MarCom Writer Blog: B2B SEO Tips Archives

According to the experts at Planet Ocean, publishers of Search Engine News, “. . . very soon any business, small, large, local or international must include a plan and strategy to incorporate Local Search optimization efforts into their online marketing plan or be left to catch up on those who do.”

This is basically the same thing I said in my MarCom Strategist newsletter, “Increase Business with Local Search” (I read SE News after publishing it, so obviously great minds think alike!).

In short, local search is going to be BIG! HUGE! (as Julia Roberts says in the movie Pretty Woman) so it pays to take steps now to ensure customers / prospects can find your site when they’re searching for it — whether they’re down the street or across the U.S.

In addition to having a site optimized for search engines, you also need to get your business listed in the three search engines’ local listing centers.

Before you begin, take a moment to ensure you have accounts with all three search engines. You’ll need a Windows Live ID for Bing.

Google Local Business Center
Yahoo! Local
Bing Local Listing Center

Once you open your accounts, you’re effectively creating profiles people can see, so you’ll want to take a minute to ensure that people you don’t know are viewing only the information you want them to see.

Setting up your local listings is pretty easy but can take a good half hour or more — and after having just added my listing to Yahoo and Bing, I have three tips you can do before-hand to help you save some time.

1. Create a tag line — Each listing center requires you to include a tag line of approximately 150 to 200 characters that describes your business. Be sure to develop a tag line that describes what you do using action verbs and plain English.

2. Write a description — Yahoo and Bing also require that you include a longer description where you can flesh out the services you offer and what makes you unique from your competition.

I created a really good one for Yahoo and then kicked myself when I realized that I couldn’t access my Enhanced Yahoo Listing since it’s pending review — hence, I had to make a new one for Bing from memory.

So be sure to have your tag line and description ready to go in a separate document when updating or adding your local listings. (This step ensures that your tag and description are the same across all three platforms, too.)

3. Have images ready to go — All three local listing platforms let you upload images, including photographs of your products (or yourself) and videos. Save time by having these images and/or URLs ready to go.

In addition to the basic listings, Yahoo offers an Enhanced Listing for $9.95 per month and a Featured Listing for $24.95 per month.

And speaking of Yahoo, you can also pay $299 annually to be listed in the Yahoo Directory. Now, I’ve read in places that getting listed is good for SEO as Google considers the directory a trusted source. (This is because a “real” person reviews each directory listing.)

However, some people believe that a Yahoo Directory listing can adversely affect your Yahoo rankings, so I can’t advise you whether you should pay the fee or not.

And, if you were grandfathered into the Yahoo Directory the way I was (and hence don’t have to pay the $299 annual fee) and you’re listed in the wrong category but your URL is correct, just leave it alone (which seems to be the general consensus).

And that’s it for setting up local search listings. Once they’re complete, you’ll then want to ask your customers to post online reviews to sites such as Yelp — which is a Google Partner — as reviews are now part of the local search algorithm.

Local search is the term used to denote those searches that include a geographic region – i.e. “Boston freelance marketers” or “Cambridge Chinese restaurants.”

Google also counts “generic” searches, such as “pizza restaurants,” as local searches because it returns search results for these terms based on one’s IP address. (This is why, if you’re on the phone with a colleague discussing Google search results, each of you may see different results for the same search term.)

If you perform enough Google searches, you’ve probably noticed that Google includes a map and a listing of 10 websites – called the Google 10-pack – and usually presents this as the #1 local search result (sometimes it appears lower).

I used to think that businesses who work with companies across the US (versus a business such as a dentist who wants to target consumers in a specific city/region) didn’t need to bother with local search.

However, once I heard that Google sees over 500 million local searches a month, I quickly changed my tune and am now recommending all companies — especially small and mid-sized businesses — optimize for local search.

For small and mid-sized businesses, getting into the Google 10-pack moves your site from being buried on page two of the search results to the top of page one — in effect, you go past “Go” and you get $200!

