A recent article on MarketingSherpa discussed their latest survey report on marketing analytics, which indicates that 42% of marketers surveyed believe the ability to act on data to be the most significant challenge they face. Combining data from multiple sources and simply finding budget to acquire new resources ranked second and third, respectively.

B2B marketers have trouble absorbing the data that they actually have access to, making it difficult to create an informed and effective strategy from the data received. Further, this makes it difficult to validate initiatives to upper management and key decision makers. A recent survey of 1,200 CEO’s indicated that nearly 70% have lost trust in their marketers’ ability to deliver growth, in part because of the inability to show ROI on campaigns.

While I personally like to dig pretty deep to evaluate and understand changes in site performance, there are a number of much higher-level reports and dashboards that can provide any B2B marketer with actionable insights. From basic to more advanced, here are five key reports to look at for marketing analytics performance benchmarking.

Note that I am using Google Analytics (GA) information for example and screen grab purposes; but, similar information can be found in other reporting tools like Site Catalyst and Webtrends. The paths to the information are obviously different.

1. Year-Over-Year Comparison Reports

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> Search –> Organic

Regardless of the report type, I almost always recommend using period-to-period comparisons. This will typically mean year-over-year comparisons, but that can change depending on business type and objectives. The year-over-year organic search report gives a high-level view of whether or not SEO initiatives are generating results and improvements.

You will notice that above the date range, it is possible (and recommended) to change the view of this report to include e-commerce or conversion metrics (goals) as well as site usage, which is the default view.

2. Period-To-Period Traffic By Channel Reports

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> All Traffic (by Source / Medium, Source, Medium, etc.)

Why such a high-level report? Because once the B2B marketer understands the performance of a single channel (like organic search), he or she can compare it to and evaluate it against all other channels.

Is a 1% conversion rate in organic search good or bad? The key is knowing how that 1% compares to direct traffic, third-party referrals, and paid search.

3. Key Traffic Percentage Breakdown By Medium

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Overview

Google’s Avinash Kaushik recommends that a balanced portfolio of traffic sources would look somewhere in the range of 40 – 50% search, 20% referral traffic, 20% direct, and 10% campaign traffic (display, email, etc.).

B2B marketers need to periodically review their traffic balance to determine what areas of digital marketing are getting stronger or weaker.

This report, coupled with the traffic performance by channel report, provides solid insight on which digital marketing channels are strongest and which are in need of improvement.

4. Period-To-Period Page Performance

GA Location: Content –> Site Content –> All Pages (Include “Page” containing — or excluding — various Web address variables)

Period-by-period page performance reporting — by section, type, individual page, etc. — can help show the impact of the assets created for building organic search visibility. With content becoming such an important component of every B2B marketer’s strategy, this report is essential in demonstrating content performance.

5. Performance of “Not Provided” Search Traffic

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> Search –> Organic –> “Not Provided” (filter by “Landing Page” as a secondary dimension)

Finally, for evaluating the impact of “not provided” referrals, we track the applicable individual landing page performance. This report gives a sense of what content logged-in searchers are landing on.

B2B SEO professionals in particular should use this report to demonstrate the additional impact that their content assets have as it pertains to “not provided” search referral information.

The Next Step: Custom Dashboards

Once you’re active enough in marketing analytics, the need for a few custom dashboards might make sense. The value of custom dashboards is that they aggregate a mix of (potentially) important information on a single screen, saving time in switching between report types or browser screens to make comparisons.

Here are four custom Google Analytics dashboards I recommend:

Anna Lewis of Koozai put together a great list of custom dashboards in her presentation at BrightonSEO last fall:

• SEO Dashboard – This dashboard does a great job of providing a comprehensive overview of useful SEO metrics such as total organic visits and total non-branded organic visits, as well as keyword and landing page-level statistics such as visits, bounce rate and conversions. It is also very easy to customized once integrated. Click here to get the SEO Dashboard.
• Brand Engagement Dashboard – This dashboard provides a bird’s eye view of brand engagement metrics, focusing specifically on users who visited the site as a result of brand awareness and brand-building marketing efforts (branded organic search queries, social media visits, etc.).  This dashboard is useful for B2B marketers who must illustrate the importance of brand development and the impact it can have on conversions and goals. Click here to get the Brand Engagement Dashboard.

Justin Cutroni’s social media dashboard is a little bit more complex, but provides a comprehensive way for marketers to help demonstrate the value of their social media programs. His blog post provides a great overview of the dashboard and each widget that powers it. Click here to get the Social Media Dashboard.

Finally, Michael Wiegand of Portent put together a very simple but effective “Perfect” Dashboard that provides top level data associated with leads (or revenue), traffic / traffic sources, and landing pages. It’s becoming one of the first places I go in Google Analytics, and it is very easy to customize to preference (yours or your clients). He created two versions — one for e-commerce sites and one for lead generation sites:

• Click here to get the “Perfect” Dashboard for e-commerce sites
• Click here to get the “Perfect” Dashboard for lead generation sites

Need more?

Google Analytics has a simple-to-use directory for marketers interested in exploring even more custom dashboards, filters, and reports. This solutions gallery allows you to search by business objective, marketing function, and/or analytics type.

Jill Whalen also created a forum, Custom Report Sharing, to share, collaborate, and discuss more advanced reporting functions in Google Analytics, specifically.

Final Thoughts & Considerations

At the end of the day, it is not necessarily how much data marketers have, but how effective they are at gleaning actionable insights from that data. What reporting functionality is essential in your B2B marketing mix? I would love to read your feedback and perspective via comments below.

A recent news release, which summarized a comprehensive survey of B2B marketing professionals put together by BtoB Magazine and Bizo revealed that the sales cycle is lengthening for many B2B companies. This puts further pressure on marketing professionals to improve brand awareness and lead generation. At the same time, B2B marketers need to implement programs which nurture new and existing lead prospects through a prolonged buying process.

The challenges of a lengthy B2B sales cycle are not new to marketing professionals. In 2011, a MarketingSherpa article highlighting their B2B Marketing Benchmark Report revealed that the lengthening sales cycle was the third-most-pressing challenge for B2B marketers, behind lead generation (quality and quantity).

