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Search Engine Marketing
Nine Tips on How to Best Use Search Engine Marketing in the B2B World
Category: Business-to-Business| Search Engine Marketing| Stevens & Tate Speaks
30 Aug 2010Nicole Wagner, the Internet Director at Stevens & Tate Marketing/Endora Digital Solutions, has put together a list of nine tips on how to best use search engine marketing in the B2B Marketing world:
1. Know your sales cycle
In general B2B sales involve a higher price point and often require several individuals that need to evaluate a purchase decision. As a result your customers will tend to visit your website multiple times prior to making a sale. You need to determine where they are at in their sales cycle and how you can best communicate to them at that point. Developing different search engine marketing terms based on this cycle and driving users to pages that offer the information they need to keep your audience engaged with your company.
2. Determine how you want to be found
Like any search engine marketing program you need to start off with what you need to be ‘searched’ on. There are two types of keywords to focus on: Educational keywords and Actionable keywords.
Educational keywords are ones where people are still in research mode and need to learn about your product and services. Focus on the general terms that explain your product and services for this group and do not focus on hard sales when developing your ads.
Actionable keywords would be branded terms centered on your product or service line and words that indicate purchase intent. Don’t be afraid to put a special offer in these ads.
3. Direct them to the best information for them
When your reader is still in research mode you want to make sure you are directing them to the most helpful information for their needs. Don’t be afraid to direct your ads to internal pages on your website. Offer easy navigation to allow your user to find what they are looking for.
When a reader is searching on one of your actionable keywords then you want to direct them to points of conversion on your website. Develop custom landing pages that focus on the specific product/service they are interested in and have a strong call to action to drive a conversion. For example ask for contact information to follow up or even ask for the sale.
4. Filter out the consumer
If the keyword will be used for a paid search campaign, make sure the Title, Description and Display URL provides B2B messaging to filter the consumer audience. Try to be as specific as possible and omit any words that can be confused with consumer-based terms with a high search ratio.
5. Use your money wisely
Some keywords are more competitive than others. Often there are 100-250 companies bidding for a specific keyword. While a keyword may be very targeted for your market, if one click on that keywords is eating up your whole budget for the day then maybe you need to pause that word and see if some other, more less expensive words, can pull in the traffic you need.
6. Start a conversation
Start a conversation with your B2B visitors. Download a white paper. Subscribe to an Email Newsletter. Watch an online demo. Somehow get them in the sales pipeline.
7. Consider a PPC or SEO Audit
If you perform your search engine marketing campaign in-house, a paid search audit or search engine optimization audit can be a fantastic way to validate your work but also identify where opportunities may exist. Consider the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees”. Sometimes we become too involved in the details to look at the search engine marketing campaign as a whole.
8. Measure
Track your visitors, leads, quotes and sales and source them back to your campaign. Track your inbound calls and source them back to your campaign. You can use Google website analytics to track what clients do once they are on your website. Once they become a lead and you begin a conversation with them find out the ways they used search to get to that point. Don’t be afraid to ask. The more you learn the better your campaigns can become.
9. Offer Interaction on your Website
You are spending all this money for your PPC program and what is it getting you? By offering points of interaction throughout your website you are able to determine what your reader is most interested in and engage your reader to interact with you. Offering white papers, blogs with comments, surveys, polls and other forms of action where the client is asked to engage with you website helps to draw out more information regarding this person to help you make them a qualified lead.
How to Create a Search Engine Friendly Websites
Category: Search Engine Marketing
11 Aug 2010Recently, SiteProNews published an article online that gives webmasters tips on how to make their sites more search engines friendly. At Stevens & Tate/Endora Digital Solutions, we could not agree more. One of the most important components of having a website is being found online so that your site’s message can be seen by searchers.
Many site owners complain that their website is not ranking well in the Search Engine Results Pages. What they do not realize is that their website is not search engine friendly. An SEO friendly website contains more than keyword filled Meta tags and content.
A website must be created and designed with its visitors in mind. Search engines can get your website in the top ranking; but a well crafted website ensures that the visitor gets converted into a customer. You need to ensure that your website is both search engine and visitor friendly.
Tips for Creating a Search Engine Friendly Website:
Fill the Meta tags: Search engines come across the Meta tags well before the content. A major part of the search result is picked up from the Meta tags. The title tag helps the search engines and visitors in understanding what the webpage is about. The Meta description gets listed as the snippet in the search result. Well formatted Meta tags play a major role in making the website SEO friendly.
