Keyword Targeting Methodology

Every effective search program is built on the foundation of research. Understanding searcher behavior and intent should be a critical component of your SEO strategy.

Question #1: What methodology do you use to select target keyword phrases?

Make sure your search agency or team has considered the following factors:

• Your Specific Business Goals (lead generation, brand awareness, online sales)
• Market Opportunity (search volume)
• Level of Competition (number of sites appearing in search engine results for that keyword)
• Relevancy/Applicability to your service offerings
• Actual Searcher Intent

For B2B marketers, it is also important to ensure your SEO keyword strategy addresses various stages of your buying cycle. Some keywords should align with initial research stages, while others align with the vendor comparison process, and especially with the decision-making, vendor selection and purchase stages.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) data (if available) should also be analyzed. Knowing how much keywords cost and how well they convert will help guide your SEO strategy.

Focus On Bottom Line Business Results

As part of your SEO program, your search team should be tracking the results of their efforts. This means considering more than just keyword rankings or position. Make sure your search marketers are focused on bottom line business results, such as organic traffic and conversions.

Question #2: How do you measure B2B SEO success?

At minimum, I recommend implementing Google Analytics. It’s a free analytics tool and the data is well laid out for marketers and executives to understand.

If your search marketing agency has taken the steps to properly select target keywords and phrases for your SEO program and have correctly implemented your SEO campaigns, your analytics data should reflect an increase in organic traffic and conversions from search engines and variations of your targeted keywords.

Estimate ROI

A huge challenge in tracking the success of B2B SEO programs can be estimating Return on Investment (ROI).

While analytics can provide a great deal of insight, tracking the path to conversion from organic traffic to sales is not always easy for B2B companies due to long, complex sales cycles and off-line conversions.

Question #3: How do you quantify ROI when conversions take place off-line?

Goal conversions!

Your analytics program should be set-up to track goals along with the value of a lead. This consists of measuring actions of your website visitors such as filling out a contact form, downloading a whitepaper, viewing a case study, or possibly signing up for a newsletter.

I recommend that B2B marketers assign an estimated value to every online action that may contribute to moving a prospect through the buying cycle.

While these actions may not convert a visitor into a customer right away, these visitors are engaging with your company and should be considered a marketing or sales prospect.

By tracking the value of the lead throughout the entire sales process, you can then properly attribute the ROI to your B2B SEO efforts when applicable.

Balance Accountability With Proper Expectations

A great agency, or an effective search marketing team, will:

• Establish proper expectations
• Employ a rigorous keyword selection strategy
• Measure success beyond rankings
• Estimate ROI (including off-line conversions)

Ask the tough questions and hold your search marketing team accountable for bottom line business results.

Let’s walk through an example of using web analytics data to identify important topics, helping to create valuable assets in exchange for your prospects’ contact information. By knowing the right assets to offer, this will help convert more website visitors into qualified leads.

How To Identify The “Right” Calls-To-Action

Your website analytics data, if setup properly, can be very revealing. Just by looking at a few reports, you can identify what types of information your prospects are interested in. Most often, your homepage may be your most visited page, but where do visitors go next? Do a good portion of visitors click on your “About Us” page to learn more about your company, or do they click on a “Solutions/Services” page to understand more about your offerings?

Here are two important web analytics reports I recommend focusing on:

1. Top Content/Pages

These reports show the most visited pages on your website, which gives insight into the topics your visitors and prospects find important.

For this example, let’s say your “Solutions” page is the 2nd most visited page on your site.

Once a visitor is on your Solutions page, where do they go next? What additional information are they trying to gather? That’s where the next report comes in…

2. Navigation Summary (or) Click Path Analysis

Many analytics packages, such as Google Analytics, WebTrends, and Omniture, have Navigation or Click Path Reports that show which pages visitors came from – and which pages they visited next.

Understanding the “next pages” is extremely helpful in identifying topics important to your visitors…what do they want to know more about? Once you know which topics are important, you can then create or gather related marketing assets.

If your “Solutions” page is the 2nd most visited page on your site, look at the Navigation Summary to determine which page most visitors clicked on next.

Example: Navigation Summary report from Google Analytics.

(To access this within your own account, click on Content > Navigation Summary).

In this example, many visitors came from the “Home Page” (/) – visited the “Solutions” page – then went to the “Solution-2″ page.

This would tell us that the product or service provided on /Solution-2 is a topic they want to know more about. So, gather or create a marketing asset related to /Solution-2 (like a white paper) that you can offer as a download in exchange for your visitors’ contact information.

