The big opportunity

Standout B2B websites are usually brimming with great content, including lead gen materials such as whitepapers, articles, and case studies. Because this type of content generally includes interesting and useful facts or best practices, a target audience is likely to share the information via email, blogs, and forums. Given that, such content represents considerable opportunity to generate external links via proper online citation.

Never assume

But despite the valuable time and resources spent on developing great content, it often doesn’t get the chance to fully live up to its potential to create external linking opportunities. Why? Because more often than not, little thought is put into making sure that the website gets cited when the content is shared online. In fact, many marketers simply assume that when someone cites their content, they also automatically link to the website. Unfortunately, that is not the case. As a result, many marketers are missing the opportunity to leverage their content to secure valuable external links.

Understanding its impact

For example, let’s say that a consumer research firm publishes a whitepaper about shopping trends by the day of the week. The document is emailed to existing clients, who then copy and paste key callouts in emails to their colleagues, quote the whitepaper in their blogs, comment on other blogs with snippets, and mention it at a meeting, prompting others to search for it.

Obviously, the content succeeded in engaging the target, and it was shared amongst many potential customers. However, there is nothing to confirm that the interest generated resulted in a single link back to the firm’s website. If the firm were using some type of proactive method to ensure citation, they may have increased their external links. Instead, the lack of attention to SEO-friendly citation translates into a huge missed opportunity to increase their link credibility for search.

Making it happen

To effectively leverage your content for external links, you need to ensure that your shared content is accompanied by a link – even when it’s just snippets. But keep in mind that generating external links through online citation is not the responsibility of your visitors. After all, even if they do link back to you, they may not do so in an SEO-friendly way. Given that, automating the online citation process may yield the best results. Below are a few tools that will help ensure you receive proper online citation and net external links when visitors share, post, or copy and paste your content:

1. Social Bookmarking – An old favorite, social bookmarking widgets have evolved to encompass nearly every social media platform and network available – from Facebook and Twitter to more niche sites such as Slashdot and Sphinn. These widgets are commonly customizable to match the aesthetic of your website and the platforms you prefer, and are easily implemented with the code generated by the provider. Many of the most popular social bookmarking widgets are free, and some come packaged with analytics to track click-throughs. My personal favorite is Social Twist’s Tell a Friend, whose tabbed format offers social bookmarking, blogging, social networking, email, and IM options.
2. Site-Hosted jQuery Script – Search and Share, a jQuery script for your website, takes automated citation to the next level. Recognizing that when visitors highlight your content they’re most likely interested in sharing it with others, Search and Share automatically provides sharing options when text on your site is highlighted. In addition, the script embeds the source page’s title and URL when the content is shared — even when a mere snippet is copied and pasted. If your target audience is highly engaged in blogging and forums, the benefits of this script are undeniable. Instead of hoping that your site will receive a link when your content is quoted, you can feel confident that Search and Share will make it happen automatically. As a result, it will simultaneously increase the links to your site, and decrease your dependency on your visitors for proper online citation.
3. Providing Optimized HTML – For online marketers, it’s sometimes hard to remember that not everyone on the Web is an HTML whiz. Considering that, one of the simplest ways to make sure people are linking to you in the way that fits your optimization strategy is to actually provide them with the code. For example, take a look at PR.com’s Link to Us page. PR.com has provided pre-formatted HTML code for people to use when linking to their site. By eliminating the work of coding a link, PR.com is increasing the chance that their target will follow through. Providing an exact HTML link enables you to pursue any optimization strategy you choose, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the links on your search visibility. This strategy can be especially beneficial when securing a link from a business partner or vendor, as you may have more flexibility in determining the format of the link.

If you are going to invest in developing interesting and engaging content for your website, be sure to leverage it as a means to generate external links via proper online citation. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your visitors are citing your content. With several tools that eliminate the hassle and increase the likelihood of linking back to a site, there’s no reason to miss this opportunity.

Understanding the risk

If a page on your website is not living up to your standards for success in user engagement (bounce rate, time on site, pages per visit, etc.) it isn’t necessarily due to your keyword strategy. In fact, it could very well be something else entirely, such as content, or inconsistencies between keyword strategy and content.

Considering that, it is important to first gain clarity about the issues affecting performance before prematurely changing your keywords. Otherwise, you might find yourself “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” when you toss keywords that seem to be underperforming.

Moreover, be mindful that changing keywords can greatly affect your visibility in the search results. Given that it takes a great deal of time and effort to achieve visibility on certain keywords, you need to consider whether or not any keywords changes are worthwhile.

Taking a closer look

Your web analytics program can help you best understand the issues negatively impacting a page’s performance. By examining your analytics, you will gain additional insight into how the visitors who come to your site through your targeted keywords actually perceive your page compared to the visitors who arrive through other means.

Armed with a newfound perspective on your search traffic, you’ll then be able to determine your best opportunities for improving your site’s user engagement, whether they be at the keyword or content level. Ultimately, you need to strive for alignment between the two.

Five tips to achieving alignment

Before you give up on a keyword that’s not living up to your expectations, first follow the below tips to reassess your content’s relevance to your targeted keywords. In doing so, you may find that the keyword you were about to discard may become one of your best just by tweaking the content on your page.

1. Compare user engagement by keyword

Looking at aggregate data rarely provides actionable insights. Instead, drill down to the keyword level in your web analytics to compare different groups of visitors. How much time are search visitors (who reached your site from the targeted keyword) spending on your page versus those who came from other keywords? Is there a keyword that is bringing down your user engagement stats? Conversely, is there a keyword whose visitors are highly engaged?

2. Consider visitors’ next steps

A low time on page doesn’t necessarily imply an unqualified user. If your analytics platform offers a click overlay (a feature that demonstrates where visitors click after visiting a page), take some time to analyze your visitors’ next steps. Are they moving closer to making a purchase, or stepping back a page in your site hierarchy? Once you’ve established common next steps, try to assess why visitors are opting for these paths over others.

3. Reassess your content

Think about the correlation between your targeted keyword and the content on the page. Are they in synch? Put yourself in the shoes of the searcher, and think about your intention when searching for the page’s targeted keyword. What kind of information would you expect to find on the sites that are ranking? Try to think about your landing page from the perspective of the people potentially involved in your B2B buying cycle – the CFO, the CEO, the CTO, etc – and ask yourself if your page is providing enough information for all of them?

4. Analyze the competition

If you’re convinced that your content is in line with your keyword strategy, try visiting a competitor’s site, especially if they are outranking you. How is their content organized? What kind of information do they offer that you don’t? Again, put yourself in the shoes of the searcher, and consider the competitor’s page. What about it would encourage you to send the page to a friend or colleague, or link to it from your website or blog?

5. Conduct a usability or landing page test

Web analytics can speak volumes, but few things offer more insight than a focus group, usability experiment, or landing page test. Directly asking your target audience about their experience on your website can help to clear up inconsistencies in your keyword strategy and content, and uncover new opportunities to improve your site. For example, landing page testing via Google’s Website Optimizer can help turn speculation into confirmation by actually presenting two different groups of visitors with distinct versions of your landing page so you can see which one is more successful at engaging visitors.

There’s no denying the significance of developing an effective keyword strategy. However, it’s important to remember that its efficacy is largely dependent on how it aligns with your site’s content. In the end, achieving alignment between the two will produce the best performance.