Why Your B2B SEO is Underperforming: 5 Foundational Issues to Fix

By Nick Veneris, Yo Marketing Agency Director of Digital Strategy & Growth

Are you frustrated with investing in content only to see little to no traffic growth? Or perhaps your competitors are consistently ranking higher for your industry’s most important keywords. You’re not alone according to Ahrefs, 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google, highlighting the critical need for a robust SEO foundation.

Often, B2B companies rush to implement advanced SEO tactics without first ensuring the fundamentals are solid. But ignoring these foundational elements can severely undermine your SEO success. This post will help you recognize five key signs of foundational SEO issues and understand why addressing these can dramatically improve your visibility and lead generation efforts.

1. Your Website’s Technical Health is Holding You Back

Technical SEO might seem daunting, but it boils down to ensuring that search engines can easily crawl, index, and understand your website. Common issues here include:

1. Poor Mobile-Friendliness: With many B2B decision-makers researching on mobile devices, responsiveness isn’t optional it’s essential.

2. Crawlability and Indexability Errors: Broken links, improper redirects, and pages blocked from indexing all limit your site’s discoverability.

3. Lack of HTTPS Security: Secure websites are prioritized by search engines and trusted by visitors.

4.Slow Page Load Speed: A sluggish site hurts user experience and negatively impacts rankings.

Simple tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test can quickly reveal these foundational problems. If you see issues here, addressing them is crucial.

2. You’re Targeting the Wrong B2B Keywords (or None at All)

Keyword targeting in B2B SEO requires precision. Too often, companies aim for high-volume, generic keywords without considering intent or specificity. Key pitfalls include:

1. Ignoring Long-Tail Keywords: These longer, more specific phrases better match the precise needs of B2B audiences and are crucial for driving sustainable growth.

2. Misaligned Search Intent: Your content must align with how prospects actually search whether they’re looking for information or ready to buy.

3. Lack of Keyword Strategy: Without clear research, your SEO efforts are shots in the dark.

Regularly reviewing your Google Search Console reports can highlight issues like high bounce rates and irrelevant search queries clear indicators that your keyword strategy needs revisiting. A focused approach on demand generation helps ensure your keywords align with genuine buyer intent rather than merely counting leads.

3. Your Content Isn’t Providing Real B2B Value (or Getting Found)

Content must genuinely help your B2B audience solve their problems. Google rewards valuable, authoritative content with visibility. Common content missteps include:

1. Thin or Shallow Content: Pages that barely scratch the surface fail to engage users or rank highly.

2. Overly Promotional Material: Your audience expects educational content not constant sales pitches.

3. Lack of Unique Insights: Original research, expert opinions, and detailed how-tos resonate best in B2B contexts, especially when aiming to measure the true ROI of outbound lead generation efforts.

If your blog posts or resources consistently see low engagement or fail to rank for intended keywords, it’s a strong indicator that your content strategy needs recalibration. Ensuring content aligns with real business outcome beyond surface-level metrics will strengthen your SEO performance significantly.

4. Basic On-Page SEO Elements Are Missing or Weak

Your on-page elements like title tags, headings, and meta descriptions are crucial signals telling search engines about your content. Common on-page weaknesses include:

1. Missing or Unoptimized Title Tags: Title tags should clearly describe the page content and contain primary keywords.

2. Vague Meta Descriptions: Compelling descriptions improve click-through rates from search results.

3. Poor Heading Structure: Proper use of H1, H2, and H3 tags improves readability and SEO clarity.

4. Lack of Internal Linking: Internal links help search engines understand the structure and value of your site’s content.

Use browser extensions or basic SEO tools (such as the free version of Screaming Frog) to quickly audit these elements on your site.

5. Your Off-Page Authority & Trust Signals Are Lacking

SEO success extends beyond your own website. Google evaluates external signals, such as backlinks, to judge your site’s authority. Issues include:

1. Few High-Quality Backlinks: Quality links from reputable websites significantly boost your authority.

2. Spammy or Low-Quality Links: These can actively harm your SEO efforts.

3. Inconsistent Business Information: Inconsistent Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) details online harm trust signals.

Regularly check your backlink profile using free tools like Ahrefs’ backlink checker. A weak backlink profile or negative sentiment online are clear indicators that you need to actively build off-site authority.

Fixing the Foundation: What These Signs Mean

Spotting any of these five signs means your SEO foundation needs attention. Resolving these fundamental issues involves more than quick fixes it requires a strategic, comprehensive approach covering technical, content, and off-site elements.