Where To Test The Calls-To-Action

Now that you know your Call-To-Action should be “Download the Free Solution-2 White Paper”, next it’s time to decide which pages to include this Call-To-Action.

Go back to that same Navigation Summary report, and now look at the /Solution-2 page. Identify the page(s) visited immediately before this page.

If visitors mostly came from your Home Page (/), and your main Solutions page (/Solutions), then add a Call-To-Action on those pages to “Download the Free Solution-2 White Paper”.

When a visitor clicks on the Call-To-Action, you request contact information (Name, Company, Email, and Phone) in exchange for the white paper.

Since it’s a valuable topic that many visitors want to know more about, they are likely to give you their contact information in exchange for the white paper.

You now have converted a website visitor into a qualified lead that can be added to your database or CRM and your sales team can follow-up with them by email or phone.

Additional Testing Ideas

I recommend continually testing various Calls-To-Action. If the white paper isn’t working, try hosting a webinar on the topic, or even offering a short video. Look at the Navigation Summary report for at least your top 10 pages and determine various hot topics you can create marketing assets around. By engaging your visitors in various ways, you’ll identify the types of Calls-To-Action that work best for your audience.

One other important thing to note, it is critical that you conduct at least monthly or quarterly reviews of your web analytics data, ensuring the code is intact and that you’re tracking the right information. If your analytics are not setup properly, your data will be inaccurate and you’ll be making decisions off of false information.

Here are 4 tips on how to start integrating social media monitoring into your search strategy:

1. Utilize social media monitoring tools

Social monitoring tools allow you to track conversations, authors, type of platforms (blogs, wikis, social networks, video sharing sites, etc.), demographics, geo-graphics, keyword tags, and more.

There are many different social monitoring tools that have various options and price ranges. To narrow the lengthy list, here are a few tools I recommend you explore further: Radian6, Techrigy, Trackur, and BuzzMetrics from Nielsen. At minimum, free tools like Google Reader or Google Alerts should be utilized to monitor basic mentions within news and blog sites.

2. Analyze social keyword tags

Understand the types of keyword tags people actually apply to social mentions, like blog posts or social bookmarks. This data will enhance your keyword targeting strategy for both SEO and PPC.

Search marketers have the ability to analyze search volume and searcher behavior through keyword research tools and web analytics. Now, with the integration of social media monitoring, keyword targeting can be even more fine-tuned.

I recommend that you analyze the specific words and phrases that your audience uses in social communities when discussing your products, services, solutions and issues. Then, integrate these words and phrases into your page titles, website content, PPC campaigns and ad copy.

3. Gain customer insights

Your customers and prospects are discussing their needs, wants, frustrations and problems. If you listen, you can learn a lot about how to improve your website and your search marketing program.

For example, are customers posting messages indicating that they can’t find product information? If so, maybe you need to enhance your website navigation, re-organize content, or create additional content to make product literature more accessible.

Are customers and prospects looking for tutorials or demos? It may be time to make your websites more interactive by including videos and interactive product demos.

Are prospects blogging about how you compare to the competitors? This could be an indication that you should add a comparison chart to your website, possibly promote through SEO and PPC keyword targeting.

You can also proactively respond to social conversations through search marketing channels.

• PPC ads and landing pages can be written to specifically address problems and concerns and can lead frustrated customers to your recommended solutions or actions.
• SEO programs can be modified to incorporate popular social language into page headings and copy/text.
• Marketers can create link bait content, discussing typical problems and frustrations. Post blogs as teasers to this content, then link to the full page on your site. Others will do the same if it’s relevant, useful content.

4. Better focus local and regional search programs

Some social media monitoring tools allow you to track where conversations and social mentions originate. This should be integrated with your Web Analytics data to improve search marketing targeting strategies.

Companies can use this geographic data to understand which regions are most active in social conversations. For instance, you may discover numerous blog posts related to your solutions coming from France. Does this align with your PPC targeting and budgeting strategy? Your SEO priorities?

By analyzing social media geographic data you can refine your search marketing targeting strategy. This can be accomplished at the country, state, metro, city, or even the neighborhood level.

Proactively integrate social insights into search marketing

As marketers continue to tap into social communities it’s essential to proactively integrate the gained insights into your search marketing strategy.

Specifically, to get started, you should take these four steps: 1) utilize social monitoring tools, 2) analyze keyword tags, 3) gain customer insights from market conversations, and 4) improve your local targeting and budget allocation process.

Listen and learn!

Capitalize on the benefits of social monitoring to improve the effectiveness of your search marketing program.