Compared to “regular” SEO, optimizing for local search — and the Google 10-pack — is relatively easy, and it’s something you can do yourself, too.

1. Get listed in Google’s Business Center

If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll need to create one. If you have an account, login to Google’s Business Center.

Once you’re in, complete the form for your business. Be sure to include all information, including whether you accept credit cards, if you have free parking, your business hours, etc.

Hint: If you’re a service professional, such as an accountant or lawyer, list the types of services you offer in the “Additional Details” section.

Once you’ve completed the form, Google will ask you how you would like to verify your business listing. You can opt for a phone call (recommended), where you’ll receive your PIN immediately, or a postcard which is mailed to you. Once you have your PIN, you then verify your listing and you’re all set.

Once you’re done with Google, be sure to register for Yahoo’s and Bing’s local business centers, too.

2. Get listed in third-party directories.

According to David Mihm, Director and COO of GetListed.org, Google uses information from 3rd-party data providers for its local search algorithm, so you’ll want to ensure your company is listed with the following:

InfoUSA – To get listed in this important database, submit your business listing to Universal Business Listing. (Cost is a nominal $30 per year.)

Localeze – You do not have to pay to submit your listing to this database.

Best of the Web – Cost for submission is $99.95 a year or $299.95 for a one-time charge.

Yahoo Directory – Google considers the Yahoo Directory a trusted resource since a “real” person reviews each listing. Cost is $299 per year.

DMOZ – Although submission is free, it can take months for your submission to appear since the site is managed by volunteers.

3. Become involved locally.

According to Mihm, mentions of your business in the local media play a large role in helping your site appear in the Google 10-pack for local searches.

If your company belongs to the local chamber of commerce, become involved in events that get media play (i.e. business expos, fundraisers, etc.). Also be sure to send business updates to the local newspaper. My newspaper, for example, has a “Business Briefs” section that lists notices from businesses.

If you’re a service professional, offer free workshops or brown bag lunches and then post the notice with your local newspaper as well as sending out a press release.

In other words, show that you’re part of the local community by becoming involved in it.

In addition, ask your customers to post reviews on Google, Yelp, and other review sites as these are now part of Google’s search algorithm.

Whether you do business in one small area or across the US, local search is not something you should ignore. To learn more – and to see if your site is optimized for local search, please give me a call at 603-382-8093 or send an email to info@dhcommunications.com.

I’ve been watching my e-newsletter new subscriber stats for a while now, mostly because the number of subscribers had been increasing even though e-newsletter open rates have been declining — according to most industry reports.

In the last year, the number of people who subscribe to my e-newsletter on a daily / monthly basis has doubled, as has the overall number on the list.

The number of subscribers started increasing when I added my e-newsletter subscription form to this blog — which generates more traffic now than my DH Communications, Inc. Website.

Because I have a field on my subscription form that asks people how they found me, I’m able to see which marketing tactics generate the most subscribers.

Hands down, “search” is the number one method of driving traffic and subscribers. Over 89% of new visitors to the blog came through Google organic search alone (for the period 1/1/09 to 6/15/2009).

For the time period cited, approximately 25% of all newsletter subscribers came via search.

Writing articles for other blogs, portals, and e-newsletters is the second best way to drive traffic and subscriptions. For example, an article I wrote for Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Newsletter netted over 100 new subscribers in 24 hours.

And today (June 25), MarketingProfs featured my blog post about “Plug & Play Website Templates” in their Get to the Point e-newsletter — which is driving e-newsletter subscribers even as I write!

What has surprised me the most, however, is the number of subscribers who come in from *comments* I’ve left on blogs — as well as links to this blog from other bloggers.

I’m surprised for two reasons: I didn’t really think people followed blog links, and two, blogs were supposed to supplant e-newsletters when in fact, it’s blogs driving the traffic — and subscriptions.