A lengthening B2B sales cycle challenges marketers in the following ways:

• How to effectively keep the organization’s brand in front of a sales prospect bombarded with information
• How to differentiate the brand from competitive offerings and information
• How to reach multiple decision makers that might influence the buying process
• How to justify the value of marketing programs and tactics

Leveraging B2B SEO initiatives can be critical when tackling lengthy sales cycles. Here are four SEO recommendations designed to help alleviate the pressure of a lengthening sales cycle in a B2B organization.

Authorship

As daunting as it may seem to get invested in another tactical marketing initiative, Google+, in coordination with Google’s Authorship program, presents clear opportunities for brands to differentiate themselves within search engine results. A successful authorship initiative:

• Shows thought leadership in search engine results through name (and face) recognition
• Provides a new method for prospects to communicate to the organization individually or through Google+ Pages
• Helps branded content rank more prominently in search engine results based on the success of authored posts and social media shares associated with them

Search Engine Land has a comprehensive article with instructions on how to implement Google Authorship Markup, and I would recommend following articles in the Google Authorship category, since updates and changes to Google+ can be rather frequent (and often difficult to follow).

For B2B organizations concerned about brand development and thought leadership in search engine results, authorship tagging is a critical first step.

Social Media Network Analysis

Search engine marketers traditionally analyze social media profiles for target users that may generate links and improve the reach of an SEO program. Social media analysis also provides SEO professionals the ability to uncover related influencers and network associations that might impact the buying process within a target organization.

• Use FollowerWonk to uncover profiles Twitter users follow that have influence and are also associated to the organization. A good place to start is with company/brand profiles and associated social media managers. Another method is through coordinated PR efforts, uncovering industry influencers based on targeted trade publications.
• Once discovered, name-specific search queries in Google or Bing can uncover related social media profiles. We primarily look for LinkedIn and Google+ associations.
• If email information is known, the Rapportive browser add-on helps identify associated social media profiles.
• Explore LinkedIn profile information to uncover industry groups and professional connections.

By uncovering related social media connections in the organization, B2B SEO professionals provide the starting point for identifying the types of content assets that support multiple touch points in the buying cycle.

Content Marketing Optimization

Incorporate SEO tactics into all content marketing initiatives. As revealed in the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks report, B2B content marketers are engaged in an average of twelve tactics for their organization. Tying these tactics together with keyword strategy and keyword optimization, and internal/external cross-linking, should significantly boost the long-term value of this material in organic search engine results.

Best practices to consider:

• Optimize key SEO page elements (HTML Titles, Meta Descriptions, Open Graph Tags, etc.
• Incorporate keyword strategy into on-page material
• Develop copy surrounding assets that search engines find more difficult to interpret, i.e., graphics, videos, PDF files, etc.
• Integrate social sharing elements and cross-links to related material
• Implement conversion opportunities or event tracking to measure performance

The concept of content marketing has become an essential component of the SEO campaign because of its importance in providing visibility for keywords and enabling link acquisition.

Utilize Reporting Data To Make More Informed Content Decisions

The impact that “not provided” keyword referrals, search personalization, and localization have on keyword monitoring has created the necessity for B2B SEO’s to better evaluate overall content performance. Web traffic and visitor reporting tools such as Google Analytics are essential in this endeavor.

Broad visibility and quality metrics help B2B marketers justify the investment in content marketing initiatives and SEO strategy.

Metrics to monitor include:

• Page views and entrance data associated with SEO landing pages and content marketing assets
• Downloads and page views traced back to sales prospects, often found in marketing automation tool reports
• Links acquired to content marketing assets, as uncovered in Google or Bing Webmaster Tools and link monitoring solutions such as Open Site Explorer
• Social mentions associated to content marketing assets — in particular, mentions from influencers, sales prospects, and link building efforts

The steps in this process can be applied across marketing channels to make more informed decisions on new content initiatives and their potential impact in lead nurturing programs.

Final Thoughts

B2B SEO professionals offer a range of tactics designed to improve lead nurturing programs and help establish brand awareness. Authorship helps differentiate the brand in search, social media analysis uncovers related personnel in prospect organizations, and the optimization of content marketing assets extends their life online, hopefully generating more leads, as well.

Traffic and visitor reporting and analysis ties everything together through the validation (hopefully) of content marketing and SEO strategy, helping B2B marketers better trace the leads created to sales and revenue.

How are SEO tactics evolving in your organization’s marketing strategy to support complex sales cycles regardless of whether they are getting longer or not? I would love to read your thoughts and perspective via comments below.

My two key takeaways were:

1. More Google-specific features, such as advertising and local results, are taking up real estate in Google search results pages.
2. Search marketers need to be looking beyond keyword visibility reports and what is actually displayed in search results for primary keyword targets.

The research was timely as it validated keyword search analysis we had performed (albeit much more manually) for a client  experiencing year-over-year declines in organic search traffic for the past few months.

Dr. Pete’s analysis is one method we used for addressing B2B SEO keyword challenges and identifying new recommendations and direction.

In this column, I want to walk the reader through a series of keyword analysis tactics we used to assess declines in organic search engine traffic for a client website. Through each tactic, we identified direction for SEO recommendations, as well.

Client Background

We were approached by an organization seeking to address declines in organic search engine referrals. The website in question receives in excess of 200,000 monthly organic referrals, but that number has declined significantly in recent months.

Their primary keyword targets all seemed to be performing relatively well, in terms of positions (rank) in search engine results. However because their primary keywords represented only a fraction of the total number of search phrases people used to find their website, further analysis of keyword information was a necessity.

Here is a snapshot of organic search referral data by month with changes (positive and negative) year-over-year:

The decline in year-over-year growth started to draw attention in August 2012, but really became an issue in November. As a result, our initial emphasis was to look at organic search data for the three month period between November 2012 and January 2013.

For keyword analysis to be effective, it is critical to evaluate trends in segments of data, seeking to identify patterns and anomalies. We used three methods of analysis, discussed below.

Breakout Search Engine Sources

The first step was to simply look at what search engine referral sources were experiencing the most significant declines. As illustrated in the screenshot below, it’s clear that Google is/was the clear loser. In fact, traffic from Yahoo/Bing increased in that same time period.

