Thanks to Twitter’s tie-ups with Microsoft and Google, the micro-blogging site can no longer be ignored by brands seeking to maintain their reputation online. Dan Leahul investigates what the marriage of search and social media means for marketers.

This is an appeal to the stubborn 10 per cent of brands that have dismissed Twitter as a fad. To the other 90 per cent or so – those employing or currently developing a Twitter strategy – well done!

Advertisers in the minority need to read the following carefully: Twitter is coming to Google. Tweets, or more accurately, retweets, will soon be incorporated into Google’s main search results.

Microsoft and Google have selected Twitter to provide their search pages with live information, changing the results that have been pretty much the same for years. This means that if you haven’t already got a Twitter strategy in place, you’re going to need to get one, and fast. The only thing at stake is, well, the reputation of your brand.

As for the rest of you, don’t kick back and relax just yet, for the arrival of real-time results on Bing and Google, along with Yahoo!’s deal with real-time engine OneRiot, is set to change the face of search marketing.

Until now Twitter has been viewed by many as a small bunch of people making a lot of noise. But add up the global audience of Google and Microsoft online and you get a figure way north of one billion unique users a month. The result: lots of noise in front of lots of people. This represents the single biggest change in search engines since their introduction, claims Tim Aldiss, director of strategy and communications at Fresh Egg.

New-look search

But what will the new-look real-time search pages actually deliver? While Google says its product won’t be ready for ‘a number of weeks’, a rudimentary version of Bing’s real-time search is already online and could provide a few hints. If you input certain keywords, like ‘Stephen Fry tweets’ for example, Bing delivers his latest tweets as the top result and provides a link to Twitter.

That’s fine for celebrities, but when it comes to integration into all searches, the picture is not so clear. The estimated number of tweets posted every day is around the 10 million mark, meaning that somehow, Google and Bing will have to sift through the dross to get to the good stuff.

Even some of the most informed people in search have no idea how the new landscape will look. What they do acknowledge, however, is that word-of-mouth, peer reviews and user-generated content will soon be given as much credibility as traditional search results.

The most likely outcome is that real-time results will be integrated into natural search results and, to start with at least, will be demarked from the rest of the results. Where they will rank is another issue. A tweet containing a link that has been re-tweeted hundreds of times in minutes, and by influential users, will likely be the metric to rank and organise breaking stories. So, Twitter’s power-brokers may become the gatekeepers of real-time search. One only has to look at Digg, where so-called power-users propel their favourite content to the front page.

But can brands become power-users? This is the logical next question for marketers. The answer is that they can become influential, should they put a few simple practices in place.

“A majority of brands will be spending significant time monitoring reputation,” predicts Neil Walker, chief technical officer at Just Search.Many brands are already using Twitter as a customer service and research tool – monitoring for negative brand comments and trying to resolve customer issues. What happens when negative tweets begin appearing in Google search results, exposed to massive audiences? “You make it right,” says Walker. “And let everyone see that as well.”

That sounds simple, but brands can still be taken by surprise in the realm of the real-time web, as Habitat learned when it used hashtags relating to the Iranian election to promote its furniture. In light of this, it’s important for brands to implement an alert system, understanding what is worth letting go and what is worth getting the chief executive out of bed for at 4am.

Also, have prepared statements and plans of distribution ready ahead of time. “Don’t wait too long to respond,” says Melanie Seasons, social media strategist at Onlinefire. “The internet isn’t going to slow down, so brands have to be prepared to act fast when it comes to consumer response.”

Every brand should have at least one trusted employee checking the channels. More for big brands, obviously. And this is for keeps: real-time search is not going to go away any time soon.

Let’s remember, too, that real-time search is more than just another platform where brands will have to pour cold water on controversies – there is opportunity to target consumers intelligently. A recent study found that one in five tweets mentions a brand name in some capacity, most of them positively. But how do brands prepare for the oncoming fire hose of data once Google’s Twitter search goes live?