I’m not quite sure what ideas or analysis I can derive from my numbers except for this:

Despite the number of blogs to which I’m subscribed and don’t have time to read, I always seem to find time for e-newsletters and this is because the e-newsletter arrives in my inbox — whereas I have to open my blog reader to access new blog posts, something I don’t do often enough.

An e-newsletter is like a good sandwich — quick and easy to digest.

Done well, e-newsletters give me a quick tip or two I can use. Most important, they arrive in my inbox without me having to do much of anything — except subscribe once.

If you read still subscribe to and read e-newsletters, please tell me why. I’d love to know.

I don’t have to tell you that getting your company’s Website to rank well in Google and other search engines is key to increasing traffic, conversions, and inquiries.

Yet many B2B Websites fail to make the grade when it comes to SEO. What follows are three common errors I see with many sites.

1. Page Descriptors for Title Tags – Go to my site, www.dhcommunications.com, and look at the very top of the browser where you’ll see: B2B Marketing Communications (MarCom) Consultants | DH Communications.

This is my Home page Title tag that’s been optimized for various keywords. Optimizing Title tags is an SEO “best practice.”

However, I still see many sites with Title tags that read this way: ACME Widgets: Home or ACME Widgets: Services.

The problem with this? A Title tag written this way includes only the company name and zero keywords – meaning it’s not optimized for search. Search engines need keywords in order to properly index Web pages – and then serve them up when someone enters a search phrase.

Hence, traffic for the ACME Widgets Home page will mainly come from searches based on the company name – versus products, solutions, etc.

2. Over emphasis on meta tags – For some reason the myth still exists that putting keywords in the meta keyword tag will help a site rank well.

Here is the plain truth: neither the meta description nor the meta keyword tag have any bearing on how a site ranks, and in fact, Google completely ignores the keyword tag.

Adding keywords to these tags and then calling a site “optimized” is a complete waste of time. A better bet is to optimize each page on the site for a set of keywords and ensuring these words appear in the Title tag, headline, subheads, body copy and anchor text links.

3. Using generic keywords – Another huge mistake is optimizing a site for generic versus targeted keywords. A generic keyword phrase is something like, “laboratory equipment.”

Not only is it incredibly difficult to rank well for a phrase like this, if the site does rank, it ends up pulling in all kinds of untargeted traffic.

Instead of using a generic keyword, consider keywords that describe just exactly what kind of laboratory equipment you’re offering. The Google AdWord Keyword Tool is a great aid for this exercise.

An optimized Website is essential in ensuring B2B buyers are finding your site when doing a search. If you don’t understand SEO or don’t have the time to figure it out yourself, hire a *reputable* SEO firm who can help you achieve the results you desire.

Resources:

2009 Economic Outlook Survey: How Industrial Companies Can Succeed in the Current Economy – A white paper by GlobalSpec

How B2B Purchasers Buy – Enquiro research paper

Aligning Your Online Marketing Strategy with Your Business Plan – A white paper by ThomasNet

Frequently Asked Questions About SEO – A list of questions I hear frequently.

Turning Clicks into Leads Through SEO – An e-book written by me that explains SEO in simple language. If you have no clue about SEO, this e-book is for you.

I’ve been working on a complete Website overhaul for a dentist and noted, while cruising around the Internet, that many dentists across the U.S. use templated or “out of the box” Websites.

For busy dentists, these types of Websites make sense: you get a template with all the pages you need and you simply plug in your content via a content management system (CMS). The CMS even shows you where to add in your name and local keywords, such as the towns from which your patients come in order to help with local search.

The danger with these sites, however, is that they come with “hidden” code. Because the dentist has no clue about HTML or SEO, they don’t know that their source code is filled with stuff like this (name changed to protect the scumbag company):

Copyright 2009 Scumbag, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This software, source code, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and all other content and code is copyrighted
by Scumbag, Inc. and may NOT be copied, reproduced, translated, reverse engineered, reduced to
any electronic medium or machine-readable form without the prior written consent of Scumbag, Inc.,
except that you may use it according to our Terms of Use agreement. Terms of Use may be
modified at anytime, and you agree to be bound by such modifications.

