Updated
B2B buyers research for months. SEO is whether they find you while they do.
B2B buyers complete 70% of their research before they ever speak to a vendor. The SEO question is whether they find you - or your competitor - during that research stage. The B2B SEO work I do builds the content architecture that supports the buyer at every step, with the proof and authority signals AI Overviews now reward.
For UK B2B firms where the sales cycle is the funnel.
Five profiles where the B2B SEO playbook actually applies. If any sound familiar, the work is shaped for you.
| Profile | What is happening today | The first useful change |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial component supplierB2B, technical buyer | Traffic is up but the buyer self-researches and never identifies until the RFQ form. Sales has no view of intent. | Funnel content architecture - TOFU thought leadership, MOFU technical guides, BOFU service pages with clear next steps. |
| B2B SaaS founderSeries A or B | The content is being summarised by AI Overviews. Click-through is dropping even on pages that still rank. | Shift content shape toward AI-citation friendly format - direct answers, named author, schema-rich, contextual proof. |
| Professional services firmConsultancy, advisory, accountancy | Thought leadership goes on LinkedIn but never on the website. Site looks generic. New business comes from referrals only. | Treat the website as the proof asset. Real expertise published under real authors with real credentials. The kind of content the buyer screenshots. |
| B2B distributorReselling other brands | Suppliers outrank the distributor on their own products. The distributor differentiates on service and selection but the site does not say that. | Service-led page architecture - selection, expert advice, application guides. The pages that win the distributor-vs-direct conversation. |
| In-house B2B marketing leadOne marketing hire, ambitious targets | You need senior SEO input you can stand behind in leadership reviews. The agency you have is too junior or too generalist. | Fractional senior consultant arrangement. I work with you on strategy and reporting, you keep delivery in-house. |
Different shape? Tell me your B2B context and I will tell you whether SEO is the right priority right now.
Other UK B2B SEO options and where I sit.
The UK B2B SEO SERP is unusual - 8 of the top 10 are agencies (The SEO Works, Push Group, Ink Digital, StudioHawk, Directive, Polaris, Brew Digital) and 2 are independent consultants (Krystian Szastok, SearchHog at £55/hr). Here is the honest map of where each option fits.
| Option | Best when | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Large UK B2B SEO agencySEO Works, Push, Directive, StudioHawk | You need 5-10 executors running parallel work at scale, full-funnel campaigns across content + paid + design | Junior/mid SEO on day-to-day delivery. Pricing usually opaque ("speak to us"). Senior name on the website does sales not strategy. |
| Solo UK B2B independentKrystian Szastok, SearchHog (£55/hr) | Single B2B brand, owner-operator, needs hourly engagement or small scope work | Capacity constrained - won't fit large-programme work. Pricing on the lower end can mean the consultant is also juggling 20+ active clients. |
| Generalist UK SEO agency with B2B clientsMany in top 50 | You already work with them on another channel and want to consolidate | B2B-specific work streams (account-based content, sales-enablement collateral, comparison pages for enterprise procurement) usually missing from generalist briefs. |
| Senior independent (me)Cross-sector regulated experience | Mid-market B2B (£10M-£100M revenue), CMO or founder who wants a senior on strategy and a transparent £450/day rate. Past portfolio includes 3M, BlackRock, Unilever, E.ON via SEO Moves Ltd (founded 2014). | Single-resource - not the right shape for a 50-page-per-month execution programme needing parallel writers. Hourly rate is higher than freelancer SearchHog but lower than agency blended rates. |
Honest framing: Krystian Szastok and SearchHog are legitimate UK B2B options for smaller scope. Push and SEO Works are legitimate for executor-heavy programmes. The reason to pick me is when you want one senior with enterprise-regulated B2B experience (BlackRock-tier portfolio) at a transparent day rate, without the agency tax on the SEO+GEO overlap.
Where B2B SEO usually goes wrong.