Include Breadcrumbs in the website: Breadcrumbs are navigational links present in the inner pages of the website. They link a web page to its respective category and sub category. Breadcrumbs help in the even distribution of the page rank to the connected web pages. You must include keywords as the anchor text of the breadcrumbs.
Perform the On Page Optimization Activities: SEO of a website mainly consists of on page optimization activities. Implement these tips:
- Add a heading tag to the web page.
- As search engines cannot read images, add an alt tag to the images.
- Name the image according to the selected keywords. Use hyphens to separate long keywords.
- Place a keyword as the anchor text of a link.
- Optimize the content of your web page. Make sure that the keyword density doesn’t exceed 2%.
Interlink all the important web pages: Interlinking web pages helps the search spiders to navigate the website. Web pages can be linked based on their category. It has been observed that a well linked website will always rank better than the non-linked websites. You can link to the important pages of your website from the homepage by using appropriate anchor text.
Use SEO Friendly URL Structure: Search engines do not understand the URL’s which contain the PHP / ASP code in them. A SEO friendly URL structure contains words separated by hyphens.
Generate XML Sitemaps: Sitemaps help the engines discover all the pages in your website. You can include the “priority” and “change frequency” tags in your sitemap. The priority tag indicates the importance of the web page to the search engines. The Change frequency tag tells the search engines how frequently the page is likely to change.
To read this article in its entirety, click here.
Google Improves Border Accuracy in Google Maps
Category: Search Engine Marketing
21 Jul 2010Google has launched some improvements to its borders for over 60 countries and regions in Google Maps (coming to Google Earth soon).
“Making Google’s mapping tools as accurate as possible is a complex process, especially when a map’s accuracy has both quantitative and qualitative aspects,” says Google Geo Policy Analyst Charlie Hale. “We receive spatial data of all kinds – imagery, boundaries, place names, etc. – from a variety of sources worldwide, and we review them carefully before integrating them into the best representation of a given location in Google Earth and Maps.”
“In the case of geopolitical features on our maps, the depiction of borders is something upon which local authorities, governments and internationally recognized bodies often disagree,” says Hale. “Our goal is to provide the most legible and accurate maps we can given the information available in these oft-changing areas of geopolitical disagreement. Like most maps, ours include symbology that makes borders and other geopolitical features clearer to users.”
With the update, Google says many borders will more closely follow natural boundaries like mountains and rivers. In some areas Google has changed the symbology of the boundary lines based on political treaties and agreements. In other areas, there is simply just more information provided.
To read this article in its entirety, click here.
Erickson Does It Right
Category: Search Engine Marketing| Senior Living| Social Media| Stevens & Tate Speaks
22 Jun 2010Recently, in reviewing different senior living communities and how they use the World Wide Web, I came across Erickson Senior Living, again. Now, I have watched Erickson online for quite some time and even with the new direction the Web is heading, I feel Erickson still does a nice job in communicating to its audience.
Some great examples of how Erickson uses the Web strongly:
Landing Pages in Search
75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis when online. Based on what search engine and what criteria you are searching for, when you find Erickson Senior Living within these search engines you are not taken right to their corporate website. Instead they direct you to a landing page that is specific to your search. Their main objective on the landing page is to get your contact information so they can communicate with you in the future.
The other nice thing that Erickson does with these landing pages is that they make them geographically specific. They are assuming since I live in Illinois that I am interested in their communities in Illinois when I come to this page. So they highlight communities that are nearest to me, making it easier to draw me in.
Utilizing Facebook and Twitter
When you get to the corporate website for Erickson Senior Living you will see that they have created a Facebook and Twitter account for users to stay connected to them. With these two offerings, they highlight social activities such as cooking videos from their chefs and anniversary celebrations of their residents.
By using these social media tools, they are interacting with their audience on a more personal level and asking for participation to keep the conversation going.
Personalizing the Home Page
So I tricked their website and instead of searching for a retirement community in Illinois, I searched for one in Michigan. Now the website retains a record of what I have searched for in the past, and when I come back to the site it highlights different activities happening at the community I last searched on. Very clever in keeping my interest piqued in regards to that community.
All in all, with the combined use of personalization and their willingness to participate in the social media realm, Erickson Senior Living is holding its own in the online space. Whether you’re an active adult retirement community, an assisted living residence, a CCRC, or a skilled nursing facility, you should be thinking about how you too can use the Web to your advantage.