As small business owners find, much to their dismay, the scumbag company could construe these terms to say they own your site and your content. Afterall, the copyright is there in the code.

According to my Web designer, Jim Somers at Sonora DesignWorks, he gets calls all the time from companies that learn they don’t even own their own domain names because they went with a Web marketing company offering a “turnkey Website solution.”

In addition to the above copy found in one dentist’s source code, I also found that the scumbag company also included links back to its site via the image alt tags. Nice — for the scumbag company!

Key takeaway for small businesses: You get what you pay for. If you have no clue about Website design, SEO, online marketing or anything else, get help. Don’t settle for the cheapest alternative or a DIY site. You’ll end up paying much more than if you had simply went the professional route the first time around.

I’m in the process of updating my Website and while going over my keywords and Google stats I noted — to my dismay and awe — that one single archived issue of my newsletter is generating tons of traffic.

I’m dismayed because the keywords people are using to get to my site have nothing to do with my B2B marketing communications services. The newsletter in question was an interview with another B2B expert.
Continue reading »

You would think finding roofing contractors would be pretty easy. I thought so, until I typed “Roofing Contractors, Plaistow NH” into Google and came up with less than stellar results.

“Hmmmmm,” I thought. I tried a few more search phrases and still couldn’t find listings for roofing companies that did work in or near my town.

(Almost every single listing went to the online yellow pages.)

I’m one of those crazy people that actually keeps a telephone directory on hand, so I flipped open the pages to “roofing contractors” and hit the jackpot in terms of finding companies who do business in my area.

But, I’m also a firm believer in the effectiveness of online marketing and social media, so I was surprised to see the plethora of ads in the phone directory.

Why? Many of my neighbors ignore their directories or throw them away.

Days after they are delivered, I see them languishing, water logged and dirty, by the roadside mailboxes where they were dropped by the delivery person or residing in recycling bins on trash day.

Radio ads and word of mouth also prove effective

Before consulting the phone directory, I already had two roofing companies on my “short list”: CTBA Siding and Roofing and Absolute Roofing.

CTBA I had heard about via “interruption marketing” — aka the radio. Talk show host Michael Graham endorses them. “The great thing about CTBA,” gushed Graham a few weeks ago, “is that I found only two nails in the grass after they left, and when I told the project foreman, he was embarrassed I had found those two.”

(When I called CTBA to set up the appointment, the receptionist said, “Yes, Michael Graham has been very good to us.”)

Absolute Roofing, on the other hand, is quite visible in my town. I’ve seen their trucks everywhere, and plus, my next-door neighbors know the owner of the company and highly recommended him.

Alas, actually finding a way to contact the company proved difficult. Absolute lacked a phone directory listing and a Website. I knew where one of the crew parked his truck every night, so I ended up driving to the guy’s house in order to get the phone number off the side of the truck!

When I mentioned that I couldn’t find his company in the directory, the Absolute guy replied, “The phone directory is a waste of money. I get all my jobs from referrals.”

Long story short — “Old rules” aren’t dead but . . .

Roofing contractors — or any type of service business that relies on a “considered purchase” by consumers or businesses — should definitely consider multiple marketing tactics, including an optimized Website, in order to ensure their message is heard or seen by more than a few people.

Obviously, radio and Yellow Pages advertising aren’t dead, as evidenced by my experience, but how many leads — especially leads from commercial businesses needing a new roof? — are roofing companies losing by not having a Website?

When developing a Website, roofing companies should consider the following tips. The Website should:

Be optimized for the towns and states in which they do business. A roofing contractor can develop optimized landing pages for each specific town and include photos / success stories from recent jobs in that town and customer testimonials — making it easier to find the company via search engines.

Include sections for residential and commercial work if applicable. A couple of the contractors who gave me estimates also do projects for commercial buildings. A separate section of the Website should feature information that companies need in order to hire the right roofing contractor.

