April 21, 2008

SEW Experts: B2B Advertising Brilliance: Word Frequency Techniques for Killer PPC Campaigns

Creating ad groups for a business-to-business (B2B) content advertising campaign can be done by examining the pages that show up high in the results for your targeted keywords. In today's Content Advertising column, "B2B Advertising Brilliance: Word Frequency Techniques for Killer PPC Campaigns," David Szetela explains how to create top performing content ad groups for a B2B ad campaign.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2008

Optimization Tips for PDFs: Great Advice for B2B Search Marketers

PDFs are particularly significant in B2B marketing, which makes optimizing them for the web is an important piece of SEO strategy in that sector. Thankfully, Galen de Young of Francis Marketing has a new post on optimizing PDFs on their B2B marketing blog.

Here are the key take away points from Galen's post:

Make sure your PDFs are text-based. Creating a PDF from a Microsoft Word document should be ok, but when you get into other programs like InDesign or Quark, then you run into text-based issues. And, as always, optimize the copy to reflect the targeted keywords.

Pay attention to Accessibility. The accessibility tools can be found under the advanced options. With them, you can order the priority of text on a page and create alt tags for images.

Customize your PDF properties. The title in the properties becomes the title tag, not the title of the file, so be sure to write an optimized title for your PDF properties. This is what searchers will see in the results of their favorite search engine.

Don't forget about usability. Optimization of a PDF is only good if web users can read it. Be aware that not everyone has the latest version of Adobe Reader. Save your PDF at a version lower than the most recent update. Also, make sure file sizes are as compressed as possible and use properties to see if you have a "fast web view." If not, go to your General Settings panel under preferences to make it web-friendly.

Specify the reading order. This helps search engines know which part of the text is most important on your page. Also, if your first paragraph wouldn't make a great description tag, consider creating a footer and making it number 1 in the reading order.

Other quick tips include:

Build links into PDFs (and be sure to verify them!)
Keep links to PDFs closer to the root level of the site's file structure
Use keyword-rich anchor text to link to PDFs
Don't do anything in a PDF that you wouldn't do in a web page

PDFs can be forgotten when developing or redesigning a web site and lost in a greater SEM strategy. But when properly optimized they can be a powerful content tool for your business.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:00 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2008

SEW Experts: Coffee, Tea, or Link Love?

Developing links for a business-to-business (B2B) site can be a challenge. In today's Link Love column, "Coffee, Tea, or Link Love?," Justilien Gaspard outlines some best practices for a link-building campaign for a site in the restaurant and coffee equipment industry.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2007

Getting a Blog's Benefits, Without a Blog

Don't want to put a blog on your B2B site? You can still get some of the benefits of blogging by doing as the bloggers do. In today's SearchDay, "Corporate America Can Learn a Lot from Bloggers," Bill Hartzer outlines some alternatives that can still help you drive qualified traffic and leads to your corporate Web site, as a blog might, and to get the search engine ranking benefits a blog might bring.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:26 PM | Permalink

June 20, 2007

Are IT Buyers and Marketers Search-Aligned?

According to a recent survey of 3,000 IT buyers and marketers, some 83% of buyers actively use Google to find tech information. About 65% of marketers participate in paid search programs to find these buyers. Maybe the other marketers are missing out.

IT buyers are sophisticated searchers. At least 56% enter at least three or more keywords and 19% use Boolean searches. They are thorough and generally scan at least three or more pages of results – countering the attitude that you must be on the first page to be viewed or relevant. Marketing spends make sense, since 52% of these educated buyers read and 35% say they click on ads frequently/sometimes.

Although buyers are actively searching and responding to paid search, the marketers don't spend with the same intensity. When probed further, only 17% spend more than half their online budgets on search and 58% spend less than a quarter of their budgets. Among the marketers not currently buying ads, 27% have never tried it, and 19% tried and gave up. Another quarter of marketers claim it's just too expensive!

IT marketers are interested in creating awareness, and also do this by improving their organic search results. Some 66% engage in SEO strategies and 58% report their content is available through the engines. This is about the same engagement level as paid search activities.

If all your prospects are all going somewhere like search, then it's worth trying to reach some of them. However, limited resources and trade-offs are reasons for not participating. As we heard, the returns aren't working for some marketers anymore. Maybe more targeted buys work better, on specific industry social and trade sites. Even so, I'm wondering why search seems to be an "all or nothing" proposition for 35% of IT marketers.