In particular, the travel and retail sectors are expected to be the biggest beneficiaries of the real-time revolution, especially during the lead-up to Christmas. Last-minute travel deals will gain huge authority among users looking for cheap flights, while retail brands can expect to market time-sensitive discounts.

Just Search’s Walker predicts a future of ‘hyper-reviews’, where a user can type in a name of a product, say a flat-screen TV, and instantly see a number of user-generated, 140-character endorsements, although it can just as easily go the other way. Brands might be able to convert these into sales, he says, but predicts user reviews will ultimately trump commercial promotions.

Rob Moss, head of marketing at Lastminute.com, says the company is looking forward to Google’s real-time search product, even though the company does not use its Twitter channel for commercial transactions. It uses Twitter to interact with its followers in a more neutral way in order to get them on side.

Onlinefire’s Seasons expects many brands to be unprepared: “Businesses may wait to see how social search will affect them before they do anything,” she says, warning that this could leave them exposed to competition from more opportunistic rivals.

The rogue element

There will undoubtedly be rogue brands that will look to channel the real-time web to their advantage. Twitter has already seen its fair share of controversial marketing campaigns. Take Moonfruit, whose giveaway competition led to it becoming the most-mentioned brand until, it claims, Twitter censored it from its trending list.

Less ethical brands are likely to take advantage of the results for pseudo-promotions or mudslinging, while spam is sure to play a major part in the real-time web. Others will attempt to tap into the popularity of the brands doing it well.

“Brands will never be able to control the bad things people say about them,” says Seasons. “Years ago they could just put their fingers in their ears and pretend it wasn’t happening.”

Claims that Twitter represents only a niche audience may well still have a ring of truth. But the deals with Bing and Google are set to go live, giving an audience of hundreds of millions the chance to see tweets about your brand.

So even if you do have someone running your Twitter account, it will soon not be enough. Before long every marketer will be expected to know about real-time search. Now is the time to learn.

Source: BrandRepublic.com

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View Graphic Design Jobs

The term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation. Various methods are used to create and combine symbols, images and/or words to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce the final result. Graphic design often refers to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.

Common uses of graphic design include magazines, advertisements and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements.

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Many countries are officially in recession and a number of brands have succumbed in the UK including Woolworths, Zavvi, The Pier and Land of Leather. At the same time, big names across the pond like Foot Locker, The Home Depot and Disney stores are closing tens if not hundreds of their stores.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The online fashion retailer ASOS is thriving with a 118% sales increase and profits exceeding all expectations. Sales at Sainsbury’s have increased; Debenhams’ profits are up with 1200 new jobs promised through new stores. Amazon, Domino’s and Greggs are also among those bucking the trend.

Times are undeniably tough and businesses are looking for a much-needed edge to survive. Recent research shows that lower prices aren’t necessarily the answer and may end up doing more harm than good. Customer service, on the other hand, is a great way to distinguish your business from your competitors’. Understandably service levels are improving in the UK and possibly worldwide during this period of hardship.

This together with the fact that the web’s providing a platform for success – Woolies is coming back as an e-commerce only proposition – means the online user experience is now more important than ever to stand out in a harsh landscape. But can you create a good user experience (UX) without breaking the bank? Let’s look at some user experience ‘wise buys’ to be had in today’s cash-strapped economy.

Know your audience and their goals

Who’s coming to your site? This may sound simple but it’s surprising how many organisations aren’t aware of this information. Run an online survey on your site to find out more about who your customers actually are. This can then be broken down into a clearer segmentation to give you a basic view of your audience. Tools like SurveyMonkey make this easy and are reasonably priced.

Also find out why people are visiting your site. What are they looking for or hoping to achieve? Only by discovering their needs can you check if the site meets them. And if it doesn’t, you’re armed with this valuable data to direct your efforts in ensuring customer needs are fulfilled.

