Sam is a marketing and B2B SEO expert, who is a sales director and co-owner of Web Choice UK. He specializes in business growth through SEO, web development, SaaS development, and digital marketing. Sam is also a founder and host of the B2B marketing podcast "Business Growth Show."
We’ve heard plenty about the power of SEO, but it seems like the rules of the game just keep changing, even more so from industry to industry. To get a better grasp on how to get it right in the B2B sector, Spotlight reached out to an expert on the matter - Sam Dunning from Web Choice UK.
Sam Dunning is the sales director and co-owner of Web Choice UK, and he also hosts a B2B marketing podcast Business Growth Show, making him a perfect guest for our podcast.
In this exclusive interview, Sam unveils ways to stand out in the B2B industry, talks about emerging trends in the SEO industry, and the biggest traps companies face when growing their digital presence.
This podcast transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.
Vianca Meyer: As a co-owner of Web Choice, how have you managed to set yourself apart in the B2B industry?
Sam Dunning: It's not something we did right away. We've certainly learned the hard way over the last 13 years I've been doing this. First off, I thought we could sell anything to anyone. Then I realized when you're trying to be everything to everyone, you're nothing to no one. I was listening to a podcast this morning discussing this exact thing, where if you sound like you are a 360-degree all-in-one solution, you're just trying to appeal to the masses.
Having a niche and being upfront that you're not for everyone is a lot more radically transparent and appealing to companies that need your particular offer. So, you might repel some businesses that don't need you. But you’re going to engage with the type of business prospects that you want to be working with.
These days we tend to work mainly with B2B companies that have a sales team, and they are usually either service-based companies or tech or software companies. The reason is because that's mainly what we do ourselves, we're a service and we're a tech company. That's how we generate inquiries through SEO and websites that convert.
Likewise, we enjoy working with those companies because we know the industry. I run a podcast business growth show, so I interview tech software VPs and chief marketing officers every week. I've interviewed about 300 of them over the last three years, so I have a good grip on how tech marketing and the B2B market work. Rather than just going for vanity metrics like traffic and rankings, we understand that end result is a lead that's qualified. That's the output that these companies want.
What would you say are the biggest traps that companies tend to fall into when trying to grow their business online and what piece of advice would you have for them?
You want to start with the quick wins, right? Especially if you're a small business or bootstrapped or you've got limited cash, then you want to start with the channels that are no-brainers. You have to think: where are my target buyers, my target prospects, and the clients that are ideal for me? Where are they most likely going to go when they need my service right now? What are the quickest routes to market for my company?
Typically, there are a couple that spring to mind. If someone quite literally searches for your offer, maybe provide a best proposal software tool, then create ads that capture that inquiry by knowing the keywords that your target market search and building ads to capture that.
That's probably one of the quickest routes to market. Or similarly, you can do SEO. Of course, that takes a bit longer. Google isn't going to be applicable to everyone, but it's going to be applied to a big chunk of people that listen to this. So, they'll want to think like this: "If someone needs my service, what will they search for to find us? Will they be using Google? If so, what are the main services or offers that they'll type in to find an offering?"
For some companies like tech or software, you might be better off investing your funds into aggregator sites, like you guys at DesignRush. You need to find the one that makes sense for you. Those sites rank exceptionally well on Google Search, and they can reduce your cost per click compared to using AdWords. Companies place quite a lot of trust in those and that's probably one of the quickest ways to get leads.
We often hear that everything comes down to good content. How would you explain the golden standards for good content today?
It's giving your target prospects what they care about seeing. From a search standpoint, when you are creating content, it's got to do a few things. It must match the user's intent. So, if someone is searching for a specific type of offer, or if they're searching to compare you to another company, they probably want to know a few things; they want to know that you can fix their problem and a bit more about how you're going to do it.
Good content understands what prospects care about in that relevant scenario, and most of that intel comes from expertise. One of the best places to get content ideas is sales calls. From sales conversations or customer success calls, you can pull out the common questions that you get on a day-to-day basis?
The strategy is to make content to directly attack that, whether that's an article, a video, or a podcast. The beauty is that the content is evergreen. That means that loads of people are searching for it every day. Evergreen content is really powerful.
How does your approach to SEO strategies change depending on your client's niche?
Most of the time, it's about what prospects are searching for and starting at the bottom of the sales funnel. What are prospects searching for when they need to speak to sales today about your offer? If you're a SaaS tool, like a proposal software tool, maybe they're searching for a proposal tool. When it comes to SEO, companies often just knock out a load of blogs, and they might get some traffic, but they're only generating leads, and that's because the user intent isn't there.
These prospects probably want to get their question answered. Maybe they'll sign up for your newsletter, follow your podcast, or follow you on YouTube, which is fine for the top of the funnel. Those prospects can be nurtured over time and can eventually become customers. But you want to research several ways, such as through using keywords, research tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, as well as sales schools. This is something that not a lot of SEO agencies do because companies make the mistake of thinking they must go with high-traffic search terms, but you want to know what the prospect is searching for when they need your offer right now.
If you're getting asked for something a lot and the software tool is showing it as low search volume, but you know that you're getting asked it, build content to match a search query that addresses it, and you could get a steady stream of inquiries from it.
Looking toward the future, are there any emerging trends or technologies in digital marketing and SEO that you're most excited about?
Artificial intelligence is going to be interesting. It’s going to be interesting to see how that impacts search results and how certain websites that have been too blog-focused will have their traffic impacted. That's probably one of the main things that's up and coming in terms of an SEO standpoint.
It will also be interesting to see how Google changes its ads because a big money spinner for Google is that right now ads show at the top and bottom of every search result. We will see how they keep that flowing when the AI instant search results come.
Listen to our full interview with Sam Dunning on YouTube!
Edited by Anja Paspalj & Nikola Djuric