Google, Bing, and Yahoo Work Together on Search
June 2, 2011Let’s Get Social 5 Truly Creative Uses Of Social Media
June 9, 2011by Len Ostroff
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for any company with an online presence (which should be all of them!). Unfortunately, many B2B marketers are thinking too narrowly about SEO, focusing in on just a few keywords, often with little regard for how people actually search for their product or service. Businesses can reap larger rewards from search engine optimization with just a few critical strategy adjustments.
Below are the four SEO strategies we find companies miss the most:
1. Traffic is nice, but leads are better. Focus on keywords that will bring new business. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling extrusion systems or accounting services, traffic doesn’t matter as much as converting those visitors into customers. While ranking well on a highly trafficked keyword such as “packaging,” may bring you a lot of traffic, if you’re selling sealing machines, you’ll likely see a more specific query bringing you more qualified visitors.
2. Think long tail. Think about all the different search terms people might enter to find your product or service. Go beyond one or two phrase keywords. Go deeper. Your customers may search for a specific feature, they might use slightly different terminology, and they will most definitely misspell words. Make sure that the content on your website is both extensive and high quality, so that you seize every opportunity to capture and convert qualified search engine traffic.
3. Think geographically. This may be less impactful if your business is global, but if you market your product or service locally, take a geographic approach to search engine optimization. This means adding geographic keywords to your content, but also creating a Place Page on Google and evaluating if it makes sense to create a Place for your business on other localized platforms like Foursquare.
4. Go social. Links on social media profiles give your site credibility. You can optimize social media profiles just like you can optimize a website. It makes little difference whether a prospect starts on your Facebook page or your corporate site, they’re still finding you, and that’s an important first step. For more on this, HubSpot has a great article on integrating social and search.