Check your navigation and search

Browsing and searching are the 2 main ways of accessing information on a website. The online population is split 50:50 in terms of preference for one or the other so both need equal attention and care. How are your search and navigation faring? It might be time for some usability testing to check on the status quo.

When considering your navigation, think about how your content’s structured and classified. Is it meaningful to your users or is it mired in internal intricacies? Card sorting is the technique to create a user-centred navigation. This doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise requiring a huge investment. Automated tools that minimise the facilitation required and extend the reach can help keep the costs down.

Ensure your site search is clearly identifiable, consistently placed in the top right and forgiving of common typing errors. Are your search results presented in a logical manner? The value of a good back-end search can’t be underestimated as web users now expect the efficacy of Google wherever they encounter search.

Considering a new feature or even a re-design?

Does the proposed change meet site visitor needs? Before embarking upon a change, find out from your customers whether it’s what they want and need. Needless to say, if ever there was a time when ROI needed certainty this is it. User interviews are your best bet here. Make sure the resulting user needs are incorporated into the other requirements that may have been gathered.

Will design involve users to ensure it’s in keeping with these requirements and that it flows right? The most cost-effective way of making sure the new design’s along the right user experience lines is to create low-fidelity, throwaway wireframes and test these with your target audience. These blueprints can be as basic as paper sketches.

Resist the temptation to skip testing and go full steam ahead in creating something that’s nearly finished because the earlier a design’s validated, the cheaper it is to fix faults and the less effort you’ve wasted.

Free SEO keywords and analytics

Good usability and good search engine optimisation (SEO) go hand in hand. Tailor your site to what your audience is thinking and that’s what they’ll type into the search engines! Want to find out what your site visitors are searching for? Try the Google AdWords Keyword tool – it shows what’s been searched for on a given URL in the previous month.

Another valuable addition to your toolkit is Google Analytics, which lets you analyse website statistics. This allows a strong tie-in of the UX changes to demonstrable ROI, which in turn can only promote buy-in of the user-centred philosophy throughout your organisation.

In a nutshell

While budgets are restrained in a recession, contrary to what may seem logical, it’s time to invest wisely to get your website in order. Not only does this provide your business with an edge and may well ensure survival but it also puts you ahead of the game when the economy turns round and things pick up.

Source: WebCredible.co.uk

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The Labour and Conservative Parties are set to kick start their General Election marketing campaigns in the new year.

It is believed the Tories are readying an outdoor campaign to break on 4 January as their opening salvo in a six-month long general election campaign, while the Labour Party is reportedly preparing a new year online campaign.

The two parties have already launched a number of marketing campaigns in the past 12 months as they prepare for the national poll next summer.

The Conservatives recently unveiled a poster campaign that showed Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling with the hair and clothes of X-Factor favourites John and Edward. The Tories also became the first UK political party to advertise on Twitter.

The Labour Party has been gearing up for what has been described by some as the first “Twitter Election” by looking to recruit a number of social media experts including an online communities organiser and a digital marketing coordinator.

The Labour Party has a lot of ground to make up on its rival, with recent polls showing the Conservatives 17-points ahead.

Source: Mad.co.uk

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Social media has turned the web upside down in the last few years and has the power to literally make or break your online marketing campaign. Done well a social media campaign can result in increased brand exposure, thousands of new website visitors and natural links to improve those all important search engine rankings.

Getting started

The easiest social sites to use for website promotion are social news websites. These are sites that allow users to upload, tag and vote for interesting content and have the power to send tens of thousands of visitors to the most popular sites.

Not all content is suitable for all the social news sites so it’s important to get a feel for the type of content that each community is likely to be interested in. To start with you need to register with the social tagging and news websites you want to target.

Here are 5 to start you off that will likely send the most traffic to popular stories:

* del.icio.us
* Digg
* Mixx
* Reddit
* StumbleUpon

Once you’ve registered for the sites it’s important to become a popular, trusted and well known user by contributing quality content on a regular basis. Don’t forget that the users of these sites are typically web savvy and can spot new users who are just joining to promote their own stories and pollute the system.