Do you feel your website has great examples on how to use personalization and Web 2.0 tools? Let us know. We love to highlight great marketing ideas, on and off the web and would be happy to tell your story.
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- Tags: search engine marketing agency, search engine marketing services, senior living advertising, senior living advertising agency, senior living marketing, senior living marketing consultants, senior living marketing firm, social media marketing agency, social media marketing company, social media marketing firm
SEO Tips to Double Rankings, Traffic and Conversion
Category: Search Engine Marketing
18 May 2010Recently, Site Reference published an article that discusses SEO tips to achieve double rankings in the search results because, simply put, two results are better than one.
87% of search engine traffic for a given keyword is allocated from occupying the #1 position in the search engine results page.
SEO is predicated on one simple premise, rankings. In order for SEO to be effective, it must produce ranking on the first page in search engines. Not only is this the crowning achievement of search engine optimization, but once you achieve a top 10 position, then you can pull other keywords into the spotlight as a result of strategic linking.
Search engine algorithms pay particular attention to individual pages capable of offsetting all of the other inconsistencies of competitor’s web pages and deem one page worthy above all others for any given search term.
Obviously the metrics are unique for each market, keyword or niche, but the reality is the same, once a top 3 or more importantly #1 or #1, 2 and 3 positions represent in Google.
It does not matter if that link is provided from your own website or another website, rankings are by the page and there is a daisy-chain effect of linking pages together that fuses the pages through a dynamic give and take relationship (based on citation). This citation can provide the algorithmic equivalents of trust needed for the newly linked page to jump in line past others duking it out for that keyword.
Depending on the competitiveness of the keyword or key phrase and the thresholds inherent to the barrier to entry; the time required to initiate a campaign, create all of the necessary content, inbound links and citation from other web 2.0 properties, RSS feeds and social bookmarking sites divided by the amount of time you invest managing or outsourcing the various components involved determine your profitability and return on investment.
With this in mind, from a tactical perspective, it’s better to leverage the SERP positioning you already have, than look outside of your own website for off page ranking factor. If you understand the power of a #1 position, then you can replicate this next simple SEO tip.
1. Identify all current #1 positions in Google for keywords.
2. Validate they still exist.
3. Use Keyword Research to find “related keywords” based on the #1 ranking
4. Link from the page that ranks to a new page (using similar anchor text or overlapping keywords to promote the new page).
5. Let the new page get indexed, then check the SERPs
To read this article in its entirety, click here.
PR for SEO
Category: Search Engine Marketing| Stevens & Tate Speaks
7 May 2010Press releases are great way to help improve your SEO. Generating articles that relate to the words you would like to be found in and then submitting them to the search engines through PR syndication allows you to generate and submit more search engine friendly content that makes you more relevant to the search engines.
Through syndication you also get the opportunity to build quality one-way links to your site from high traffic sites. Thus, getting your site optimized organically. Link building works best when you have a one-way link from another quality site to your own. When you submit your news releases they will be indexed by search engines like Google, sent to top news sites like Yahoo! News and placed into RSS feeds where journalists will have the ability to research and pick up your press release for further editorial.
Today, journalists and bloggers are searching diligently online for news to write about. Online press releases are easy to share in social networks; increasing the viral nature of your news and helping it become a bigger story. More news sites are writing about and linking to external web sites of all kinds. What better source of a quality link? Not only will these media outlets have large audiences, but they will be spidered frequently by search engine bots.
Stevens & Tate Announces New Webinar: Search Engine Marketing for Grocers
Category: Anouncements| Retail/Grocery| Search Engine Marketing
20 Apr 2010Is your website search engine friendly? How easily can search engines – and your customers – find you online? In today’s marketplace, being able to be seen where your competition is, and having your brand strongly represented online, is essential. Learn more, as Stevens & Tate Marketing and Endora Digital Solutions present the latest installment of our Marketing for Grocers Webinar Series, “Search Engine Marketing.”
For more information on this webinar and more, please Contact Us.
Google: Location Is Becoming An Important Signal When It Comes to Search
Category: Search Engine Marketing
24 Mar 2010While at a recent mobile marketing and advertising event in Vegas, Diana Pouliot, the Director of Mobile Advertising at Google, made a few interesting comments. According to Pouliot, one third of all Google searches via the mobile web pertain to some aspect of the searcher’s local environment.
In addition, Google Mobile Ads Group Product Manager Paul Feng reportedly said, “We think of location as a hugely important signal.”