The thought-leadership one is becoming the biggest as AI Overviews reward named-author content. The other three still matter for organic position and pipeline.
TOFU content with no funnel structure
The blog produces top-of-funnel posts that drive traffic but never connect to the BOFU service pages. The funnel breaks at the handoff. Most of the SEO budget produces traffic that does not convert.
Weak product or service page architecture
Service pages look like brochures. They do not answer the buyer's actual questions and they do not rank for the BOFU intent. The content the buyer wants at the buying stage is missing.
Missing competitor comparison pages
Buyers search "your product vs competitor". The page is missing. The buyer reads the competitor's biased comparison instead. Honest comparison pages are uncomfortable to write and very high-intent traffic when you do.
No thought leadership for the IC research stage
The individual contributor researching the purchase wants industry depth, real opinion, real proof. Most B2B content is too generic to be cited. AI Overviews now make this gap punishing.
What the funnel needs, layer by layer.
Not a content factory. Four work streams that shift rankings on B2B sites and produce real pipeline.
1. Full funnel content architecture
TOFU thought leadership, MOFU technical guides, BOFU service and comparison pages all linked into a coherent funnel. The blog stops being a content silo and starts feeding the pipeline.
2. Service page systems
Service pages built as ranking assets, not brochures. The questions buyers actually ask. The proof they need. The next step explicit. Designed to rank for BOFU intent and convert when they land.
3. Competitor and category comparison pages
The honest comparison pages most B2B firms refuse to write. High intent, high conversion, defensible authority. Build these properly and they become the most valuable pages on the site.
4. Thought leadership for AIO citation
Named author content, real schema, real proof, real opinion. The content shape AI Overviews actively reward. Built around your real subject matter experts, not generic agency-written posts.
The 30-second answer: B2B SEO done right means building four content layers - TOFU thought leadership, MOFU technical guides, BOFU service pages, and competitor comparison pages - linked into a funnel that supports the buyer through the full research cycle. The differentiator is genuine expertise published under named authors with proper schema, because that is what both Google and AI Overviews now cite.
What does a B2B SEO consultant actually do?
A B2B SEO consultant runs the search work that long-cycle B2B buyers actually need to see during their research - which is rarely a blog. The buyer is committee-led, technical and patient. Four work streams:
Pages built for each research stage - TOFU thought leadership, MOFU technical comparisons, BOFU service and solution pages. Linked into a funnel the buyer can actually follow without hitting a dead end.
"X vs Y" and alternatives pages that catch the buyer mid-evaluation. Highest commercial intent on the SERP, lowest competition because most B2B sites refuse to build them.
Subject matter expert content published under a named person with Person schema, credentials and authored articles linked. The E-E-A-T layer AI Overviews now actively cite as a source.
Reporting tied to influenced pipeline, MQLs by source, SQL-to-close rate from organic. Rankings and traffic are leading indicators - the real metrics are tied to revenue impact.
B2B buyers complete 70% of their research before they ever speak to a vendor. The SEO question is whether you appear during those research months or only after they have shortlisted three competitors. Generalist agencies treat B2B like a blog calendar - the work is closer to product positioning and proof-asset architecture.
How much does B2B SEO consulting cost in the UK?
Three engagement shapes calibrated to UK B2B with long buying cycles. High CPC (£25-40 on commercial terms) and high deal values mean the SEO investment usually pays back inside 12 months from a single closed deal.
| Engagement | UK range | Best fit when |
|---|---|---|
| B2B SEO auditFull-funnel + technical diagnostic | £3,000 to £8,0002-4 weeks | You want a baseline reading on funnel coverage (TOFU/MOFU/BOFU gaps), competitor comparison page count, named-author EEAT signals, and reporting infrastructure. Plus a prioritised 90-day fix list mapped to pipeline impact. |
| Programme (audit + 90 days)Funnel rebuilt | £10,000 to £30,0003-4 months | Audit shipped, BOFU service pages rebuilt, 10-20 new comparison/alternatives pages, named-author content live, pipeline-keyed reporting in place. Measurable enquiry-to-close attribution at the end. |
| Ongoing retainerEmbedded senior B2B SEO | £3,000 to £10,000+ per month6-12 month engagements | Marketing team has a content engine running and wants senior SEO judgement embedded. Most appropriate for B2B firms with £50k+ average deal sizes where compounding pipeline impact justifies the embedded model. |
Full-service B2B agencies (account manager + content team + delivery) run 2-3x higher for similar outcomes. Send me the funnel and I will tell you which engagement shape fits.
