Proxy infrastructure×9.2 traffic
From 2,400 to 22,000 visits in two years, on links
IndustryProxy infrastructure
MarketsUS and EU
StartedMay 2024
Duration24 months
×9.2organic traffic
1,400referring domains
486AI mentions
Niche · B2B
B2B SEO agency
A nine-month sales cycle, five people in the buying committee and a contract worth six figures. Those three facts decide what is worth optimising, and none of them is traffic. So reporting opens with pipeline rather than sessions, attribution survives a cycle longer than your reporting period, and the work starts with comparison and replacement pages – the cluster nobody writes.
How much are you leaving on the table?tick what you recognise
Estimated organic left on the table0%
Tick what you recognise – the estimate updates as you go.
Rough estimate from our audits in this niche, not a measurement. The exact figure comes out of a demand map for your own site.
5–11people in the buying committee
3–9 mo.typical sales cycle
34%of signups come from comparison pages
7–10 mo.typical payback
What makes this niche different
Three reasons ordinary SEO stalls here
The person searching is not the person signing
An engineer researches, a manager shortlists, finance approves. Each of them searches differently, and a site written for one of the three loses the other two. We map demand per role and give each a page rather than hoping one landing page covers everybody.
Low volume is not low value
A query with two hundred searches a month can outearn one with fifty thousand when the contract is annual and six figures. We size clusters by deal value before quoting, which is also why we sometimes tell people their niche will not repay the fee.
Last click makes the channel look useless
With months between the first visit and the signature, last-click credits the final branded search. Organic looks like a rounding error and gets cut. We set up first-touch and assisted reporting so the contribution is visible where it happened.
Intent map
What should rank, and what actually does
Query type
What should rank
Usually ranks
“<category> software”
Category page
medium
“<vendor> vs <vendor>”
Comparison page
high value
“alternative to <vendor>”
Replacement landing page
high value
“<job to be done> for <role>”
Use-case page
high value
“<product> pricing”
Pricing page
high value
Rows two and three are the highest-converting cluster in B2B software and the least written, because naming a competitor feels risky.
How B2B SEO works
B2B SEO strategy in practice
Why B2B SEO best practices differ from consumer advice
Nearly every guide to search optimisation is written for a business where one person decides in one session. B2B SEO marketing works on the opposite assumption: an engineer researches, a manager builds a shortlist, finance approves, and the whole thing takes between three and nine months. A page written for one of those roles loses the other two, which is why a single landing page rarely performs no matter how well it is optimised.
The practical consequence is that a B2B SEO strategy is a demand map before it is a content plan. We split queries by role and by job to be done, then decide which combinations deserve their own page. Most do not, and saying so early is cheaper than discovering it in month six.
Where the money sits
Four query types repeat across every B2B software niche we work in. Category terms have the volume and the worst economics, because review aggregators own the results and the searcher is still browsing. Use-case queries convert several times better and almost nobody builds pages for them. Comparison and replacement queries convert best of all, because the person asking already has a contract and a complaint. Integration queries are small individually and qualify the visitor for free.
An SEO agency for B2B that leads with category terms is optimising for a chart. The middle two buckets are where signed contracts come from, and they are usually empty when we arrive.
Measuring B2B SEO services honestly
With months between the first visit and the signature, last-click attribution credits the final branded search and makes organic look like a rounding error. Before cutting anything, set up first-touch and assisted reporting, record the landing page against the lead in the CRM, and report by cohort rather than by calendar month.
Where attribution genuinely cannot be established, say so. An acknowledged gap in a report is worth more than a confident number nobody believes. The full method is in our B2B SEO strategy guide; if your product is a subscription, the SaaS page goes into the specifics.
A query with two hundred searches can outearn one with fifty thousand when the contract is annual and six figures. Most agencies will not tell you that, because the big number looks better in a proposal. We size clusters by deal value before quoting – and sometimes that calculation says the niche will not repay our fee.
Alexei Rozenplenter · Founder and CEO · About the author · LinkedIn
FAQ
Hiring a B2B SEO agency
Maps demand across the buying committee, builds the pages that convert in long sales cycles – use cases, comparisons, replacement and integration pages – fixes the technical base, earns links from the publications your buyers read and reports against pipeline rather than sessions. Our B2B SEO strategy guide covers each step.
Serious B2B engagements usually sit between $1,500 and $4,000 a month. Ours start at $1,500 with a six-month minimum; link placements are billed separately at supplier cost. What drives the number is explained in SEO pricing.
Most of our projects cover the fee between month six and month nine, sooner when deals are large. We put the expected payback month in the proposal, calculated from your traffic potential, conversion rate and deal value.
Ask three things: which metric they report against, and whether it survives a nine-month cycle; how they handle documentation that outranks product pages; and to see a comparison page they wrote. If the table wins every row, it was written as marketing, and buyers close it.
Case studies
What this did for tech companies' revenue
Read the case
ITAM / ITSM×4.4 traffic
From 1,500 to 6,600 visits a month in the US market
IndustryITAM / ITSM
MarketUnited States
StartedJanuary 2024
Duration24 months
×4.4organic traffic
71%non-branded
31%of AI answers
Edtech40,800 visits
Online exam platform: three locales that were blocking each other
IndustryEdtech
MarketsGlobal, IT, TR
StartedJune 2023
Duration13 months
40,800visits a month
3locales
×2.3clicks QoQ
Software development1,083 in the top 30
Developer directory: from nothing to 1,083 queries in the top 30
IndustryDeveloper directory
MarketUnited States
StartedNovember 2022
Duration12 months
1,083in the top 30
218in the top 10
−5,471left beyond-200
Figures are taken from the clients' own analytics for the periods stated.
AK
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