Google was the search referral channel we needed to dig deeper into for keyword analysis.

Key Takeaway: While broad search engine trends are important, it is equally important to evaluate the specific search engine referral sources, as well. As illustrated in the data below, you can see Google traffic was actually on the decline, in terms of year-over-year performance, several months before this issue became a red alert.

Breakout Keyword Themes

Once we identified it was a Google issue specifically, the next step was to identify how core keyword themes performed year-over-year. I equate keyword themes to the variations of primary keyword targets a client focuses on.

So, if your primary theme is “big data,” it means how often “big data” is used in all keyword queries generating traffic to the site. Here is a generic snapshot of how these themes performed.

You can use a simple filter to identify the volume of search referrals associated with a particular keyword or phrase.

With information in hand, we went about assessing the strength of content associated with each theme, re-optimizing material as appropriate, and making recommendations for new content strategies associated to related keyword targets.

Immediate actions that were undertaken:

• Revisit key SEO tagging elements (HTML Titles, Meta Descriptions, etc.) on primary SEO landing pages.
• Assess existing content for cross-linking opportunities.
• Pull together a short list of content ideas that could be executed, enabling cross-linking of updated materials and target new variations of keyword themes.

Supporting Resource: SEO Professional Jason Acidre recently wrote a good, step-by-step resource for doing something similar, based off of high-performing, long-tail keywords found via Google Analytics.

Evaluate The Long-Tail

The volume of long-tail keyword traffic was the next place to look. What we realized was that the year-over-year trend in the number of unique phrases via Google traffic had gone down an average of 30%, when comparing monthly volumes.

Here is a snapshot of the data:

The information above led to two critical action items:

• Evaluate visitor performance of website activity associated with visits yielded from a single key phrase referral (i.e., one search query, one visit)
• Look for technical issues which may be creating broader search visibility issues across the site

Immediate actions that were undertaken:

• Based on a sample set of single visit/keyword queries, we realized that particular content type yielded the poorest visitor experience, as it pertained to bounce rates and pages per visit. Recommendations on layout and usability were delivered to improve visitor experience for that particular content type.
• The technical evaluation proved to be a bit more difficult investigation. A review of HTML code and site architecture SEO factors revealed only minor issues. But as we evaluated third-party referral reports and the search engine results for long-tail keywords, a duplicate content issue was uncovered.

Key Takeaway: Careful review of reporting data and search results needs to be undertaken to uncover less obvious but potentially serious issues. You probably won’t find the problem immediately. It’s also good to get a second set of eyes on the data as well, particularly when hitting a wall with analysis. 

Understand Changes In The Display Of Keyword Search Results

The final factor we looked at was how the search engine landscape had changed year-over-year, in association to top keyword referrals (as discussed at the start). We manually reviewed no less than the top 100 keyword referrals sending traffic each month, from November through January of the previous year, identifying blended search results, local results, and other factors impacting the page.

Here is a snapshot of how our spreadsheet of data was organized:

What we realized was that as much as 20% of primary keyword referrals were impacted by local listings (we used the Yoast Firefox plugin to help filter personalization out of results). News, video, images, and Knowledge Graph results were also having an impact.

• Key Takeaway: A strong data set needs to be built out to support strategic SEO recommendations. In this case, the growing suspicion that there was a need for further site emphasis on regional and local distribution efforts was confirmed. The next step was/is putting a tactical plan together for execution.

Factor The Influence Of “Not Provided” Search Volumes

While all of this data can be powerful, SEO professionals must also factor the influence of “not provided” traffic percentages from Google, as well. This involved two key measurements:

• Graphing the overall percentage of “not provided” search volume each month.
• Making estimates based on historical averages of top landing pages accessed via organic search on what type of keywords could be getting used via “not provided” results.

We felt like we had enough of a compelling case in our first three analytical points to keep our estimates of impact at a high level. That might not be the case in all situations, so putting together more stringent impact assumptions is something to always consider.

One Final Tip: Remember Who You’re Presenting To

Don’t forget taking into account the audience in review. While this data might be significant, it may also be overwhelming to those not in the trenches.

If you’re talking to management, charts and graphs illustrating and validating trends tend to work better than rows of excel data. Don’t overload them with data. Focus on how the data shows action that will improve business results.

Final Thoughts

Will their keyword referral traffic fully rebound? We can’t say for certain. What we do know is the specific aspects of organic keyword performance that need to be addressed and what the first steps are in the process, both short and long term.

What are your thoughts in this process and what steps are missing? I would love to read your feedback and thoughts via comments below.

Developing B2B buyer personas can be an essential part of this, since understanding the goals, needs, and limits of a buyer are important to crafting the right content needed for SEO and social media marketing. This column takes a look the development of buyer personas for B2B marketing and the impact SEO professionals should have on the process.

What Are Buyer Personas?

My quick, interpretative definition of a “buyer persona” is a representative profile of a particular target audience segment. However, several more experienced B2B marketing professionals have paved the way for the understanding I have in B2B buyer personas. Here are some of their definitions:

• Ardath Albee & MLT Creative: “A buyer persona is a composite of different factors that affect your buyer and motivate him/her to buy. Your prospect’s buying cycle and buying decisions are situated within a larger context that must be understood in order to motivate his/her buyer behavior.” (source)
• Tony Zambito: “We define buyer personas as the process of not only developing archetypal representations of buyers, but also the process of gathering insights, developing buyer scenarios, tapping into mental models, and mapping to the buying process.” (source)
• Adele Revella: “A buyer persona as an archetype; a composite picture of the real people who buy, or might buy, products like the ones you market, based on what you’ve learned in direct interviews with real buyers.” (source)

As Albee indicates in an interview with the Content Marketing Institute, what makes B2B buyer personas different than general user personas is the complex sales cycle of B2B solutions. There are usually multiple decision makers involved in the process. B2B Internet marketers need to think about SEO, social media, and content marketing efforts meant to satisfy a more diverse set of requirements across multiple personas.

How Do B2B Marketers Develop Buyer Personas?