The B2B portfolio behind the work.
Every logo here is B2B or enterprise B2B. The discipline that gets content live in highly regulated, large-organisation environments is the same discipline that wins B2B SEO at any scale.
Audit. Prioritise. Build. Measure.
Full B2B SEO audit
Technical SEO with B2B lens, funnel content audit, competitor positioning analysis, AI Overview citation assessment, service page diagnostic.
What ships first
Each finding sized by impact and effort. Technical fixes, content shifts, service page rebuilds, comparison page strategy. The highest-leverage work goes first.
Developer + content ready
Technical tickets for engineering, briefs for content, page templates for design, interview structure for subject matter experts.
Pipeline-keyed reporting
Reporting set up around your sales cycle, not just rankings. Influenced pipeline, MQLs by source, SQL-to-close rate from organic. The team owns the report after handover.
Right B2B fit. Wrong B2B fit.
Good fit
- UK B2B firm with genuine expertise to lean on - real subject matter experts in the team
- Sales cycle measured in months, not days - the kind of buying where search visibility matters
- Existing site with real revenue and a clear service or product offering
- Leadership willing to publish under named authors with credentials
- Patience for the six to twelve month payback window on B2B SEO investment
Bad fit
- B2B firm with no real differentiator beyond price - SEO cannot invent positioning
- Anyone expecting B2B leads within weeks - sales cycle reality applies
- Teams unwilling to commit any subject matter expert time to content review
- Firms that want a content factory rather than honest expertise
- Anyone hoping SEO replaces direct sales effort - it complements it, does not substitute
What B2B leaders ask first.
How is B2B SEO different from B2C?
B2B SEO targets a longer, more researched buying cycle - usually months, sometimes a year. The content has to support the buyer at every research stage, with proof, comparison, and clear reasoning at each step. B2C wins on impulse and emotion. B2B wins on patience and authority.
Can you write technical B2B content?
Yes. Most B2B content fails because the writer cannot hold a technical conversation with the buyer. I work with subject matter experts on your team to extract and structure the real expertise, rather than producing generic agency copy.
What about LinkedIn vs SEO trade-offs?
They are different channels for different intents. LinkedIn is push - your audience does not know they need you yet. SEO is pull - they are actively researching. Most B2B firms need both. The work I do focuses on SEO, but I will not suggest replacing LinkedIn investment that is working.
How do you measure B2B SEO success when sales cycles are long?
Pipeline-keyed reporting. Rankings and traffic are leading indicators. The real metrics are influenced pipeline, MQLs by source, and the SQL-to-close rate from organic. Reporting gets set up around your sales cycle, not against a generic SEO template.
Do you work with industrial, regulated or niche B2B verticals?
Yes. The portfolio includes 3M (industrial), BlackRock (regulated financial services), Unilever (FMCG B2B), E.ON (regulated utility). These are exactly the verticals where B2B SEO done well outperforms B2C-style content marketing.
How does AI Overviews change B2B SEO?
It rewards authority. AI Overviews cite content from sources Google trusts. The B2B firms that win are the ones publishing genuine expertise under a named author with proper schema and credentials. Generic content gets summarised away. Real expertise gets cited.
Talk about your B2B funnel.
Tell me where the funnel actually breaks. I look at the content, the service pages and the AIO exposure, then we talk about the single highest-impact fix for your specific buying cycle. No deck.
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