We’ve blogged before about the dangers of B2Bs (usually their CEOs) focusing on their ranking on search engine results pages (SERP), to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Then there’s their willingness to exert virtually any effort in order to be “#1 by Monday” …anything, that is, except upgrade their site’s content, follow SEO best practices, and buy some traffic using pay per click (PPC) advertising while waiting for rankings to improve.
Maybe we’ve been too subtle …or “too light”, as the beer commercial says. So let’s just go ahead and take the gloves off for a change.
How insignificant or misleading are search engine rankings? Let me count the ways…
- A ranking on a given search is merely one snapshot of that keyphrase in action: here today, won’t be the same tomorrow.
- They don’t tell you what variations of the phrase you are also ranking for (Google does show your site for variations and synonymous phrases)
- They don’t tell you how relevant your visitors think your website is for them: how well targeted are your phrases? (Clue: Google Analytics…)
- They can keep you from addressing the real issues a B2B website is invariably faced with, such as content development, link building and conversion optimization …i.e., the hard stuff that gets real results.
- They can lead you to believe that search marketing is the only game in town. Umm, whatever happened to email, direct mail, tradeshows, and banner or contextual advertising? …aka, addressing all types of buyers through multiple channels at various stages of the buying process.
OK, so what should you be worrying about? While we’re at it, let’s count those as well…
- discovering and using the keywords that your prospects tend to use when looking for products/services similar to yours;
- posting content that’s relevant, always fresh, written for the reader (vs. the search engines), and that demonstrates thought leadership;
- getting business-relevant inbound links – e.g., from directories and partners;
- focusing on conversion and ROI; they can almost always be improved. Doubling your conversion rate will produce a dramatically better return on investment than time and money spent trying to improve your organic search-engine rankings.
Don’t let the siren song of page rank blind you to the things that are truly important in online marketing. Your Web marketing consultants can help your B2B develop a balanced program that applies your precious resources where they’ll be most effective.