About a year ago, MarketingSherpa highlighted survey data from their B2B Marketing Benchmark report, asking what the most effective tactics were in developing buyer personas. Here is a screenshot of survey responses.

Survey results support the hypothesis that effective persona development requires a combination of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (research and tools) measurements. Interviews to key sales personnel and customers, the most effective types of tactics, are supported by analysis through survey development, site traffic reports, and keyword research.

There are several good resources for developing effective questions to ask in the interviews with sales personnel and customers in B2B buyer persona development. Here are a few:

• Up Close & Persona Interactive Buyer Persona Template
• Core Buyer and Product-Based Buyer Persona Templates
• Building Buyer Personas: A Checklist For High-Tech Marketers

What Challenges Do Marketers Face With Buyer Personas?

Unfortunately, building effective buyer personas is not as easy as one might believe. I find two specific challenges consistently appear when B2B marketers discuss obstacles in effective buyer persona development.

1. Building The Unusable (Or getting stuck in the semantics). In a recent article from Ardath Albee, she explains how B2B marketers based persona creation off of traditional information gathering techniques (how someone gets to know an individual) instead of truly “buyer-centric” exploration. In other words, personal information and interests (like “does my buyer have a jack russell terrier”) would rarely come into the equation.
2. Failing To Remain Objective Another common problem is in creating buyer personas which reflect the creator’s interest and not the buyer’s. As discussed in a blog post from Dayna Rothman of Marketo, the best way to overcome this obstacle is in solid quantitative research.

5 Ways B2B SEO Impacts Buyer Persona Development

As our organization learns more about buyer personas, how and why they are developed, and how they impact B2B marketing strategy, ties to the SEO process (and vice versa) emerge. Here are five initial points of connectivity.

• Build Keyword Research Into The Interview Process Ask sales personnel what keywords (terminology) often come up in the sales discussions and prospecting calls. Ask customers what keywords they used to find the organization, industry information, and research. If possible, breakout keyword information based on the roles and titles of customers and prospects interviewed as well.
• Segment & Extend Keyword Research Breakout existing keyword research into the various buyer persona segments. In the interview process, provide an initial set of keywords to interviewees for establishing relevance, that can be, in turn, used for further keyword exploration. Evaluate associated search engine results (based on interview feedback and keyword research) to determine related  content marketing opportunities.
• Evaluate Landing Page Activity Provide B2B marketing teams visitor activity associated with search engine referral traffic. In Google Analytics, use advanced segments and secondary dimensions to isolate search engine referrals associated with landing pages for all search traffic, important keywords, and “not provided” data.

This data should help support and augment content marketing development through the identification of website assets that perform better, in terms of visit duration, exit rates, and conversion rates, etc.

• Merge SEO Trends With Prospect Activity Reports Popular marketing automation tools integrate prospect activity with referral source information. These reports provide a compelling story for validating (or adjusting) buyer persona projections. Cross-reference related visitor activity — comparable keyword referrals and associated visitor performance — to known prospect behavior in marketing automation reports, to determine whether website traffic patterns accurately support interview responses.
• Build Better Keyword-Oriented Content Input from sales and customer interviews coupled with existing traffic reporting data should help B2B SEO’s find a wider range of keyword targets and provide opportunity for creating more targeted, appropriate content marketing assets.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, buyer persona creation is not integrated into the majority of B2B organizations. In the MarketingSherpa report referenced above, only 41% of organizations polled had established personas. The rapid growth in technological innovation and digital content consumption necessitates B2B buyer persona development in order to overcome the “digital noise” online.

Furthermore, as case studies illustrating the success of B2B marketing tactics initiated through the use of buyer personas are realized, adoption will certainly increase.

B2B SEO stands to be improved through tighter integration in buyer persona development and vice versa. This connection is similar to why SEO professionals are involved in site development, marketing communications, and content strategy.

What do you think? Is your organization building buyer personas in their B2B marketing strategy? I would love to read your perspective and feedback via comments below.

Just in time for preparation in the new year, MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute launched their 2013 B2B Content Marketing Report, looking at budgets, benchmarks, and trends to watch for with B2B content marketing.

As I reviewed the report, a few key takeaways were important to me, as it pertains to B2B SEO programs we’re launching this year. After a recap of those takeaways, I’ve included my suggested checklist of questions to ask at every stage of a content marketing campaign.

Content Marketing Tactics Employed

B2B marketers use an average of 12 tactics for content marketing and 5 social media sites for distribution (LinkedIn & Twitter being the top two).

Establishing Performance Metrics

The top criteria for measuring the success of B2B content marketing initiatives were Web traffic, sales lead quality, and social media sharing. SEO was a distant seventh in priority. I would argue that SEO directly impacts or is impacted by the top three.

Evaluating Content Effectiveness

Only 36% of B2B marketers surveyed felt that their content marketing tactics were at least “effective” last year. Only 6% of the overall total felt they were “very effective.” This leads lots of room for improvement.

With such a range in tactics, content types, and ways to measure effectiveness, it can easily get overwhelming; particularly for B2B marketers just starting out. An important component of successful B2B content marketing (and B2B SEO) is in proper preparation and planning.

Here is a checklist of action items and questions we try to run through when launching B2B content marketing initiatives for SEO; pre launch, at campaign execution, and post launch.

25 Questions For Your Content Marketing Checklist

Prior To Campaign Launch:

• Target Audience: Do we understand and have we identified the specific target audiences we’re trying to reach (such as executives, technologists, industry professionals, etc)?
  • Have we considered what buyer personas our content marketing asset will address?
  • Is the conversion action for our content asset tied more closely to information seekers, sales-ready prospects, or somewhere in between?
• Content Strategy: What type of content marketing asset do we need to succeed, i.e., blog post, article, white paper, infographic, etc.?
  • Do we need to develop supporting assets such as landing pages, press release, etc. to drive traffic and lead acquisition?
• Keyword Research: Have we identified search result opportunities that could be improved through content being developed?
  • Is our content marketing asset designed to be more informational, transactional, or specific to brand development?
• Network Identification: Who are the key influencers we need to reach to help spread awareness?
  • What social media platforms and applications do they use most often?
  • Have we established a connection with these influencers or do we have secondary connections that can assist?
• Competitive Review: Did we identify whether our content initiatives exceed value of similar content found in the competitive landscape (if applicable and certainly subjective)?
• Message Collaboration: What team members will be part of the production of this content asset, from creation to execution?
• Measurement: Have we identified the measurement criteria to be evaluated and used to demonstrate content marketing effectiveness?

