Cybersecurity SEO: A Proven Framework to Improve Your Rankings

The cybersecurity industry will be worth more than $22 billion by 2032₁ – and the lion's share of that growth will go to companies that are most visible to B2B buyers. 

Recent research revealed the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for cybersecurity vendors: Not only do 81% of cybersecurity buyers plan to purchase from new vendors in the next 12 months, but 92% rely on blogs to support their research program.₂ 

This article reveals the method we've used to help a leading cybersecurity vendor use SEO to increase inbound revenue by 466% - so you can capitalize on this opportunity for growth.  

Expect to learn: 

• The best ways to make cybersecurity content rank 
• Which kinds of content cybersecurity buyers prefer to read 
• How your business can make your SEO budget go further 

Cybersecurity SEO 101 

Before we dive into our proven method for improving cybersecurity search rankings, let's establish the basics of SEO – starting with the most fundamental question... 

What is SEO? 

Almost every B2B buyer's journey today starts with a search engine. Cybersecurity buyers use Google to understand their challenges, assess the solutions available, and vet prospective vendors before making a purchase decision. Importantly, though, buyers almost never look past the first page of results. So, if your company doesn't appear in relevant searches, it will never even be considered. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process designed to help companies rank on the top of search engine results pages like Google – making their brand more visible, driving organic traffic, and ultimately enabling them to win more business.  

How Does SEO Work? 

There are three basic factors that determine search results: 

Your website and individual pages must be optimized from a technical perspective. Key factors here include site speed, crawlability and indexability. These elements determine how easily the search engine can access and analyze your content, as well as provide signals about the value and trustworthiness of the page itself. 

The content of individual pages can be optimized to rank higher in relevant searches. From solutions pages to blog articles, pages will be given precedence in search rankings if they: 

• Contain the keywords your clients are searching for 
• Are well-written and easy to read 
• Provide authoritative information using reliable sources. 

Search engines use backlinks to determine the popularity and authority of a web page. Articles that are linked from many other relevant pages are deemed to be more important and valuable, which means a significant part of SEO is actually convincing other websites to link to your pages. 

Why is SEO Important for Cybersecurity Companies? 

Cybersecurity companies want to generate leads and build authority – just like every other industry where SEO is used. However, there are a few further factors that make SEO particularly important for cybersecurity companies: 

• Search Volume: A large proportion of cybersecurity buyers are self-educated and rely heavily on search engines to find information about the topic. This creates a perfect opportunity for vendors to win attention and become a trusted authority during the research phase.  
• Trust Sensitivity: Few industries rely as heavily on trust as cybersecurity. Buyers must believe your company will protect their data, keep their systems safe and ensure compliance. Appearing regularly in relevant searches creates an impression of trustworthiness and authority that positions vendors as a safe choice. 

Content SEO: Everything You Need to Know 

Content is the heart of any SEO strategy, but most cybersecurity companies struggle to balance opposing priorities. You want to both: 

• Please search crawlers whilst impressing human readers 

• Demonstrate authority without making your content excessively technical 

• Drive conversions and build trust by offering neutral advice to readers 

Here, we look at how you can do all these things, starting with a simple question... 

What Kind of Content Do Cybersecurity Buyers Want? 

Cybersecurity buyers' needs and wants vary depending on the specific industry they work in. A healthcare security leader may be most concerned about recent ransomware attacks, while those who work in finance may be concerned about user experience in their FinTech products. However, there are three factors almost every industry buyer looks for: 

1. High-Value Information: Buyers want neutral information from genuine experts. A recent survey found that among the content sources cybersecurity buyers trust most are business technology media (68%), industry analysis (67%) and trade media (67%). You are, therefore, competing with these formats for attention and must provide an even greater depth of authority in your content.   
2. Problem-Solving: When buyers read content from vendors, they want evidence that the vendor understands their challenges and the business context they exist within. Your content should help buyers see the business imperative for stronger cybersecurity and help them fit cybersecurity around their budget and resource limitations. 
3. Accessibility: Not every cybersecurity buyer has deep knowledge of the industry; even those who are experts may be new to the specific subject you're discussing. This means vendors must not only provide technical information but also make it digestible for non-experts.  

