Running a B2B lending business already means juggling underwriting, borrower inquiries, funding timelines, and compliance requirements. The last thing you want to worry about is whether potential clients can find you online or how to run an SEO audit for B2B lenders.
But if your competitors are showing up on Google when business owners search for “small business financing” or “B2B lender near me” and you are not, you are missing out on a steady stream of qualified borrowers who are actively looking for funding.
SEO requires multiple moving parts to work together, but when everything is set up correctly, you get consistent online visibility and more borrower inquiries. If you are not sure where to start, follow this audit to help your website rank higher in search engine results pages.
What Is SEO for B2B Lenders?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your B2B lending website more visible when business owners search for funding solutions on Google and other search engines.
When borrowers look for B2B lending services or search for answers about business loans, working capital, or fast financing, your website should appear as the solution to their questions.
When Google sees that your site provides valuable, relevant information about B2B lending, it becomes more likely to show your website to people searching for these services.
The benefits of SEO for B2B lenders include:
- Consistent lead generation: Qualified prospects find you when they are actively looking for business loans.
- Stronger credibility: Higher rankings signal trustworthiness to potential borrowers and build confidence in your lending services.
- 24/7 visibility: Your website keeps attracting prospects at all hours, even when your team is not actively online.
B2B Lenders SEO services have a high ROI. According to research, SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media, and SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate.
Search Engine Optimization Essentials
Getting SEO right for B2B lenders requires focusing on several key areas:
- High-quality, relevant content: Generic posts about business loans are not enough. You need content that speaks directly to the funding challenges business owners face and explains your lending solutions in simple, clear language.
- Technical website health: Slow pages, broken links, and mobile issues hurt your search rankings. Your website needs to be fast, clean, and easy for borrowers and search engines to navigate.
- Local SEO optimization: Your Google Business Profile, local citations, and location-specific content must be accurate so you appear for searches like “B2B lender near me” or “business loan in [city].”
- Keyword research: Focus on lending terms, borrower questions, and geographic markets where you can realistically rank and convert.You can also use your keyword research to guide your email marketing content, ensuring you send borrowers helpful information based on what they’re actively searching for online.
- Trust signals and authority: Testimonials, reviews, case studies, lender credentials, and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information help build trust with both Google and potential borrowers.
Learn more about how to get more clients as a B2B lender.
How Do I Do an SEO Audit for B2B Lenders?
Slow websites kill conversions and search rankings. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, potential clients will leave before they even see your services. Google also penalizes slow sites in search results.
1. Check Your Website Speed
Use these free tools to test your speed:
- Google PageSpeed Insights: Shows speed scores and improvement recommendations.
- GTmetrix: Provides detailed performance reports and identifies what’s slowing you down.
- Pingdom: Tests load times from different locations.
Common speed issues for B2B lending websites include oversized images, too many plugins, and low-quality hosting. Most speed problems can be fixed by compressing images, removing unnecessary plugins, and upgrading to a more reliable hosting provider when needed.
2. Identify Relevant Keywords
Keywords are the search terms your potential borrowers type into Google. You need to understand which ones matter for your B2B lending business and whether your website is optimized for them.
Start by brainstorming what business owners search for when they need funding. Then use keyword research tools to check search volume and competition levels. Our SEO agency uses premium tools like Ahrefs, but you can also use free SEO tools such as UberSuggest.
Avoid overly broad terms like “business loans.”
They are too competitive and will not bring qualified borrowers. Instead, focus on long-tail keywords, which are longer and more specific phrases such as “working capital loans for small businesses” or “B2B lender for equipment financing.”
3. Analyze Local SEO
A local SEO strategy helps you show up in search results when business owners search for lending services in their area. Even if your B2B lending company serves clients nationwide, many borrowers still prefer working with lenders who have a local presence.
Check these key local SEO elements:
- Google Business Profile: Is it claimed, complete, and actively managed with updated details, posts, and reviews?