The key is to make friends, check out their content on a regular basis, vote for the things you like and submit things that you think will appeal to the different communities. Only once you become popular should you start to submit some of your own content and even then it’s important to be careful about mixing too much of your own stories with your usual submissions.

Once you make good friends on the social media sites you can ask them to submit your content for you or they may just do it for you without you having to ask. Assuming your content has value and is coming from a site with a social media savvy readership you should find a proportion of the stories are being submitted by your users anyway.

Types of content to submit

The first rule about submitting content is to make sure it’s interesting, unique and non-commercial. Content from a source that social media users know and trust (such as the mainstream media) is always going to have an advantage over content from a blog or ecommerce store.

Many beginners make the mistake of trying to submit their homepage or one of their product pages to social sites – this tactic almost never works. You need come up with content that’s going to appeal to the community or communities you are targeting.

Some of the different types of content that may work include:

* Breaking news
* Guides / tutorials
* Interesting stories
* Pictures
* Videos
* Statistics

Try to use enticing titles for your content, never lie and always back up your facts by citing your sources.

When you’re planning a submission it’s important to examine your goals. If traffic is the primary goal then the content you produce might be quite different to the sort of content you would create while trying to attract links from authority websites.

Packaging your content

Succeeding on social media sites is maybe 30% about the title of the story, 30% about the presentation and 40% about the content. Quality content with plain boring presentation or lots of adverts stands a much higher chance of failure than average content with remarkable presentation.

Some tips to get you started include:

* Ensure the content is accessible and looks good in all major browsers and screen sizes
* Always include eye catching pictures and images wherever possible
* Break the content down into different sections and use headers
* Avoid serving intrusive ads that get in the way of the all important content

A final word

Social media marketing is a great way to build long term sustainable, natural social media traffic and search engine rankings. It certainly isn’t something that can be mastered overnight. However if you apply yourself and invest time and effort into creating a long-term campaign, the returns can be phenomenal.

Source: David Eaves

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Following Tiger Woods recent sex scandal, several sponsors such as Accenture and Gillette are distancing themselves from the golfer as a brand ambassador. Here is our list of sponsors who are unlikely to step in and sign up Tiger Woods.

1. Volkswagen: “Drivers wanted”
2. Tiger Balm: “Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the measure of thy desire”
3. Brylcreem: “Control yourself”
4. Hanes underwear: “A man can’t swing if his underwear doesn’t”
5. Energizer Bunny: “It keeps going, and going and going”
6. Butlins: “Play Happy Families”
7. Trust House Forte: “Yours Faithfully”
8. Vauxhall: “Put the fun back into driving”
9. Greggs: “Ready when you are”
10. Peugeot: “The drive of your life”

And a tagline an existing sponsor won’t revive any time soon

Nike: “If it feels good then just do it”

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BSkyB has ended talks with Google about the opportunity for its pay-TV content to be made available on YouTube.

BSkyB was exploring the possibility of uploading full-length shows, such as ‘Soccer AM’, onto the video-sharing site to allow users to watch for a fee, but has decided against the move.

Google executive David Eun recently confirmed to Reuters that the company was looking at charging subscriptions as an option to secure more long-form content.

While Sky will continue to offer free short video clips of its shows on YouTube, it makes a great deal of its TV service available online through its paid-for SkyPlayer platform. Sky TV subscribers can access this content for free.

Non Sky customers can rent individual programmes to watch through SkyPlayer or alternatively they can subscribe solely to the online service.

A Sky spokesman told Brand Republic: “The pay model is at the heart of our business and allows us to invest significantly in high-quality, distinctive content.

“While we do offer some content on a free basis via both the TV and the web, we have no plans to offer long-form content online outside of the paid-for model.”