Posted by at 4:10 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2007

SEW Experts: The Business Case for Expanding B2B SEM

In today's Vertical Challenge column, "The Business Case for Expanding B2B SEM," Jessica Bowman reviews the Enquiro 2007 Business to Business Survey. If you're looking to expand your B2B SEM efforts, you'll find the key take-aways and all the nitty gritty in between.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:48 AM | Permalink

May 24, 2007

Enquiro Finds Search Plays an Integral Role in B2B Purchases

For business to business (B2B) buyers, search engines are the primary research source, and one of the top influencers on purchasing decisions, according to the latest research from Enquiro Search Solutions. In today's SearchDay, How Do B2B Buyers Search?, we look at the findings of Enquiro's Business to Business Survey 2007.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:59 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2007

The PPC Challenges of B2B Marketers

Are business-to-business marketers being penalized by pay-per-click networks for following a sound marketing strategy? They may be losing out if they're not balancing CTR and conversions. Find out more in today's SearchDay, Don't Click Here! Should You Pre-Qualify Clickers?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:53 AM | Permalink

September 29, 2005

Don't Overlook B2B Search Engines for Search Marketing Opportunities

Sites specializing in business-to-business search may seem like fallow fields for search marketing efforts, but in fact the opposite is true. Business verticals can offer tightly targeted traffic, high click-through rates leading to high conversion rates for those search marketers savvy enough to take advantage of what they offer. Guest writer Greg Jarboe reports on a recent Search Engine Strategies panel featuring reps from some of the more prominent B2B engines in today's SearchDay article, Meet The B2B Search Engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:10 AM | Permalink

April 14, 2005

B2B & B2C Search Marketing Closer Than You Might Think

At every SES show, I hear from those involved with business-to-business marketing that they want more content on that topic. OK, I've got more planned for our San Jose show this August. But the differences may not be as great as some people assume.

I've talked with a lot of attendees who raised "B2B" issues to me that I've found just as applicable to those running business-to-consumer sites. Similarly, I've read far too many pitches to speak about B2B search marketing issues at SES that don't hold up as being unique to B2B, when I review them.

That's why reading The Shortest Distance from B to C from David Berkowitz at MediaPost recently really resonated with me. He reflects on a B2C speaker being at a B2B breakfast and finds that the differences between the two may not be as great as some assume. But there are some things that do stand out for B2Bers, in particular:

Conversion Latency: It can take a long time for the B2B purchaser to, well, purchase. Speakers on our long-standing panels we've had on search marketing at our SES shows on B2B search marketing have said the same. You need to measure against a very long time horizon with B2B, otherwise you may miss sales you can attribute to search.
Offline Purchases: One speaker at our show once quipped about a $2 million B2B sale not being something that was going to happen online. If you sell B2B products or services for large prices, expect that most of those sales will happen offline. Understand how to track and relate them back to search, less you miss out.

Of course, as Berkowitz points out, both of these points are valid to B2C, as well. Most purchases don't happen immediately after a search, and many purchases take place offline in the B2C world, as well (and see Most Conversions Happen Offline; You Need To Measure These! for more on this).

Here are some additional points I find unique to B2B search marketing, having moderated a session on the topic recently:

Low Frequency Of Search Terms: B2B marketers are frustrated, to say the least, that Google won't let them run ads that may only generate a query a few times per month. Google interprets a low clickthrough on an ad as a sign that it isn't relevant, so it may disable/disallow the ad from still showing. B2B marketers say there is interest -- and interest that produces good sales -- but the B2B searchers are fewer. When ads are disabled, they're left with no way to reach out.
B2B Search Engines: B2B purchases use vertical B2B search engines, such as Business.com, KnowledgeStorm and ThomasB2B. B2B search marketers want to consider these along with the majors.
Landing Pages: For the B2B audience, a landing page may need to be much different than what you might present to a B2C visitor.

Looking for more? Business to Business Forum covers presentations and tips out of our B2B session at SES Chicago in December 2004. Search Engine Marketing Boosts ROI for B2B Sites covers the same session from SES San Jose 2002. Creating Compelling Search Engine Ads and Landing Pages touches on landing page issues for B2B versus B2C. B2B SEM: Sorting Ambiguous Traffic and B2B Search Best Practices from ClickZ are both older articles with tips from Kevin Lee for the B2Ber.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:00 AM | Permalink

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