To save consumers and businesses time, Websites should state the company’s license number, the amount of insurance for various projects, any certifications, if the company is a member of the Better Business Bureau, etc.

Answer unspoken questions. The contractors who visited my home threw around a lot of lingo — “ridge vent,” “soffit,” “boards,” etc. A Website for a roofing contractor should also include information about the roofing process and explain all terms as well as the process itself, and any state mandated regulations. (For example, it’s against code in New Hampshire to have more than two layers of shingles on a roof.)

Include “new media” technologies. This is where video would be perfect. I’d love to see short videos of why or when a roof needs replacing, common problems roofers encounter and how they fix them, and an explanation of the different types of materials used.

Be professional looking and complete. Having a URL with an “under construction” sign is useless — as is having blank pages that state the same thing.

Although I did end up finding a roofing contractor — without benefit of Google — it would have saved me considerable time if each contractor who gave me an estimate had an optimized Website that included the information listed above.

What do you think? Should “offline” companies such as roofing contractors have a Website? Can they benefit from “new marketing” tactics?

I’ve received a fair number of calls over the years from people who say, “Our site sucks. We need a new one.” Usually these people are dissatisifed with the site design, for whatever reason.

But I’ve learned, through analyzing many sites, that often the site doesn’t “suck” at all — or if it does, it’s not due to design, it’s due to poor content that doesn’t generate leads or conversions.

You can easily tell if your site “sucks” or not by using a number of free tools:

Hubspot’s Website Grader — This is a fabulous tool. Simply enter in your URL and the Website Grader will spit back a nifty report grading you on things such as your meta data and whether or not you have an RSS feed. You can run similar reports on your competitors as well.

Yahoo’s Site Explorer — Another great tool that tells you how many inbound links you have. The more *high quality* links you have, the more favorably Google views your site (sucky design or not). You can also run your competitors’ sites through the tool to see how many links they have and who is linking to them.

Google PageRank — I use PageRank to give me a quick and dirty assessment of a site. A PR of “3″ or less tells me the site might have some problems. You can learn your site’s PR by downloading the Google Toolbar and turning the PageRank feature on.

Google Analytics — Google Analytics recently introduced a new “benchmarking” feature. Now you can see how your site stacks up against sites that are similar in nature. Find out how many pages people typically download, if your site is “sticky” or not, and how much traffic sites get in aggregate.

Alexa — Another tool that tells you how your site compares to other sites.

Customer feedback — This is one that’s often overlooked. If you’re a small business, keep track of how people found you by asking when they call, “How did you hear about us?” I even go so far as to ask, “Which search term did you use?”

Also add a “how did you find us?” field to your newsletter subscription form. This is how I learn which online articles generate the most number of subscribers.

If you have an online form people can fill out, keep track of how many of those come in each month.

Listen to customers and prospects when they call. For a long time people would ask me, “What does ‘MarCom’ mean?” I finally spelled it out in my Web copy.

Bottom line — Get some real data on your site and you may just be pleasantly surprised: your site doesn’t suck at all.

Great article today by ClickZ’s Julie Batten about Google’s changing SERPs (search engine results pages) — “What Google SERP Changes Mean to Marketers.”

Because Google is now indexing all types of content, plus incorporating its search box, it’s becoming harder for companies to rank “above the fold” on the SERP.

In her article, Julie writes:

Maybe these extra elements included on the Google SERPs are just another challenge for the marketer. That is, it’s not just about optimizing your site any more.

It’s about optimizing every type of content you have available [emphasis mine].

So instead of whining about the SERP’s reduced space, why not invest that energy into listing your business with Google Maps or optimizing your images and video for search?

Amen!

I recently posted similar thoughts about optimizing media rooms in my MarCom Strategist newsletter. You can read part I, “Optimized Media Rooms: More Traffic, More Inquiries, More Press” and “Optimizing Your Media Room — Part II.”