The news comes after Rupert Murdoch and his executives at News Corporation, the majority owner of BSkyB, labelled Google and other news aggregation sites “parasites”, “content kleptomaniacs”, “vampires” and “tech tapeworms”.

It also comes as Murdoch attempts to put his online newspaper assets, which include The Times and The Sun, behind subscriber paywalls.

Google was not available to comment at time of publication.

Source: BrandRepublic

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For many companies, an ideal world involving Search Engine Optimisation would be simple, quick and a one-time task to check off a list. An organisation would create a website, optimise its content for target keywords and promote the site. Soon, the website would acquire a strong number of inbound links and start ranking for those target keywords. End of story.

Unfortunately, that’s just not the case. In reality, SEO isn’t just about adding keywords and linking. SEO is increasingly social and sits at the intersection of multiple business functions outside of marketing including public relations, customer service, recuitment and branding.

Ongoing SEO consulting is an important part of any internet marketing mix. Truly good consultants save companies significant expenses and contribute to increased leads and sales by providing unique expertise and insight into the technical, creative and increasingly social sides of internet marketing.

Back in 2007, Lee pinpointed 5 Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting. As we near the start of 2010, I think it’s the perfect time to revisit those points to see if they hold just as much weight today as they did 3 years ago:

1. Ongoing search marketing consulting is important because a large percentage of organisations fail to implement the recommendations provided to them by their SEO consultants.

There are many reasons companies do not implement the advice they’re paying for. In difficult economic times, some companies aren’t able to justify the expense of making major changes to their content management systems or devote significant resources to content creation. Many web development or copy writing staff are overbooked and SEO implementation requests never make it to the “done” checklist. The best optimisation recommendations in the world can be given, but if they aren’t implemented properly or at all, then they’re useless.

An experienced search marketing consultant can lend a hand in implementing recommendations at once, in phases over time or provide quality control oversight of client side implementation on an ongoing basis. Ongoing SEO helps companies avoid costly mistakes in situation such as when SEO work is overwritten or implemented in a way that actually hurts search engine spider interaction rather than facilitate it.

For one B2B e-commerce site that TopRank has worked with for several years, SEO oversight over time has been instrumental at achieving compounded search traffic. Because the company’s web site encompasses a vast number of product pages – and because product focuses change over time – ongoing attention to keyword glossaries, on page optimisation, anchor text and link sources has been vital.

In order to maintain search momentum and integrity to target keywords and audiences, the SEO team revisits optimised content to ensure keywords are still relevant and that pages retain their ability to pull search traffic. Since 2007, top 10 search engine rankings for this site have increased by more than 150%. While the value of “rankings” can be argued with Google’s new personalised search for everyone, ongoing measurements using consistent means can provide a relative measure over time. The end result has been a significant increase in relevant search traffic over time, despite changes in keywords and target audiences.

2. Search marketing consultants can help organisations proactively build links over time.

Link building continues to be one of the most common victims of a neglected search marketing program. Yet ongoing link building is still one of the most critical factors in determining page relevancy, crawling and rankings.

From content marketing on social networks to optimised press releases to link bait, search marketing consultants can help organisations acquire links that drive traffic directly and influence better search visibility, which also drives traffic. SEO Consultants can even assist in more passive link building efforts such as directory submissions, bookmarking, widgets and operationalising the link opportunities that exist with other types of online content such as job listings, events and public relations efforts.

For one retail SEO client, TopRank has provided ongoing search marketing consulting – ongoing link building, in particular – that has resulted in over 80% of all web site traffic coming from natural search. On any given month, the site receives anywhere from a handful to several hundreds of new inbound links from relevant sources. Since an ongoing effort to acquire links was started, the website and blog have increased unique visitors by 214%.

3. Ongoing search marketing consulting is necessary because the search engine industry changes often.

This point may be more relevant today than ever before. The major search engines are constantly fine-tuning and the search engine landscape continues to change. Bing didn’t exist 3 years ago and who could have imagined that Yahoo and Microsoft would actually be working together let alone Google achieving 70% market share?

