For B2B companies
B2B SEO agency: be on the shortlist when buyers ask AI
A B2B SEO agency helps a company that sells to other businesses be found while buyers research suppliers. We do that work in Google and in the AI assistants buyers now ask for a shortlist.
At a glance
- Who it is for
- UK companies that sell services or products to other businesses
- What it is for
- Being found and named while a buyer builds a shortlist
- Measured beside
- Your enquiries and your sales pipeline
- First programme
- 90 days, then month to month
What a B2B SEO agency does
A B2B SEO agency makes a supplier easy to find at each stage of a business purchase: the problem, the options, the shortlist and the final check. Whether you look for B2B SEO services, a B2B SEO consultant or a B2B search agency, the work differs from consumer SEO in four ways.
| Selling to consumers | Selling to businesses | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | One person, often in one visit | Several people, over weeks or months |
| How many search | Many searches, each worth a little | Few searches, each worth a great deal |
| What they read | Product pages and reviews | Service pages, comparisons, pricing and proof |
| What counts as a result | An order | A qualified enquiry, and the pipeline it becomes |
So we do not chase traffic. We work on the small number of searches and questions that a buyer asks before choosing a supplier.
How AI assistants draw up a B2B shortlist
On we asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude three questions a UK buyer might ask. Each asked who to shortlist: for managed IT support, for commercial office cleaning and for payroll outsourcing.
Between them the four assistants named 60 suppliers. Three were named by all four.
For managed IT support the four named 28 firms, and none was named by more than two. A buyer who asks one assistant sees a different shortlist from a buyer who asks another.
Where the assistants get their B2B answers
We also noted every website the assistants cited as a source for those three questions. There were 98 citations.
Suppliers' own websites were the largest single source, which was not true of products. Even so, the assistants named a supplier 87 times and cited that supplier's own website in only 28 of them. Directories mattered here and nowhere else: 13 citations for B2B, and none in the other two sectors.
What we do for B2B companies
| Part | What it means for a B2B company |
|---|---|
| Prompt set | 50 questions grouped by stage of the purchase: the problem, the options, the shortlist and the supplier check. |
| Service and sector pages | Each page says what you do, for whom, how it works and what proof exists, so that every person involved in the decision finds an answer. |
| Comparison and pricing pages | The pages buyers read when comparing suppliers. We make them clear and fair enough to be quoted. |
| Directories and review sites | We find the ones the assistants cite in your category and make your entries complete and accurate. |
| Trade press and professional bodies | Earned mentions in the publications your buyers read. You receive a record of what was placed and where. |
| Technical foundations | Crawling, rendering and indexing, including brochures and gated content that search engines cannot read. |
| Measurement | The prompt set is re-run monthly and reported beside your enquiries and your pipeline. |
What to expect, and when
First programme: 90 days
-
Baseline and buyer questions
Weeks 1 to 3
The 50 questions are agreed and run. You see who is on the shortlist today.
-
Key pages
Weeks 3 to 8
Service, comparison and pricing pages are fixed and rewritten.
-
Directories and trade press
Weeks 6 to 12
Entries are corrected and the first mentions are earned.
-
Re-run and report
Every month
The same questions, the same assistants, beside your enquiries.
Then month to month
These weeks are typical, not fixed. A long sales cycle means pipeline moves later than visibility does, and we say so in each report.
How much a B2B SEO agency costs in the UK
Few agencies say. On we read four UK B2B SEO pages that rank or are cited for these searches. One published its prices: a £1,000 set-up fee, then £1,000 to £2,000 a month.
On the same day Google's AI Overview for this search named one agency as starting at around £1,995 a month. It gave no figure for the others it listed.
We price each engagement after a discovery call, because the scope depends on your site, your market and how many sources need work. You get the scope and the fee in writing before any work starts.
What we will not promise
A place on every shortlist. No one outside these companies controls which suppliers an AI assistant names. We promise the work, the method and the reporting.
Leads by a date. B2B purchases take months. We report visibility, enquiries and pipeline separately, and tell you when nothing moved.
Tidy attribution. A buyer may read an AI answer and then come to you directly. We report what can be measured and say plainly what cannot.
How we measure it
We agree a fixed set of 50 questions your buyers ask and run each one in Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude. Every prompt is run more than once, because AI answers change from one run to the next. We record whether you are mentioned, whether you are cited as a source, whether the description of you is accurate, and who is cited instead. Each month you see the results beside your Search Console clicks, your enquiries and, where you share it, the pipeline those enquiries became.
Terms, in plain words
- First programme
- 90 days. Long enough to audit, fix the foundations and measure the first change.
- After that
- Month to month. You can stop with 30 days' notice.
- Who owns the work
- You do. Everything we produce is yours, including your prompt set and its results.
- Fee
- Agreed in writing, with the scope, before any work starts.
- Who you deal with
- Our founders, who lead the work and have more than seven years in SEO.
Questions
What is B2B SEO?
B2B SEO is search engine optimisation for a company that sells to other businesses. It focuses on the few searches a buyer makes while choosing a supplier, and on enquiries and pipeline instead of traffic.
What does a B2B SEO agency do?
It makes a supplier easy to find while a buyer researches a purchase. The work covers service and comparison pages, the directories and publications buyers trust, technical foundations and monthly measurement.
How much does a B2B SEO agency cost?
Few publish a price. Of four UK B2B SEO pages we read on , one did: £1,000 to £2,000 a month after a £1,000 set-up fee. We price after a discovery call and put the scope and fee in writing first.
How is B2B SEO different from B2C SEO?
A business purchase involves several people, takes longer and starts from fewer searches. So the work centres on service, comparison and pricing pages, and success is measured in qualified enquiries.
Do B2B buyers really use AI assistants to find suppliers?
Assistants do answer the question. When we asked four of them for supplier shortlists on , they named 60 suppliers across three questions. We cannot tell you what share of your buyers ask them, and we will not guess.
Do we need an agency or a B2B SEO consultant?
It depends on how you like to work. With us you deal directly with the people who lead the work, who have worked in SEO for more than seven years.
Is SEO still worth it for B2B in 2026?
Yes. Google says its AI features are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems, so a page that is not indexed cannot be cited there either. What has changed is where a buyer first reads the answer.1
How long does B2B SEO take?
It depends on your starting point, and we will not promise a date. Fixes to your own pages show once they are recrawled. Pipeline follows later, because B2B purchases take months. The first programme is 90 days so there is time to measure a change.
Related guides
Sources
- Google Search Central. Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search. Last updated . Opened .
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