So just how important of a signal is location to Google? Feng may have been talking about ad relevance specifically, but we know it plays some role in organic search. Otherwise, people would not get different search results based on where they are, which has been the case for some time. Perhaps the real question is whether location will start carrying more weight as searchers increasingly turn to their mobile devices for a greater percentage of their queries.
Location is already playing a significant role in the way people are searching on their mobile devices, and not just with search engines. WebProNews had an interesting discussion with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn at the Online Marketing Summit last month about how consumers sharing their location has in essence become a new way of sending out a generic query, one that is becoming more prevalent with the growing popularity of location-sharing services like Gowalla and Foursquare.
“The thing about Foursquare and Gowalla, and these check-in apps, is like, a single tap of your phone is a powerful piece of data. It creates a connection with the merchant (with a bar or a restaurant) that you’re at,” explains Coburn. “It tells your friends where you are, and then in the aggregate, it tells the services like Foursquare and Gowalla what places are hot. And then you can imagine, like a local coupon or a local ad network overlaid on top, where a business is having a slow Tuesday, and they can blast out to everybody in their neighborhood, and say ‘hey, we’re doing half off beers in our place RIGHT NOW,’ and they can decide that on the fly, and reach a community that’s right around them.”
Despite apps like these, Twitter now has location features, and Facebook is expected to have some very soon. That has to be considered a whole new ballgame, not only because of the popularity of these social networks, but their relationships with the search engines. The social networks are already becoming more integrated into search results through real-time search, as well as social search (not to mention the web in general through Facebook Connect, APIs, etc.). Given Google’s fondness for delivering relevant results and an increased rate of user location sharing, it’s hard not to imagine location becoming more of a factor in search than ever.
To read this article in its entirety, click here.
Yahoo To Include Twitter Feeds On Its Web Sites
Category: Search Engine Marketing| Social Media| Web 2.0
11 Mar 2010Yahoo and Twitter have reached an agreement that will allow for Twitter feeds to be put on various Yahoo sites, including the Yahoo home page as well as search, e-mail accounts, and Yahoo sites devoted to news, finance, sports and entertainment.
The terms of the deal were not announced.
Yahoo also will include Twitter content on its sites containing complementary information. For example, a Yahoo user reading a certain news item may also see Twitter updates on that news on the same page.
Both Google and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing have similar deals integrating Twitter feeds.
To read the entire article, click here.
Use News Releases & Announcements to Promote Your Business
Category: Search Engine Marketing
4 Mar 2010Press releases are a great tool to use to promote your business and web site online. SiteProNews has recently published an article that further explains three good reasons why companies should try to create and distribute at least one press release each month.
1. Press Release Distribution is Good For Organic Search Engine Rankings
One of the most important components to getting ranked high on the Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., search page results – is the number of external web sites that link to your web site.
Your news release appearing on an online or industry news site, a social networking site, a newswire such as BusinessWire or PR NewsWire, or even on a directory of press releases, helps improve your web site’s overall organic search engine rankings. In addition, many other sites and blogs may pick up your release and print it on their pages, further increasing the search engine results for your web site and business.
Did you know that a good news announcement could show up on hundreds or thousands of different sites?!
Most major news sites only keep their press releases online for about a month or so, you need to keep posting new press releases and news announcements every month to maintain your SEO rating and web page search results positions. By optimizing your press releases and embedding hotlinks, you can further increase how high up your web site will appear in the search results.
You should also make sure to post your press releases on your own web site. By posting your press releases on your site, you increase the amount and quality of content on your site. For most search engines, the two of the most important factors towards getting a high search page result are the amount of quality links pointing to your web site and the amount of quality content you have on your site. News announcements can fulfill both.
2. Press Releases Inform Potential Customers About Your Company & Products
Most people and businesses now rely on a web search as an integral part of their search for products, and services. Seeing your news announcements all over the web – at the magazines they read, at various blogs, and as a result of web searches, can greatly help boost your company’s brand and product awareness in their mind. It is also useful to have news announcements that inform current and past customers of what is new and that you are still successfully in business.
3. Distributing Press Releases May Increase Company Press
Press outlets that come across your press releases may be interested in your news and want to include it as a standalone announcement or as part of a trend article or column. They may be doing an industry overview or product round up. It is also useful to occasionally inform press that you are an expert in your industry and are available for comment as needed. If they don’t see press releases from your company on a regular basis, you may drop off their radar screen. You need to show ongoing, consistent news and growth or the press will forget about you.
To read this article in its entirety, click here.
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