keywords prevent your ads from showing when someone types in that keyword phrase in that particular order. This means that people searching for “how to clean silver jewelry”, “silver jewelry wholesale supplier”, “how to make silver jewelry”, and “gold and silver jewelry” should not trigger your ads to show. This is a positive because your company doesn’t give tutorials on how to clean or make silver jewelry, you’re not a wholesale supplier and you don’t sell gold jewelry. However, too many negative keywords could actually be a negative and block your ads from showing for relevant searches.

Negative keywords become a negative to your paid search campaigns when they block your ads from showing for relevant searches.  Let’s continue with the example above. If your company adds a negative such as “buy silver chains”, it could be blocking potential customers, especially if you are bidding on the term “silver chains” to refer to a necklace. In this example your company is working against its own paid search campaigns.  It could be that “silver chains” is attracting people who are looking for silver purse chains, silver chains for their fence, as well as those people who are looking to buy a necklace. Instead of adding “buy silver chains” as a negative, consider adding negatives such as “purse chains”, and “fence chains.” This allows your company’s ads to continue to show for searches like “silver chains”, but at the same time it excludes certain purse and fence chain terms from triggering your ads.

Negative keywords should always be a positive and not a negative to paid search campaigns. It’s good to add negative keywords, but don’t go overboard. If negative keywords are keeping your ads from showing for relevant searches, then it’s time to make some adjustments.

Keyword density, proximity, repetition – placing your keywords properly can be a major part of an SEO campaign. It’s easy become overwhelmed and obsessed with finding the perfect words or phrases to fit your pages, then cramming keywords in.

A basic guideline we give our clients is a keyword density of 2% - 4% per webpage, meaning a keyword or keyphrase should only appear four times or less for every 100 words. Anymore than that, and search engines may flag the page for spam. Four-percent may not sound like a lot, but you can try it for yourself. Read a selection of text with a keyword density of 5% or more out loud to yourself. You may be surprised at just how “spammy” it sounds, or how difficult it is to read.

It’s important to remember that good SEO is more than trying to find the right amount of words in the right order to gain the attention of a search engine. Many other factors come into play and keyword density is just one of them (and it’s not even the most important one). When you look at a few of what Google considers to be important factors in SEO, like inbound links and the growth of social search, you can see that quality content is what earns high rankings.

When developing content for your site, try not to obsess over keywords. Instead, focus on creating compelling content that people will share. Always remember to optimize for the user, not the search engine.