At Campaign Launch:

• Keyword Tagging: Did we optimize the content marketing asset’s HTML Title, Meta Tags, page copy, web address, etc.?
• Conversion Optimization: Is there a clear call-to-action that is trackable in existing reporting tools? (You might be surprised how many marketers forget the latter.)
• Message Execution: Is everyone responsible for communication (PR, Communications, Customer Service, Sales, etc.) aware that the content is live and ready to be distributed?
  • Have we placed our message in appropriate locations? Examples might include press release, email blasts, internal communications, website landing pages, other online assets (including social media, see next)?
• Social Media Execution – Initial Phase: Have we published notice of our content marketing asset in designated social media platforms?

After Campaign Launch:

• Influencer Outreach: Are we communicating to targeted influencers identified in the planning phase?
• Social Media Execution – Secondary Phase: Are we focusing on supporting the communication to influencers through mentions, retweets, and further interactions in targeted social media platforms?
  • If appropriate, are we able to contact identified targets as well?
• Cross-Linking Review: Have we identified and implemented cross-links from related website material, in order to facilitate better indexing of the new material?
• Reporting & Analysis: What are the results as they pertain to core B2B content marketing objectives?
  • What did we learn, regardless of success or failure?
  • Are we able to effectively communicate results to appropriate team members and organizational leaders?

Final Thoughts On B2B Content Marketing Challenges

I found it interesting that while the top two B2B content marketing challenges were still “producing enough content” and “producing the kind of content that engages,” there was a dramatic decline in the percentage of those B2B marketers emphasizing the latter (see chart below).

While there are other results in the survey that could support this reasoning, it seems strange given the concern about content marketing assets delivering effective results.

This seems like another opportunity for B2B search engine marketers to take the lead. As Knowledge Graph becomes a more prominent component of search relevance, in-depth search results analysis may lead to more effective content marketing execution over time, and perhaps a new action item for B2B marketers to consider.

What is on your B2B content marketing campaign action list? I would love to read your thoughts and perspective via comments below.

The tactics designed to support your B2B SEO plan most likely include content marketing, third-party link outreach, and social media development, as well as a few enhancements related to Web development. It’s one thing to know these are the important tactics to execute, but it is another to figure out where to find inspiration for execution.

Here are places within your own traffic reporting tools to look first, when crafting tactics for a B2B SEO strategy in 2013.

Keyword Referral Data

It seems obvious but is often overlooked; at least, the long-tail. What type of phrases are people searching with and clicking into your website? Did they stick around for a few pages but leave without fulfilling a particular goal(s)?

Keyword referral data unlocks better topics for blog content, SEO landing pages, and more comprehensive content marketing initiatives (white papers, viral marketing assets, etc).

In the above example, I am highlighting search phrases that people searched, found our website, and appeared to be of higher-quality, based on average visitor behavior. The topics behind these phrases might make better opportunities for further content development moving forward.

Getting a lot of irrelevant data? Use filters to restrict results based on certain performance criteria like maximum and minimum bounce rates or average visit duration. Here is a screenshot of how I used the filter in the previous example.

Visitor Activity In Coordination With Search Referral Data

Understanding the type of content searchers consume when accessing your website will hopefully uncover opportunities for building complementary or related material. Use keyword research tools to explore opportunities once potential assets are realized.

Unfortunately, you are going to have to do more digging to find this information. Select the Secondary Dimension, “Landing Page,” to see the webpages searches accessed when searching via encrypted search (see screenshot below).

Use filters similar to the ones above to restrict information based on performance criteria.

Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries

As “not provided” data associated to Google encrypted search becomes more prevalent, alternative resources, like the search query report in Google Webmaster Tools, need to be considered.

While I have never found this report accurate enough for setting client expectations, the data can be valuable for understanding the type of phrase searches used to find the site and an approximate search position where the site is typically found.

What I find interesting about this report are the keyword phrases which generate traffic but are in an average position “below the fold” (perhaps positions 3 and below). This could mean topics which resonate better than others and should be explored for alternative content ideas.

Third-Party Referral Reports

Building good content is one thing, finding the right audiences to share, like, and link to it is another. Referral reports in Google Analytics (or similar reporting tools) help B2B SEO’s understand why people link and mention your website and hopefully provide insight into how to gain additional exposure as well.

For this exercise,  I recommend looking for domains that are not social media platforms first, since marketing in popular platforms can become a tactical strategy in and of itself. That said, don’t ignore social media sites that are sending large percentages of traffic organically. This recommendation is meant to find key targets for more direct outreach.

When reviewing third-party referral reports, look for referring sources that tend to drive a higher quality visitor (more page views per visit, lower bounce rates, etc). Go directly to each referring URL and check for:

• The objective of the reference
• Whether the link (or reference) is SEO friendly.
• Contact information for the author(s)
• Social media profile information for the author(s)

If the reference is positive, then it’s not a bad idea to leave a comment of thanks (if a blog post) or send a quick email if possible (holidays and gratitude are great reasons to send this communication).

Note: Google Webmaster Tools inbound link report is another easy way to get this information as well, coming at it from the site URL-specific direction.

Social Media List Development

Social media has become an essential asset for SEO. The key to a good social media program is in having the right network. Building professional relationships through social media platforms helps secure links, develops earned media, and generates broader visibility for content marketing assets. I recommend the following resources for researching key targets in your industry.