The long and short of Google’s changing SERP?

It pays to view your Website as a collection of mini-sites and each page within each section as stand-alone landing pages — and optimize accordingly.

For example, “mini-sites” within a larger site include Services, Products, Resources (or Library), About Us, E-Commerce, etc.

Then, within each section, optimize individual landing pages according to who would be searching for that specific type of content and why.

Many of my clients now use Google Analytics — the fr*e tool that lets you see who is visiting your Website.

I have to admit, though, that when I first started using Google Analytics in 2005, I found it extremely confusing and definitely not user-friendly. And, even though Google Analytics 2.0 is a vast improvement over the first iteration, I was still overwhelmed by all the data presented. I also knew I wasn’t getting the most out of Analytics that I could.

Thankfully, those of us who need a guide have one, in the form of the book, Google Analytics 2.0 by Jerri L. Ledford and Mary E. Tyler. Like the Volkswagen Idiot book mentioned above, my copy is already dog-eared, filled with copious notes written in the margin, and sticky notes on many pages. Why is this? Because it’s a step-by-step guide for using Analytics.

Call it analytics for dummies (that’s you and me).

Having spent hours with the book open in my lap while mucking about in Google Analytics, here’s what I’ve learned:

1. You can filter out your domain or IP traffic.

Because I do so much SEO and marketing work, I’m often on my clients’ Websites for many hours a month and this traffic can skew the data. You can filter it out using the Filter Manager. To find your IP address, go to whatismyIP.com. I also filter out traffic from my Web designer’s IP for the sites that we work on together. (Note: Be sure to carefully read about how to plug your IP address into the Filter Manager!)

2. You can track traffic to a specific sub-domain or section of your Website.

If you have an e-commerce section on your site, or if you want to track how many people go to your Press Room versus your Products pages, you can set up Profiles within Google Analytics. Setting up profiles for one client, for example, brought home the fact that one section of the site was missing its Google Analytics tracking code. I wasn’t seeing any data for that particular profile and couldn’t figure out why until I looked at the source code (opps!)

Tracking data by sub-domain or profile lets you see how people entered that specific area of the site and the pages they visited as well as which pages have the most “stickiness.” Go to the “Top Content” report and click on one of the pages people downloaded from your site to see which Entrance Sources and the Entrance Keywords people used to get to that particular page. You can also view the Navigation Summary for that particular page — which shows you what people did after they left the page. How cool is that?

3. You can track paid and non-paid keywords.

For me, this option is key. Some of my clients run Google AdWord campaigns in addition to tracking organic traffic. You can view both organic and paid clicks from within Google Analytics once you link your Google AdWords account with your Analytics account. To view the data, click on “Traffic Sources” and then “Keywords.” When this report is displayed, you can click on “paid” and “non-paid” — meaning, you can see which keywords people used to find your site organically versus which AdWords they clicked on. You can also view your Google AdWords metrics without having to click over to your AdWords account.

4. You can set up goals and track conversions.

One thing I wanted to know was how many people hit the “order” button for one of my client’s sites. Now I have that information at my fingertips because I can use Google Analytics to track specific conversion goals.

What is really cool about setting up goals, however, is that once you have data, you can view the navigation “funnel.” Say you want someone to go from a landing page to a “submit order” page. Using the “Funnel Visualization” page you can see how many people followed your pre-determined funnel — versus how many people exited to other pages or off the site completely.

5. You can track blogs as well.

Best of all, Google Analytics doesn’t just work with static Websites — it works with blogs, too. Adding Google Analytics to Blogger is fairly straight-forward — just follow these instructions. If you use WordPress, you’ll need to download and install the Ultimate Google Analytics plug-in. You TypePad users will have to figure it out using these instructions.

Bottom line: If you’re responsible for a Website, Google Analytics 2.0 is a book you definitely should have sitting on your desk. Take a weekend to read it over, then when you get back to work, shut your door and start having some fun. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without it!