How to Make Cybersecurity Content Rank 

Your SEO success depends on two factors:  

1. Search Algorithms: The content must send the right signals to the search engine, which means producing content that contains the right keywords, is coded correctly (with the right H1s, H2s etc.) and answers the searcher's query. 
2. Buyer Engagement: Search engines also reward content that readers find real value in, which means you also need to consider what buyers actually want to read – and offer them quality information and insights.  

There are two ways to maximize your appeal in both ways: 

1. Maximize EEAT

Google promotes the concept of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (EEAT) to assess the value of a website's content. These factors are vital for cybersecurity content anyway, as buyers are always assessing the reliability of their sources. 

Here are three ways you can optimize EEAT: 

• Focus on Quality: Produce articles that cover your topic in detail; Google does not typically reward short, shallow content. Aim for at least 2,000 words on most topics and organize the content to make it easy for readers to find the information they need. 
• Include Proof Points: An "About the Author" section that demonstrates the experience and authority of the article's writer can dramatically boost the perceived trustworthiness of your page. 
• Leverage Research: Include at least 2-4 links to high-quality sources of authority. This will show that your page is based on reliable information. 

2. Outperform Your Competitors

SEO is ultimately about beating your competitors – and there are many ways to do this. Search engines consider multiple factors, including: 

• Your overall domain authority (DA)  
• Your relevance for a particular keyword 
• The number of backlinks a page has accumulated 
• The quality and length of the content itself 

Efficient SEO strategies make use of this information. You can quickly research which pages rank for your target keywords and analyze which areas you can outcompete them on.  

For example: if you have much higher DA than others, you may not need to invest 10 hours to write exhaustive content to outcompete them on quality and depth; you can save the time and still be confident that you'll rank.  

3 Tactics to Make Your Content Convert 

Most cybersecurity buyers who discover you through a search engine will be unfamiliar with your company – and may never again come into contact with your brand. It's, therefore, important to seize this opportunity and maximize the conversion rate of every piece of content. 

All blogs and website pages should include a clear call to action (CTA) that directs the reader to engage further with your company, but there are a few extra factors that will help increase your success: 

1. Emotional Language 

Tailor your messaging to drive urgency, focusing the reader's attention on the dangers of weak cybersecurity. This will make the reader feel they need to act now – and therefore encourage them to engage further with your company.  

Expert Tip: While confident language is useful for building industry authority, research shows that readers are most likely to continue reading if they feel uncertain. Rather than making aggressive assertions, try asking the reader questions: "How confident are you that your IT system is secure?" "Are you sure you're not missing cybersecurity blind spots?" 

2. Mid-Page CTAs 

Place contextually relevant CTAs throughout longer articles. This will both break up the content - making it easier to read – and increase the page's overall conversion rate. For example: imagine you have a strong section in your blog about a specific cybersecurity regulation. You should include a brief CTA immediately afterward to promote your compliance services, as the reader will be in a heightened state of concern about the challenge. 

3. Funnel strategy

Determine which phase of their research process your readers are in and promote an offering that will move them to the next phase. Few buyers will go straight from “cybersecurity 101” to book a demo of your product; instead, they might be interested in a piece of content or webinar that helps them gain more understanding of their problem. (For a detailed guide to the sales and marketing funnel, click here.) 

4 Steps to Build an SEO Strategy: A Proven Framework to Make Your Cybersecurity Company Rank 

The following four steps have helped us produce exceptional SEO results for cybersecurity companies:  

1. Keyword Research

Every SEO strategy begins with keyword research. Use tools like Ahrefs to explore which terms are being used, their search volume and how competitive they are. Cybersecurity presents several challenges in this regard, such as: 

• Keyword Intent: Many keywords are ambiguous, and people could be using them for very different purposes. For example, "HIPAA support" might be relevant from a cybersecurity perspective, but it could also be used by organizations looking for help with other aspects of HIPAA. A better term might be "HIPAA risk analysis" or "HIPAA solutions," which more directly relate to a cybersecurity offering. 
• Keyword Diversity: Cybersecurity is a relatively new industry, and many buyers are self-educated in the subject. As a result, the range of relevant keywords is far broader; companies can benefit from targeting more diverse terms rather than the narrow range many other industries focus on. 

The Deliverables 

Your keyword research should result in two deliverables:  

• A Keyword Universe: This is a large database of all potentially relevant terms, with data on their difficulty and search volume.  
• A Keyword Plan: This is a selection of terms you are going to target over a given period. Try to find clusters or related terms to maximize the impact of the content you create across a large range of searches. 