• A premium subscription to LinkedIn provides visibility to Twitter profile information of users beyond 2nd degree connections
• FollowerWonk, part of the SEOmoz set of SEO tools, is a critical tool for researching Twitter networks
• For researching journalists, USNPL offers a database of US newspapers, broken down by state and city/town
• PR News has compiled a directory of Twitter handles of PR agencies/consultants, corporations, nonprofit organizations, PR professionals and media, which can be valuable for looking for specific industry expertise
• The Rapportive plugin for Firefox or Chrome provides social media profile information of those you email, which in turn can be used to uncover important users in applicable social networks

Remember to build out specific lists of users to better understand interests and important trends in conversation. For almost all of the social media platforms, I build out lists of profiles that include:

• Breakouts of journalists, analysts, bloggers, publishers, communication professionals
• Parties interested in certain industry publications and resources (this seems to be a good way to segment Google+ circles, in particular)
• Customers, partners, and prospects
• Active and friendly profiles (those that tend to support our social media initiatives more frequently than others)

Building A Better B2B SEO Strategy In 2013

Quality content and a comprehensive list of third-party locations where the businesses’ target markets actively participate in are critical components to B2B SEO. Planning, research, and organization are important for executing these two initiatives effectively. Hopefully, these recommendations provide further direction for your B2B SEO strategy, but I would love to read your thoughts and perspectives via comments below.

Wishing you the best of success in the New Year!

Website functionality requests are usually a component of B2B SEO that need to be budgeted in larger organizations, since the website is often managed by a different department than marketing. SEO is often a small component of the Web team’s overall priorities and responsibilities in any given year.

Here are three Web initiatives that we’re recommending our clients budget for as we look forward to strategic SEO planning in the coming year.

Note that mobile site development and broader site redesigns could certainly be in your budget proposals for 2013 (and appropriately based on target markets). This column puts a greater emphasis on enhancements specific to existing site structure and functionality, and not necessarily broader architectural changes.

Implementation Of Authorship Tagging

Authorship and its impact on AuthorRank could represent solid wins for B2B search engine marketers. The reason is that a successful authorship implementation could positively impact the organization’s overall brand presence, establishing thought leadership organizationally and individually.

Example via Google Post of author information in search results

Potential customers and prospects may see your organization’s thought leaders in search engine results, driving click-thru rates and improving social media presence.

Authorship has additional search-related implications as well, as Google’s search ranking algorithm continues to develop.

• In late September, Google has confirmed that if a user returns to the search results after reading an author-tagged search result for a certain period of time, they will add three additional links to similar articles from the same author below the originally-clicked link.
• Could the relationship between email marketing, personalized search, and authorship, blend together to form a more comprehensive search result experience? Imagine impacting search results (through authorship visibility) of your target audiences directly through productive email marketing campaign development.
• Search marketers are still seeking to understand and test the relationships between Google+ profiles (directly linked to authorship), Google+ pages, and their impact on the ranking of company-owned assets (webpages, blog posts, etc).

For B2B organizations concerned about brand development and thought leadership in search engine results, authorship tagging is a critical first step.

Implementation Of A Tag Management Solution

A Tag Management System (TMS) is a solution that controls the deployment of externally-hosted JavaScript “page tags,” very similar to what a Content Management System does for content (source).

Tag management solutions allow B2B search engine marketers more control over tracking elements associated to site performance and activity metrics, in particular.

SEOmoz has a good overview of tag management and the specific functionality released in Google’s new (and free) Tag Management solution. The two immediate benefits for B2B search engine marketers are:

1. Ability to manage tagging information (analytics, remarketing, and hopefully, A/B testing in the future) in one location.
2. Ability to control execution without requiring the IT/Web team’s direct involvement, thereby speeding up implementation time.

With proper implementation, B2B search engine marketers also have the ability to better track and manage events and campaign information. This brings greater flexibility (and responsibility) for tracking into the marketing department and letting the Web team focus on change requests and development that directly impacts  and benefits IT.

Schema.Org Tagging Adoption

Schema.org might not be for every B2B website, but we’re seeing a growing number of B2B organizations that typically work through dealers and distributors, exploring e-commerce opportunities directly to businesses and consumers.

Schema.org and the GoodRelations project need to be reviewed if this is a direction your B2B organization is considering or already developing.

Fellow columnist Aaron Bradley has a thorough write-up on the integration of GoodRelations into Schema.org and the impact on e-commerce websites. Benefits to B2B search engine marketers include:

• More detailed product and product-offer information, which could be valuable when outlining more complex B2B solutions.
• Increased visibility in the SERPs associated to rich snippets for a product in the search results, which may positively impact click-thru rates on those results.

In coordination with authorship tagging above, B2B organizations can seek to leverage better visibility for both content marketing and product marketing assets in organic search results moving forward.

Is your B2B organization considering any of these website recommendations in the coming year? Are your priorities for site enhancements dramatically different? I would love to read your perspective and opinion via comments below.

Perspective On SEO Fundamentals & Best Practices

Don’t forget pressing forward to get missing or incorrect SEO-centric site elements implemented. While new innovation is exciting, SEO-specific page elements (HTML Titles, Meta Tags, etc.) and site architecture are more important than ever.

The reason for this is two-fold:

1. In my experience, a site with good keyword and linking strategies can achieve dramatic organic search improvements if site-specific issues such as URL structure or crawlability problems are solved
2. As mobile device usage and social media gain greater traction, HTML fundamentals make distribution and optimization that much easier.

These types of SEO fundamentals are essential for long-term success. If you are struggling to make a decision on which way to go first, my recommendation is to get your house in order before diving into more advanced B2B SEO initiatives.

Even though there are many excellent research tools available for finding new content marketing ideas, sometimes the best resources are right under the B2B marketer’s nose. Here are six underrated content marketing assets and how they can be leveraged more effectively for B2B SEO.

Company Overview Pages

I have often seen B2B marketers obsess over home page messaging but leave the company overview page (and section) nearly bare, outside of basic marketing material. When coordinating link outreach, one of the first places I would assume an interested site owner would review would be the About Page of an organization. Bottom-line, they want to know whether the asset they will link to comes from a reputable source.

In addition to important company information and general marketing messaging, consider adding the following assets to a company overview page:

• References to organizations, memberships, and industry affiliations
• Links to social media assets and recent updates from those assets
• Video assets such as executive interviews and product demonstrations
• Links to publications and associated author information about management

Kissmetrics has a great post highlighting information frequently found and illustrated in trustworthy websites.

