How to Choose an SEO Provider (It’s Easy if You Know How…)

January 31, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

OK, so your website isn’t brand-new, but it’s not that old, either. It’s not ugly, your sales people don’t complain about it, it’s consistent with your current branding and accurately presents your business strategy, products and services.

Problem is, your traffic isn’t even close to what you feel it should be. Plus you keep hearing from prospects who find you via a press story or other means, and say: “You guys have got to be the industry’s best-kept secret; I Googled your product space several times in doing my research, and your site never popped up.” Which is the same experience you have when you enter a sensible keyword search for your business, and your website doesn’t appear in the first 25 pages of results. (Making matters worse: your top three competitors all appear in the first couple of pages.) [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Search Engine Marketing, Traffic Generation ·

Why it Usually Makes Sense to Outsource Your SEM (SEO & PPC)

January 24, 2008 by · 1 Comment

Many B2Bs consider it some sort of badge of honor to “bring their search engine marketing (SEM) in-house” …as though it were a checkmark item on some master business goal sheet. But if your business is drug discovery, or developing test-suite generation software for SQA, or anything not intimately related to search engines – and if your company isn’t yet large enough to tolerate some organizational flab – then doing SEM in-house is generally not a goal worth pursuing; and here’s why.

First – the problems with in-house SEM
Cost. Experienced SEM specialists are fairly expensive …if you can find one: in a recent MarketingSherpa survey of marketers that do SEM in-house, 20-30% of respondents report that is very difficult to find and hire qualified candidates. You’d also better have something else appropriate to their skill set for that person to do: having a top-flight SEM specialist take care of only one website is a lot like driving your Ferrari the five blocks to the grocery store. [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, Traffic Generation ·

How Your Prospects Decide to Buy From You (It’s an i-Opener!)

January 17, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

The folks at Enquiro Search Solutions have released an update of their landmark 2004 survey of how companies use online vehicles in researching their purchase decisions. With responses from over 1,000 people involved in their companies’ buying decisions, it has a confidence level of +/- 2.5%. Because the study has obvious implications for every B2B, we’ve briefly summarized its major conclusions here; but we highly recommend your own review of both reports.

Online is pervasive… and search engines rule
Virtually everyone (93+%) said they would use the Web to research a B2B purchase decision. Most of those (64%) said they would begin with a search engine; of the rest, 87% said they would still use a search engine at some point in the cycle.

Further, an amazing 78% said Google was their engine of choice; and its popularity increases with income and education level. Say the authors, “Google’s domination in B2B online purchase research makes it a critical part of any B2B marketing strategy.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Engagement, Lead Generation, Search Engine Marketing, Traffic Generation ·

B2B Online Marketing Budgets Set to Rise Again in 2008

January 11, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

All the recent headlines seem pretty bleak: stock markets sliding, housing and financials in distress, signs of softness in the overall economy.

But despite all of that, B-to-B marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets next year, predominantly for online, events and direct, according to B2B, The Magazine for Marketing Strategists. Their “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey of 213 B-to-B marketers was conducted online during late November / early December, and is well summarized in B2BOnline’s recent posting, Outlook 2008: Marketing budgets, Online to Rise in ’08.

Here are the key relevant findings from the study… [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing ·

Search Engine Marketing No Stranger to Top Execs

January 8, 2008 by · Leave a Comment

ClickZ’s Kevin Newcomb has provided a nice summary of early results from the annual search market survey by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).

One of the more dramatic year-to-year changes involves the attention being given to search marketing by senior executives. In the 2005 survey, under half of senior management respondents said they were either moderately or very involved in SEM programs; in the 2006 survey, that number leaped to 90 percent.

“Online spending is reaching record levels. Smart senior management is seeing that search engine marketing is no longer a minority player. [Read more...]

Filed Under: B2B Web Strategy, Online Marketing, PPC, Search Engine Marketing ·