As an example, in just a little more than a year, Google has completely revamped the way it crawls and indexes Adobe Flash files. Before summer 2008, it was virtually impossible for a Flash-based website to gain search engine rankings. Today, many of the rules for optimising on-page text can apply to text in Flash files.

More importantly are the impact of personalised search for everyone, the influence of social media and real-time search. The implications for SEO with these recent developments are profound and consultants that are on top of such changes provide invaluable advice to their clients, saving time, money and increasing competitive advantage.

Keeping up with the changes can put a strain on companies’ IT and marketing departments. In a win-win scenario for the client, search marketing consultants stay on top of these constant changes and consult on the implications for individual client online marketing efforts. Not only will the client’s site continue to reap the benefits of SEO, but as Lee noted in his post, he or she can “look like a rock star to their management team.”

4. Companies have thinly spread employees; ongoing search marketing consulting acts as “more hands on deck”.

Now, more than ever before, employees are wearing multiple hats within their organisations. A company’s web development staff, copywriters or other marketing personnel might be tasked with SEO in addition to all of their other responsibilities. Compounding the issue, the person responsible for ongoing SEO might not even have previous experience in search marketing.

Having a search marketing consultant on board gives the people tasked with SEO with useful resource so they can focus more attention on core responsibilities.

For example, TopRank acts as a partner with a B2B distributor of industrial products for all of their online marketing activities, including content optimisation, blogging and PPC management. With a capable internet marketing team as a resource, the client is able to focus its in-house employees on making sales. As a result of their top 10 rankings on important keyword phrases increasing by 125% since the beginning of the year, search traffic has also improved significantly. More qualified traffic = more qualified prospects for this B2B company.

5. Many companies don’t actively or effectively use analytics on their own.

From measuring SEO performance to mining new keyword opportunities, Analytics are as important as ever. This is especially true as organisations are increasingly demanding proof that their marketing budgets are being put to good use. Marketers must definitively prove marketing ROI and tie efforts back to corporate goals. Concerns about effectively measuring web site ROI have given way to questions about measuring social media ROI.

Qualified SEO consultants have the necessary experience in monitoring keyword traffic, referral trends, time spent on sites, visitor interaction, social media conversations and other vital metrics to enable companies to make smarter decisions about what’s working and what’s not. The increasingly social and real-time nature of search brings new opportunities for on-demand SEO tactics that would be lost without proper analytics oversight.

Web analytics are certainly more present in most company online marketing programs with the introduction and acceptance of Google Analytics, but even there, constant innovation on the part of Google creates competitive advantages for those companies that stay current. SEO consultants providing ongoing web and social media analytics insight can reveal long term trends, cyclicality and the effect of the many changes mentioned above to an organisation’s ability to attract new business and manage it’s reputation online.

Conclusion:

Organisations that invest in ongoing search marketing consulting are putting themselves a giant step ahead of the competition by allowing the company to focus on its core skills and relying on the SEO agency either completely, strategically or to fill in where needed. Do what you do best and outsource the rest.

Companies that hire and manage in-house SEO teams continue to leverage the expertise and strategic advice of competent SEO agencies to provide insight that proves highly valuable in staying competitive, reducing online marketing costs and increasing bottom line sales.

What are your thoughts on the value provided from ongoing SEO consulting? Do you think SEO can be handled in-house all the time, some of the time or never? If you’re a company considering SEO, what are some of your major concerns with outsourcing on an ongoing basis?

Source: Top Rank Marketing Blog

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Search marketing should be a top priority for organizations in any industry. But B2B Search marketing efforts take a slightly different form than the tactics used in consumer focused SEO and PPC programs . Typically, B2B markets are smaller, products and services are more complex, and sales cycles are longer. Therefore, B2B marketers must think a bit differently in terms of target keywords, online content and link building.