Resources Overview Pages

The resources overview page is another place too often underutilized in the link outreach message. When sending out a message to a prospective link partner, I almost always include a reference to the resources overview page, since it can be a great destination for site owners to find additional content that may be of value for their audiences.

Some of the key functionality that can make a Resources overview page standout:

• A prominent section highlighting the most recently created and/or updated resources
• Images and even video designed to break-up text and catch the visitor’s eye
• Social media references, for both organizational profiles and key management and social media marketing personnel

Resources Archives

Don’t forget to dive into the Resources Archives bylines used in link building submissions to industry publications.

I’ve often found good white papers can be broken out into multiple blog posts. Setting up a short interview with product marketing teams on a semi-regular basis is usually all it takes to refresh and update concepts used in older white paper material.

Sales & Business Development Collateral

I have written previously about the need for better alignment between sales, marketing, and B2B SEO professionals, when focused on lead generation initiatives. Sales and marketing teams spend a tremendous amount of time in developing professional sales collateral for new business development. This often includes:

• Sales presentations
• Marketing-specific cut sheets, visualizations, and product snapshots
• Video collateral

This collateral can be a boon for B2B SEO’s looking for adaptable content to use in blog posts, SEO landing pages, and distribution across social media platforms. The key is being proactive about identifying the resources and creative in adapting them for online marketing needs.

In one example, we had a client’s executive team participating in a series of Round Table events in conjunction with an organization they were members of. After some initial investigation, we were able to use portions of the content for our client’s SEO initiatives, including:

• Integrating video interviews with the CEO in YouTube
• A three part blog post series with additional perspective of the event from Product Management
• SEO landing pages highlighting additional research assets from the partner organization

Customer Support Forums & Discussions

Customer support can be a great resource for finding content ideas. Interview customer service teams for commonly asked questions and issues they field during calls with customers. The answers they provide can become blog posts, articles, and additional content assets for the website.

One of our clients that develops an enterprise software solution has been developing “technology tips” based on customer service queries for the past two years. When reviewing analytics last quarter, we realized these content marketing assets contributed to 5% of the overall content viewed and 20% of the search queries received.

More importantly, these resources are often discussed and receive feedback during regular account management calls and meetings, which gets the ball rolling for new technology tip ideas and suggestions.

The 404 Error Page

Finally, while there may be nothing more annoying that landing on a broken webpage, a little creativity in the error message can go a long way to alleviating frustration and bring the visitor back to the site. While we typically recommend a clear error message with links to core navigational elements and social media profiles, humor and creative expression are often welcome too. At the least, maybe you’ll get a link in one of these collections for your efforts.

What content marketing opportunities have you found underutilized for B2B SEO in past experiences? I would love to read your perspective and ideas via comments below.

In BtoB Magazine’s latest research report on B2B social media marketing, 71% of B2B marketers polled are moving up to 10% of traditional media budget allocations over to social media; 14% indicated that they will move more than 20%. The average increase in social media budgets was approximately 11%.

There is still room for improvement. 67% of those surveyed indicated their organizations were moderately involved or less in social media marketing. Even though less than 10% would be considered “not satisfied” with their social media programs, 60% were still not measuring some form of ROI.

For B2B search engine marketers, this represents an opportunity to lead the improvement effort. Here is a rundown of initial considerations B2B marketers should consider when developing a better B2B social media program the second half of this year and beyond.

Define Appropriate Social Media Objectives

The BtoB Magazine research report illustrates a range of objectives B2B marketers have with social media. I personally was surprised at significant percentages associated to eight of the top ten.

This infers that proper identification of social media objectives may lead to greater effectiveness and satisfaction. As objectives are better defined, the identification of appropriate social media platforms becomes clearer, because there are differences in expectation from community participants.

Our experience has been similar to what others surveyed in the BtoB Magazine report have indicated about the tone and style required for individual social media platforms.

• Facebook is more informal. We have seen greater success with interaction when using video and graphics as opposed to only text updates
• LinkedIn requires greater group participation and asking and fielding more in-depth questions and discussions
• The audience on Twitter wants information faster. Shorter, more concise material (such as lists) tend to get shared more often.

Assess B2B Marketing Strengths & Weaknesses

Internally, B2B marketers must define their own strengths and weaknesses in the current B2B marketing strategy, and which areas social media will best support.

For example, even though lead generation is a critical initiative, perhaps the maturity of current lead programs create a situation where social media will fail in comparison, from a measurement perspective.

For one of our clients, sales ready leads are almost always acquired through trade shows and webinars. Their process has been successful and the key is providing a greater volume of prospects for lead nurturing purposes. In this case, brand development, site traffic, and the website’s presence in search engine results is a more important tie-in for social media.

Pushing the wrong objectives in social media, both platform and B2B marketing specific, will likely lead to ineffectiveness and potentially set the team responsible up for failure in the long-term.

Know Your Competitor’s Strategies, But Not Necessarily To Imitate Them

Here is an example of a competitive social media matrix we put together for a fairly well branded company in the financial industry. While the immediate observation is the lack of visibility for our client, simply jumping into every social media platform their competitors are active in might not make sense.

Further investigation into each competitive profile must be done to measure effectiveness and strategy. A few initial observations we recommend making:

• Frequency of posts and updates
• Interaction in updates (comments, likes, mentions, etc)
• Percentage of company-specific updates

Results found in these observations will provide a measure of commitment and effectiveness in a competitor’s social media involvement, as well as potentially reveal good ideas in content and messaging strategy (or what not to do). Don’t forget that competitive intelligence can also be an important goal in social media participation as well.

Listen & Comprehend The Community First

Patience is important when evolving a social media program. The average time it took B2B marketers polled to be effective in their most important social media channel was 13 months. Expectations need to be set appropriately.

What this indicates is that building effectiveness in social media is like any real (valued) relationship. B2B marketers should research and listen carefully to potential audiences in targeted communities, to better determine the company’s ability to achieve the designated objectives assigned.

Document Everything

I recommend being meticulous in collecting data; obtaining as much information as possible to make better decisions down the road. Details I tend to cover include:

• Details of the update (context, links or no links, time of the update)
• Type of update (image, text, video)
• Reach, mentions, likes, comments, and other available interaction types

Being able to find patterns of success in the regular stream of social media updates helps improve effectiveness as the program grows and evolves. Maybe more importantly, the identification of small successes can provide the boost in morale needed to keep social media teams energized and willing to keep with the program over the long haul.