- NAP consistency: Are your Name, Address, and Phone number identical across your website, Google, and online directory listings?
- Local citations: Do you appear in relevant business directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, and local chamber of commerce listings?
- Location pages: If you serve multiple cities, do you have dedicated landing pages for each service area?
Search for your main lending services plus your city name to see where you currently rank. If competitors consistently outrank you, your local SEO needs improvement.
4. Check Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are the clickable headlines and preview text that appear in Google search results. They help search engines understand your page and influence whether borrowers click through to your website.
Every important page on your site needs unique, compelling title tags and meta descriptions that include relevant lending keywords.
For example, your homepage title might be “ABC Capital Funding | Fast B2B Loans and Working Capital Solutions.”
Common title tag and meta description mistakes include:
- Missing or duplicate titles: Every page needs its own unique title tag.
- Too long or too short: Keep titles under 60 characters and descriptions under 160 characters.
- No keywords: Include your target B2B lending keyword in both the title tag and meta description.
- Not compelling: Weak descriptions fail to earn clicks even if your page ranks.
Review your top 10 to 15 pages and rewrite any title tags or descriptions that are missing, duplicated, or poorly written. Then explore more B2B lender marketing strategies to strengthen your visibility.
5. Audit Your Content
Content is what attracts potential borrowers to your website and convinces them that your lending solutions are the right fit for their business. Your content needs to be helpful, relevant, and easy to find. Strong, clear copywriting also makes your lending pages easier to understand and more persuasive for potential borrowers.
Look at your existing pages and blog posts.
Are they answering the questions borrowers ask? Do they clearly explain your loan products and funding options? Thin, outdated, or irrelevant content hurts your search rankings and does not help visitors understand how your B2B lending services work. Focus on the following:
- Service pages: Detailed descriptions of each loan type you offer and who the funding is designed for.
- Blog articles: Content that answers common lending questions or explains the borrowing process in a clear, trustworthy way.
- Local content: Information that speaks to businesses in your service areas, especially if you compete in multiple geographic markets.
Remove or update any content that is outdated or off-topic. Google lowers rankings when websites have too much “dead weight” content, since it makes the business appear less credible and less helpful to borrowers.
6. Analyze Your Competition
Your competitors are fighting for the same borrowers you want. Understanding what they are doing online helps you identify opportunities to outrank them and uncover gaps in your own B2B lending SEO strategy.
Search for your main lending keywords and see which B2B lenders appear in the top results. Review their websites and content to see what they are doing well and how you can use their performance to your advantage. For example:
- What keywords they target: Are there valuable B2B lending terms you are missing?
- Their content strategy: What topics do they cover that you have not addressed?
- Local SEO presence: How many reviews do they have, and which directories or platforms are they listed on?
- Website quality: Is their site faster, more professional, or easier to navigate than yours?
Do not copy what your competitors do. Instead, use their strengths to guide smarter improvements and build a stronger SEO strategy for your B2B lending business.
7. Check Internal Links
Internal links connect different pages on your website, helping both visitors and search engines navigate your content. They also pass authority between pages, boosting the ranking potential of your most important B2B lending pages.
Review how your pages link to each other. Your homepage should link to key loan product pages, and related content should connect naturally. For example, a blog post about improving cash flow should link to your working capital loan or B2B financing service page.
Common internal linking mistakes include:
- Orphaned pages: Important pages that are not linked from anywhere else on your site.
- Broken links: Links that lead to pages that no longer exist.
- Poor anchor text: Using vague text like “click here” instead of descriptive text such as “working capital loans for small businesses.”
- Missing opportunities: Not linking related lending content together.
A strong internal linking strategy helps borrowers find relevant information and signals to Google which pages are most important on your B2B lending website.
8. Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly
About 72.59 percent of Google’s visitors come from mobile devices. If your website does not function well on phones or tablets, you are losing potential borrowers and hurting your B2B lender SEO performance.
