Q: We sell commercial grade textile products in bulk to restaurants, hotels, nursing homes, country clubs, etc… (e.g. table linen, aprons, table skirting, towels, etc…). I have a very good list of the keywords I want to optimize for, but I’m not sure how to keep the “household” market away. They want to buy, for example, 1 tablecloth where our minimum is 1 dozen. My tendency is to put the words “wholesale” or “bulk” in font of many of these terms (e.g. “wholesale ______ or “bulk ________”). Is that a bad idea? Is there any other way to keep the “household” market away?

A: Your idea about keywords is very good. In addition to “wholesale” and “bulk” you might want to consider a word describing the customer, for example “hotel linens” or “restaurant tablecloths.” This might be closer to the way that your target audience is thinking. (Then, ideally, your website will have an appropriate landing page for each of these terms – but we’re getting a bit ahead of things now!)

We would also recommend that you clearly specify that you are a wholesale provider in your Meta Descriptions and, if possible, your HTML Page Titles. This will help to differentiate your website from consumer/household sites.

Last, be sure to pursue inbound links from niche directories that cater to your target audiences. This “third page of search” can be a good source of targeted B2B website visitors.