TopRank has worked with many companies using search marketing to reach Business to Business audiences over the past 8 years and we’d like to share these 5 B2B Search marketing tips that can help companies maximize their results:

1. For B2B companies, getting found is just the beginning. While B2C companies can reasonably expect to generate a purchase from a single site visit, the sales cycle for B2B companies is much longer. Once a prospect finds the B2B website via search, the real work begins to convert the prospect to a sale. Understanding the B2B searcher and their position within the sales cycle (Evaluation, Consideration, Purchase) is essential for creating appropriate optimized content to meet their needs.

Additionally, web sites focusing on reaching B2B audiences, must focus an equal amount of effort on gaining relevant search engine rankings and the stickiness of their site. Visitors looking for B2B solutions can be convinced to stay on a site longer by:

* Providing the information prospects need to assess the company and its offerings
* Relying on analytics and user experience metrics to measure stickiness factors, such as time spent on specific pages, clickthrough rates on calls to action and length of visits
* Ongoing heatmap analysis to ensuring that the appropriate links are included on the home page to lead prospects to the most important content

2. Content is key for B2B websites. For B2C websites, the majority of content focuses purely on product information. Because sales conversions for B2B organizations are based more on building relationships, content must position that organization as an industry thought leader and a trusted resource. Including video demos, case studies and newsletters on a site can help B2B organizations build relationships with their audience.

For one client in the B2B marketing industry, TopRank devised a blog strategy incorporating industry thought leader interviews. Insight was gathered from notable figures and shaped into keyword-optimized blog posts for a special interview series. This tactic contributed to a nearly 50% increase in organic traffic to the blog. More importantly, referrals from the blog to the corporate site increased by more than 140%.

3. B2B target keyword glossaries must be more robust. Clearly, targeting the proper keywords is essential to any search marketing campaign. But for B2B organizations, keywords need to cover a longer buying cycle, and therefore must often be more diverse than B2C target keywords. Prospects at the beginning of a sales cycle might use certain terms to search for information that differs from terms used by those ready to purchase. That variety of keywords must be supported by relevant content and link building as well.

For one B2B client, TopRank® Online Marketing devised a robust keyword strategy that considered audiences at multiple touch points to achieve significant results. The realization was made that prospects who are ready to buy typically use solution-based terms – either general or exact product names – in their searches. On the other hand, prospects at the beginning of the sales cycle use issue- or problem-based terms in their searches. The target keyword glossary, therefore, included both specific product terms and issue-based terms. This helped increase keyword referrals by more than 60%.

4. B2B organizations must think outside the box when it comes to link-building. Because B2B markets are typically smaller than B2C markets, there may be fewer websites capable of linking to B2B sites. Consider the amount of fashion-related blogs compared to food processing technology blogs. To increase the number of inbound links to their sites, B2B organizations must get a little creative:

* B2B organizations can approach their supplier networks for inbound links to their site
* B2B organizations with a small target audience can create link bait focused on a different but related market
* For very specific niches, a B2B blog audience can be widened by blogging about more general company-related issues

5. B2B search marketing efforts have to speak to multiple entities within a business. Unlike B2C purchases, B2B purchases involve different stakeholders within a company. Each stakeholder comes to the site with a different set of expectations.

For example, a B2B site that sells recruitment software might be visited by a company’s HR manager to gauge the effectiveness of the software. A member of the company’s finance department might visit the site to assess the value of the product. In still another scenario, a member of the company’s IT department might visit the site to learn how the software can be integrated into the overall system.

B2B search marketing efforts must identify:

1. Who in the business is buying products/services on the website
2. The level of understanding stakeholders have about products/services
3. The jargon different stakeholders use to find products/services
4. The benefits that their business needs to receive from products/services

As you can see, there are some important considerations for B2B search marketing vs consumer focused audiences. The key is to understand the unique needs of the target audience, how they search, evaluate solutions, consume information and ultimately, how search affects decision making, both directly and indirectly.

Source: Michelle Bowles – Top Rank Marketing Blog

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