Measure & Evaluate

As indicated before, 60% of B2B marketers polled were still not putting measurement in place to establish some form of ROI for their social media programs. Goal setting should be defined based on objectives established at the start. Potential measurements to consider across differing objectives:

For brand development:

• New visitor growth and quality of new visitor growth
• Third party mentions, references, and links acquired
• Growth in branded and non-branded keyword referrals from organic search

For lead generation:

• Sales-ready leads acquired
• Lead nurturing prospects developed
• Assisted conversions attributed to social media performance

For search engine optimization:

• Growth in keywords sending referral traffic
• Inbound links generated
• Conversions made through organic search (branded/non-branded)

Final Thoughts

Lastly, remember that social media effectiveness ties directly to the quality of content provided; both strategic assets (blog posts, graphics, marketing collateral, etc) and communication stream (updates, status messages, timing, etc).

B2B SEO and social media should drive recommendations for content marketing initiatives because these teams understand what messages and types of assets work well in targeted communities and why competitors have acquired inbound links from third party websites.

What steps has your organization taken to improve and increase the effectiveness of social media marketing? I would love to read your perspective via comments below.

The problem with the article’s hypothesis was that it was based on an assumption that SEO tactics only use shortcuts for success. My perspective is that SEO is more than a series of shortcuts, but an evolving Internet marketing discipline.

Regardless of what perspective you hold, one thing is true: B2B SEO requires greater integration with multiple marketing specialties. This is particularly true when working with larger organizations.

If you are responsible for SEO in your organization and hearing the chatter about its death, it is critical to understand the concepts and priorities various marketing teams hold important. Talk their talk.

Here are five concepts (and applicable supporting concepts) B2B search engine marketers should understand with regards to strategic marketing initiatives, and why they are important.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the practice of creating, implementing, and evaluating facets of a webpage or website in an effort to increase the number and/or percentage of visitors that complete designated actions (such as form submissions, purchases, etc).

Why conversion rate optimization is important for B2B SEO

According to MarketingSherpa’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report generating high quality leads and generating a greater volume of leads are the two highest priorities for B2B marketing departments. We cannot forget this.

What is fortunate is that the search community has been expressing the value of CRO for quite some time. Search Engine Land’s Search & Conversion columnists share their expertise week after week; in addition, SEOmoz has a great guide on conversion rate optimization worth reviewing.

Lead Management

In an interview with Ed Hadley, Senior Marketing Manager at Neolane, Ed defined lead management as a set of processes and technologies that help B2B marketers optimize demand generation and move potential customers down the funnel.

Ed highlighted four main steps in a lead management process:

• Lead Capture – the specific conversion initiative, such as filling out a lead form to download a white paper.
• Lead Scoring – a method of assigning points to prospects and sending them to the right marketing channels appropriately.
• Lead Routing – ensuring that the sales team is pursuing the most winnable opportunities.
• Nurturing – Leads that are not qualified enough for sales are funneled into nurture programs (more on this in the next section).

Why lead management is important for B2B SEO

The understanding of a lead management process helps B2B SEO’s establish greater clarity in developing tactical initiatives, because not all leads are created equal. Expectations to leadership, on the results of lead acquisition from a B2B program, can in turn be set across multiple levels of quality and volume.

Lead Nurturing

I spoke with Eloqua VP of Content Marketing Joe Chernov a while back on his thoughts about lead nurturing: “Lead nurturing is about moving each of these visitors down the path to purchase.”

Basically, there is a significant percentage of website visitors not interested in an immediate purchase. Lead nurturing programs help build a trustworthy relationship between visitor and company; with the ultimate goal of making them a sales-ready prospect.

Why  lead nurturing is important for B2B SEO

Perhaps there is no such thing as a bad lead. Curiosity seekers, students, researchers, etc may become advocates for sales and more qualified lead opportunities, should the right lead nurturing campaigns be put in place to address this audience.

Establishing a better expectation for leads requiring greater emphasis on lead nurturing may be appropriate when considering the percentage of keyword queries associated to informational intent.

Content Curation

Rohit Bhargava defines content curation as “the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue.”

Per this MarketingSherpa report, the creation of new content is one of the most effective B2B SEO tactics but also requires some of the greatest levels of effort.

Content curation strategy offers another tool for content development and link acquisition. Specific content curation features more SEO friendly include more easier-to-enable keyword landing pages and social media functionality built-in.

Why content curation is important for B2B SEO

One of the biggest stumbling blocks B2B SEO’s face is the ability to generate unique content. Content curation can become an easier jumping off point for establishing industry expertise and developing valuable assets for keyword visibility.

The Concept Of Converged Media

The Altimeter Group’s report “The Converged Media Imperative,”  defines converged media represents the utilization of two or more channels (paid, owned, and earned media) working in concert and enabling brands to reach their target audience regardless of channel, medium, or device.

• Paid media is classified as display or broadcast advertising (Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc.)
• Owned media is content assets the company owns or controls (websites, blogs, etc.)
• Earned media is user-generated content created and/or shared by users (shares, organic reviews, etc.)

Why this is important for B2B SEO

It is critical for search engine marketers to keep up with emerging trends and concepts, particularly those that benefit SEO. In the case of converged media, Altimeter research supports the hypothesis that collaborative efforts throughout media channels will be the future of a successful marketing initiative.

This is a boon for an industry like SEO, which becomes more reliant on others for action and insight.

(Editor’s note: Search & Conversion columnist Scott Brinker has also covered the concept of converged media with respect to conversion rate optimization in his latest article, Framing Landing Pages In The Bigger Picture.)

Final Thoughts

The death of SEO is a truism if search engine marketers fail to understand the priorities and concepts important to the overall B2B  marketing space.

You will be replaced with marketers who can tie SEO best practices into their existing competencies. Search engine marketing is a component (large and small) of the entire marketing mix.

What marketing concepts have you encountered which required greater learning and application? I would enjoy reading your perspective and feedback via comments below.