Build Your B2B SEO Success on Solid Ground

A robust SEO foundation isn’t optional; it’s essential for sustained organic visibility and lead generation. If your self-check revealed foundational weaknesses, addressing them should be a priority.

At Yo Marketing, we specialize in comprehensive B2B SEO audits and strategies designed to address these critical issues at their core. Concerned about your SEO foundation? Contact Yo Marketing today for a complimentary SEO health check and start building the visibility your business deserves.

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Content Digital Marketing

Should AI Write This? The Question That Changes Everything

**AI gives content fluency. Humans give it friction. Here’s why you need both.** By Mary Cowlett, Yo Marketing Agency Copywriting and Content Lead Judging by the state of my inbox, AI has taken over marketing outreach. Every week brings a fresh wave of clichés, copy-and-paste warmth, and “quick question” hooks. In short, I’m not quite feeling it. These emails and LinkedIn messages are polite and polished, yes, but utterly forgettable – competent, but devoid of a distinct voice. When every brand starts sounding the same, what they say blurs to a monotonous hum – easy to tune out. And for B2B brands that live or die on differentiation, that’s deadly. AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude can be brilliant creative partners, but only when there’s a human applying judgment, shaping the message, and steering the tone. Without that, you don’t get communication – you get hollow output: fluent, mellifluous words that say nothing. This blog isn’t about demonizing AI; it’s about using AI well to create messaging that feels genuinely you to the people you’re trying to reach – so what you say doesn’t just land and connect, it moves people to act. #### The real problem isn’t capability, it’s purpose It’s easy to be dazzled by what AI can produce – first drafts, ad copy, product descriptions, SEO metadata – all in seconds. But speed and scale alone don’t build credibility and connection. Those still come from human elements like empathy, usefulness, and meeting audiences where they are with stories and messages that are relatable and worth reading. Too often, organizations get swept up in what AI can do, instead of being clear about what they actually need it to achieve for their brand. Good digital marketing, and by extension great content, doesn’t start with technology or process. It starts with your audience and your purpose. If a piece of content doesn’t serve those two things, it doesn’t matter how you produce it – your audience won’t be interested, won’t engage, and certainly won’t be moved to act. #### The shift from “Can AI?” to “Should AI?” Once you're clear on who you're speaking to and why, a different kind of question emerges. The useful conversation about AI is no longer about capability – it's about human intent. That’s where *should* becomes more powerful than *can*. • Should this be handed over to AI, or does it need a human point of view? • Should AI speed up production or help you understand your audience well enough to say something that matters? • Should AI replace a conversation, or prompt a more meaningful one? Asking *should* brings intent back into your decisions. It shifts the focus from output to impact – from producing more, faster to producing better and creating connection. And beyond the risk of everything sounding the same, there’s a deeper issue: trust. Without standards, accountability and human oversight, AI can produce content that misleads, misses the mark, or steadily erodes credibility. The goal is to use AI in ways that strengthen trust and sharpen differentiation, not flatten it. #### What “should” looks like in practice Thoughtful use of AI doesn’t replace people; it amplifies what people do best. In other words, it helps you do the thinking around your content – the part that matters most. Content shaped by a human eye and ear does things AI can’t: • **It chooses what not to say:** AI fills space; humans use restraint. • **It creates recognition:** that subtle nod of “this brand actually gets my world.” • **It plays with expectation:** human content allows tension and surprise instead of always taking the safe line. • **It keeps the raw edges when it matters:** it breathes and pauses. AI sanitizes everything and irons it smooth. AI should help you: • **Surface audience insight**, so you’re writing with relevance, not assumptions – or into the void. • **Explore ideas from different perspectives and personas** – even completely bonkers ones. With the right prompts, AI chatbots make great brainstorming partners, letting you try angles you wouldn’t have scope for otherwise. • **Repackage what you’ve already created** – turn a webinar into a blog, a blog into a social thread or a set of short posts, a long article into a mini video script – so one strong idea works harder and goes further across formats and channels. • **Proofread, edit, and critique your work** – a second pair of eyes to catch typos, clunky sentences, contradictions, and places where the thread starts to wobble. Crucially: you decide what stays and what goes. AI shouldn’t strip the soul out of your marketing content – it should give it more space to breathe. Used well, it creates room for more strategic, creative thinking and storytelling, and for the kind of human understanding that builds relationships. #### The payoff: human-led content performs better Recent industry analysis suggests we may already have crossed a tipping point, with AI now responsible for more online content than humans. Yet despite the surge in output, engagement hasn’t kept pace. The flood seems to be leveling off, perhaps because audiences can tell when something’s missing – intent, rhythm, and feel, or simply a point of view. AI is brilliant at generating language. But it does it by predicting the most likely next word – and the most likely thing to say is rarely the thing worth saying. AI gives you fluency. Humans give you friction, timing, emotion – the things that make content resonate. AI can assemble sentences. It can’t care about how they land. The brands that cut through won’t be the ones flooding feeds with polished AI output. They’ll be the ones willing to sound like someone – not everyone – and willing to take creative risk. #### Key takeaways With every new GenAI update, it’s tempting to hand more of the creative process over to the chatbots. But that’s rarely where the real value lies. The brands that stand out use AI to deepen human thinking, not replace it; to create stories that mean something, not just add to the noise. That takes discernment – knowing when AI can stretch your perspective or unlock a fresh line of thought, and when only a human can bring the boldness, empathy, or spark of imperfection that gives communication its edge. Because real connection isn’t always neat. It’s nuanced, emotional, and sometimes even a little messy. It’s about balance: speed and reflection, scale and substance. At Yo Marketing, that balance sits at the heart of how we work. We’re AI-fluent but unapologetically human. What does that mean for our clients? We use AI to amplify creativity, not flatten it – to keep your content sharp, consistent, and unmistakably you in an increasingly bland, safe, automated world. [![Schedule a free strategy session today](https://8pfraw1pqsd9gr2m.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/cta/schedule%20a%20free%20strategy%20session%20today-71nxI8IjipsNWn5HZlezFcxibVvXHd.png)](/contact/)

