Posted by: Leslie Russell, Senior Marketing Coordinator
Where has the time gone? It has been over a year since you last updated the metadata so important to your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), you can’t remember when the content on your site was last updated and some of your pay-per-click (PPC) advertising keywords seem a little stale. Now is the time to see which keywords have been performing, revamp your keyword list and get a refreshed search engine marketing strategy rolled out.
Start off by doing a little investigation on the success of your last keyword strategy.
Phase 1: Research
· Review your site in-depth. Have you updated content or removed content? Are you keeping pace with trends in your industry?
· Glance at your key competitors’ websites. Are they using different language and keywords throughout their content or metadata? Reviewing their sites may spark additional ideas for your keyword strategy.
· Pull analytics reports looking at non-paid and paid keywords. Consider if all of these terms are still relevant, or if there are new terms you haven’t considered before.
· Use keyword tools to gather recommendations of adjectives, synonyms, plurals, etc.
· Take a look your organic and paid visibility. Are you getting exposure for the keywords you consider most important? If not consider how to make those words a higher priority in your refreshed keyword strategy. read more »
Posted by: Sam Eidson, Partner
Keyword strategy is the foundational element of a successful B2B search engine optimization (SEO) program, and it’s not easy. There are SEO tools like keyword popularity analytics to help cover the tactical bases. They can help you narrow down a keyword list, an important step to make sure you don’t spread your efforts too thin. But these techniques won’t help if the keyword strategy isn’t linked to your business growth strategy. To achieve this, use a process specific to B2B.
Start by identifying which audiences you are targeting. Identify the individuals who have a role in the purchase decision of your target organizations – not just the decision makers, but also the users, influencers and ratifiers. Think through the information that’s important to each audience, and develop informational offers (white papers, webinars, ROI calculators, etc.) that will get them to a landing page and encourage them to consider your products or solutions. Sound like a lot of effort? It is. read more »
Posted by: Sean Voorhies, Marketing Coordinator
Once you’ve set your keyword strategy, what do you do with all of those terms? Here’s your primer on putting keywords to work for website visibility.
Meta Data
Title, description and keyword tags (all part of your behind-the-scenes meta data) are valuable locations for keyword optimization. Place your most important keywords early in your tags rather than later. While each engine has different title and description character limits, it best to use the least common denominator to avoid having text cut off. Using the following guidelines for each tag can help make the most of your rankings across each engine: read more »
Posted by: Leslie Russell, Marketing Coordinator
Your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is in place, but what are the metrics to measure its success? Are people really finding your site through organic listings? Are you bringing in new qualified visitors? Are your keywords the right keywords to optimize for? The success of your SEO campaign can be assessed in many ways:
Keyword Rankings
When you began your SEO campaign, you determined a list of keywords to optimize for. Before optimizing, conduct some searches on the top three engines – Google, Yahoo! and MSN – to see what sites are coming up within the first page of results. Throughout the SEO campaign, perform spot checks manually, or utilize tools (some of which are subscriber-based), to determine if your site’s rankings have improved. read more »
Posted by: Lauren Klostermann, Project Manager
In today’s saturated market, a competitor analysis provides an insightful and actionable look into your organization. Here’s how an analytical approach to assessing the other players in your field can begin with some basic ideas and readily available online tools.
Define the Competition
Start by choosing similar organizations in your industry by looking at each one’s size and functions. Also consider those deemed the “thought leaders” in the marketplace; they might demonstrate best practices you can learn from or mistakes you can avoid. After defining your list of competitors, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and compare those to your own.
read more »