2. Content Planning

Use your keyword research to decide what kind of SEO content you will produce. This should be split into two categories: 

• Novel Content: New blog articles and solutions pages designed to target relevant keywords while also providing lots of quality information for buyers. There are two forms of content to consider: 
• Long Reads: 92% of cybersecurity buyers prefer long-form content that goes into a topic in detail. Long blogs (2,000+ words) should, therefore, be the foundation of your content plan, as they are your best chance to rank for competitive keywords and drive high-value leads. 
• Short Pieces: Supplement extensive articles with short pieces that answer very specific questions. Many cybersecurity buyers will search for information to support their core research. For example, buyers researching DDoS solutions might search "What is rate blocking?", "What is an Application-Layer DDoS Attack?" and "Best Ways to Prevent DDoS Attacks". Supplying authoritative answers to questions like this is a great, low-cost way to get your pages into Google's Feature Snippets and potentially win search traffic.  
• Existing Pages: Don't overlook existing web pages and blogs. Assess their current ranking and quality and develop a plan to optimize them. This includes: 
• Heavy Optimizations: Extensive additions or rewrites to improve the quality and relevance of content to your chosen keywords. 
• Light Optimizations: Small changes, even adding a word to a few H2s, can dramatically improve their search performance. 

The Deliverables 

Your process should produce a quarterly content plan that lists: 

• Which topics you will cover 
• The keywords they relate to (including search volume and difficulty level)  
• Instructions for the writer, such as H2s to include and important secondary keywords 

3. Content Production

Create a production pipeline that allows you to consistently produce and publish SEO content. There are a few ways to make this maximally efficient: 

• Cluster Topics: Cybersecurity is highly technical, and quality content will require deep research from the writer. Schedule related content to be produced during the same time-period. This will ensure the subjects are at the forefront of the writer's mind and reduce the amount of "revision" required. 
• Provide SMEs: Subject matter experts (SMEs) are vital for cybersecurity content, especially if you want to produce enough value for buyers to remember your business. This will save your writer a lot of time trying to find information from third-party sources – as well as ensuring your content is unique. 
• Plan Buffers: Production delays can be easily mitigated by planning content several weeks in advance. This gives you plenty of time to "catch up" if production is stalled for a week or so. 

The Deliverables 

The output of your content production process will depend on your SEO budget and strategy. However, a good benchmark to deliver measurable results would be: 

• 2-4x new blogs per month (1,000+ words each) 
• 4x heavy optimization per month 
• 10x light optimization per month

This baseline level of content production has reliably improved search rankings for our cybersecurity clients. 

4. Monitoring

Establish a regular cadence to assess the success of your SEO strategy. Look at the current ranking of your content for each target keyword and analyze factors that may impact its performance, such as competition or specific elements of the content that could be improved. 

This is not only important to measure the success and ROI of your SEO strategy; it also ensures you have a forum in which to discuss two important ongoing factors: 

Search Trends

Buyer behavior changes regularly, with search volume fluctuating over time. As a result, it's important to reassess your keyword strategy to identify low-hanging fruit and terms that are less important or useful than they may have been a few months back. 

Timeliness 

Cybersecurity is a fast-moving industry, with new threats and trends constantly appearing. This presents a unique opportunity to drive lots of organic traffic. By producing content that responds to events like new regulations or high-profile breaches, you can get to the top of search results before your competitors – and become the "go-to" source on the subject. 

Include a regular meeting item to discuss emerging search opportunities and ways to optimize existing content. While some new topics will fit naturally into existing articles, others may require new content to be produced – which means you need to identify them as soon as possible. 

Drive More Organic Cybersecurity Traffic with ProperExpression 

Any cybersecurity vendor can use the framework above to develop a winning SEO strategy. But for most, the amount of time, resources and expertise required will make it a heavy lift. 

That's why ProperExpression exists: To help companies like yours nail SEO without the constant headaches. Our combined expertise in cybersecurity and SEO has helped us develop and execute winning strategies for leading companies – and we can do the same for you. 

Want a free 15-minute SEO consultation? 

1. https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/b2b-cybersecurity-market-21661

2. https://cybermagazine.com/articles/81-of-enterprises-searching-for-new-cybersecurity-vendors