Digital Marketing Strategy

Why 2025 Belongs to Customer Marketing

By Sarah Taylor, Yo Marketing Agency Head of Global Events As we head deeper into 2025, a quiet shift is reshaping the way marketing teams operate. It’s not about flashy lead gen tactics or ever-larger acquisition funnels anymore. The most forward-thinking businesses are asking a different question: How do we get more value from the customers we already have? ### Budget Cuts and Strategic Shifts With many marketing budgets under pressure, companies are re-evaluating how and where they invest. For a long time, growth was synonymous with acquiring net-new leads. But in today’s landscape, where CAC (customer acquisition cost) is climbing and conversion timelines are stretching, executives are doubling down on a more efficient path to growth: customer marketing. In fact, while many demand gen roles are being frozen or cut, there’s been a noticeable uptick in investment for customer advocacy, lifecycle marketing, and community-led programmes. These aren’t just tactical roles; they’re becoming the backbone of a more sustainable growth strategy. ### It’s More Than Just Upselling Let’s be clear: this isn’t about squeezing more revenue out of existing clients. The shift is much bigger than that. It’s about: • Creating genuine brand advocates • Showcasing customer success as proof of value • Building deeper loyalty that leads to repeat business and referrals Customer marketers are becoming the storytellers of the business, spotlighting real-world results, amplifying trusted voices, and helping prospects see what’s possible through the lens of existing success. ### Advocacy Over Acquisition When done right, your happiest customers become your most powerful marketing channel. They bring credibility, reduce sales cycles, and build trust in a way no campaign or cold call ever could. And the beauty is, you’ve already done the hard part – they chose you. Now it’s about nurturing those relationships and building a platform for them to tell their story. In 2025, the smartest marketers aren’t chasing attention. They’re earning trust. If you’re ready to turn your customers into your most valuable marketing asset, Yo Marketing can help. We design and deliver customer-led programmes that build loyalty, drive referrals, and create stories that sell. Let’s talk! [![Schedule a free strategy session today](https://8pfraw1pqsd9gr2m.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/cta/schedule%20a%20free%20strategy%20session%20today-71nxI8IjipsNWn5HZlezFcxibVvXHd.png)](/contact/)

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Why Your B2B SEO is Underperforming: 5 Foundational Issues to Fix

1. Your Website’s Technical Health is Holding You Back

2. You’re Targeting the Wrong B2B Keywords (or None at All)

3. Your Content Isn’t Providing Real B2B Value (or Getting Found)

4. Basic On-Page SEO Elements Are Missing or Weak

5. Your Off-Page Authority & Trust Signals Are Lacking

Fixing the Foundation: What These Signs Mean

Build Your B2B SEO Success on Solid Ground

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Should AI Write This? The Question That Changes Everything

Why 2025 Belongs to Customer Marketing

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