Mobile issues that hurt B2B lending websites include:
- Text that is too small: Visitors should not need to zoom in to read your content.
- Buttons too close together: Application and contact buttons need enough spacing for easy tapping.
- Slow mobile loading: Mobile users expect fast pages and will leave quickly if your site takes too long to load.
- Hard-to-fill forms: Loan inquiry forms should be simple, short, and easy to complete on smaller screens.
If you’re having trouble with a mobile-friendly design, you may need to hire a professional to help you make it work. If you work with us as your SEO expert, we can connect you with a trusted designer!
9. Fix Technical SEO
Technical SEO helps search engines crawl, understand, and index your website. If there are technical issues, Google will not be able to properly access your pages, and your organic traffic will drop. Strong technical performance is a key part of any effective SEO audit for B2B lenders.
Common technical problems include broken links, missing or duplicate title tags, slow loading speeds, and crawl errors. Check for:
- SSL certificate: Your website should use HTTPS, shown as a lock icon in the browser.
- XML sitemap: A file that tells search engines about your most important pages.
- Robots.txt file: Instructions that tell search engines which pages to crawl or avoid.
- 404 errors: Broken pages that need to be fixed or redirected.
- Duplicate content: Multiple pages with similar information that confuse search engines.
You can use Google Search Console, which is free, to identify many technical issues on your site. However, most B2B lending companies will need a professional SEO consultant to properly fix these issues and maintain a strong technical foundation.
10. Track Your SEO Progress
Even the most effective SEO strategies take time to show results, and it is important to have a reliable tracking system in place to measure your progress.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are free tools that provide essential SEO data for B2B lenders, and you can also invest in paid tools like Ahrefs for deeper insights.
Make sure to monitor these SEO metrics:
- Organic traffic: How many visitors find you through search engines.
- Keyword rankings: Where you appear in search results for your target B2B lending keywords.
- Click-through rates: How often borrowers click your listing when it appears in search.
- Lead generation: How many loan inquiries or contact submissions come from organic search.
Search rankings fluctuate naturally, and meaningful SEO improvements typically take 3-6 months to show results. If you’re not sure where to start, follow this FREE SEO Checklist.
Are SEO Audits Worth It?
Yes, SEO audits are worth the investment for B2B lenders that want to grow their borrower pipeline through stronger online visibility. An audit shows you what is preventing your website from ranking well and gives you a clear roadmap for improvement.
Instead of guessing what might be wrong or trying random fixes, you will receive a prioritized list of specific issues that need attention.
This saves you time and keeps you from working on the wrong things. A professional SEO audit also gives you a strong foundation to DIY certain parts of your SEO if that is the direction you want to take.
SEO Audit Service for B2B Lenders
At SJ Digital Solutions, we offer comprehensive SEO audits through our SEO Health Check service.
This audit covers everything from technical website issues to content gaps that might be costing you clients. You’ll get a detailed report that identifies exactly what’s holding your website back and a prioritized action plan for fixing it.
–> Order your SEO Health Check today!
FAQs
How Long Does an SEO Audit Take?
Our SEO Health Check takes 3 business days to complete. We thoroughly analyze your website, research your local competition, and create a detailed report with recommendations on what to improve.
How Often Should You Do an SEO Audit?
It depends on who’s managing your SEO. If you have a professional handling your SEO strategy, you likely don’t need in-depth audits since they’ll send you monthly reports showing your progress and any issues that come up.
If you’re managing SEO yourself, getting a professional health check every year is a smart goal. This helps you catch problems early and identify new opportunities, since search engine optimization best practices change during Google updates.
Do You Offer Retainer SEO Services for B2B Lenders?
Yes, we offer ongoing SEO retainer services focusing on content marketing, local SEO management, keyword research, and more.
Learn more about our content + SEO services for B2B lenders and other financial businesses!