Search engine optimization is the practice of making your website visible to people searching for what you offer. For B2B companies, that means appearing in front of decision-makers and buying committees at the moment they're researching a problem your product or service solves.
B2B SEO differs from consumer SEO in a few important ways. Purchase cycles are longer, queries are more specific, and the stakes per lead are higher. A manufacturing company researching ERP software doesn't search "buy ERP" — they search "ERP integration with SAP for mid-size manufacturers" or "how to migrate legacy inventory system". The content and keyword strategy that works for consumer e-commerce does not work here.
It also sits at the foundation of AI search visibility. When ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews answer a query about your industry, they retrieve content from pages that already rank on Google and Bing. If your site doesn't rank, it doesn't get cited. B2B SEO and AI search optimization share the same root.