1. Examine searcher behavior

Do you thoroughly understand how people are searching for your brand, products and services? Over time, search phrases have become more specific, especially in the B2B realm. Marketing professionals are savvier as they research products and solutions needed for their businesses. But don’t forget about your current customers. What are they searching for? It’s imperative to understand what types of information your customers are looking for and the keyword phrases they use to find this information.

Start by using Google’s keyword research tools and your own web analytics data to discover search behaviors and trends of your customers. Are customers using search engines to find your “brand + training” (or) “product + support?” Do web site visitors use the search function on your site to find webinars or user group information? Understand what your customers are looking for and incorporate related information and targeting into your search marketing programs.

For example, if you know customers are looking for training around your products, think about optimizing your pages for keywords related to your training offerings. Link to these training assets throughout your site and as an SEO best practice, incorporate targeted keywords such as “brand + training” into your link anchor text.

It may also be beneficial to include these keywords into your PPC campaigns. This type of controlled program gives you the ability to drive customers to the specific training resources & information most related to their actual search query. Ad copy can also be targeted towards your current customers, giving them a call-to-action to engage, possibly with training videos or podcasts to help them learn more about your products & services. Landing pages can be designed to engage customers by providing actionable assets like videos, product training webinars, etc. This will help engage customers by presenting pertinent information and also helps build trust in your company. Since you’re providing valuable information to help your customers succeed, this can increase customer retention and customer value over time.

2. Evaluate web site use

Dig into your Web analytics data to understand current customers’ web site behaviors. This data helps you understand which pages customers visit the most, which pages have the longest visit duration, which customers are visiting your site most often and which assets are being accessed most often.

Understanding these areas of opportunity—for example, web pages related to training, user groups and events) will help you proactively direct customers to highly-valued content designed to engage and retain clients and increase value over time.

3. Leverage the knowledge of internal teams

Various internal teams should support search marketing efforts as much as possible. Many B2B companies have support, training and sales teams that can help identify areas of focus. These colleagues can provide valuable insight since many of them have first-hand knowledge around:

• Support areas customers need or request the most
• Training programs and topics that are viewed or requested the most
• Top selling points that persuaded prospects to buy your products/services/solutions
• Reasons why customers did not renew their contract

4. Tap into user groups and social communities

Online groups and communities provide valuable marketing insights.  Listen to what your customers are saying. Understand the types of questions asked. Are they technical or general questions about your product’s capabilities? Definitely explore social communities to understand which communities your customers are engaged in – and what customers may be saying about your brand or products.

By tapping into these online conversations you can customize your search marketing program to better support customers.  For example, PPC landing pages may include links to user groups, support teams, and social communities.

Listen to your customers and analyze their behaviors. You do have the ability to further engage, retain and increase customer value over time… and search engines can play an instrumental role in this process.

Web analytics data is the foundation

The cornerstone of any successful SEO program is accurate web analytics data. Don’t have an analytics package? Google Analytics is a great free option that provides most of the data points you need for SEO measurement. The information derived from your analytics tool is instrumental in determining the success of your optimization program – and this data can also reveal critical areas for future improvement.

Understand how people find your website

Search Marketing is, of course, all about helping prospects find your site. Use your analytics tool to track these critical metrics:

• Which keywords drive traffic from organic search?
• Which sites are referring traffic to yours?
• Which engines are people using to get to your website?

Track keyword visibility

In addition to web analytics, most SEO experts also rely on a keyword ranking tool. Typically, it’s recommended to optimize each web page for one to five keywords (depending on the amount of content on the page). It’s important to understand how visible your website is for these words and phrases. For example, if you’re optimizing for the keyword small business loans, does your site show up in a top listing within the major engines when a user searches for the term small business loans?

There are several tools that automate the process of tracking keyword visibility. WebPosition is a great tool for tracking website visibility in Google, MSN and Yahoo. If you’re planning on tracking visibility on a global level, a better tool might be Agent Web Ranking, since this program has the capability of tracking a larger number of international search engines.

Integrate analytics with keyword tracking

Once you understand your website’s visibility for specific keywords, don’t stop there. Compare this data with your analytics reports. The key question is: are the keywords you’re optimizing for the words that actually drive traffic to your website? If not, your SEO program needs to be re-focused.

It’s true — branded terms usually drive a good amount of traffic to B2B websites, but one of the main goals of SEO is to become visible for more than branded searches. It’s important to reach prospects in the early stages of the buying cycle, people who are searching for more general information. Why? Once your site is visible within the listings for general searches, prospects have the opportunity to dig deeper and learn more about your offerings.

Track SEO-driven conversions

Are your website pages designed to provide information, generate leads, or both? Often times PPC landing pages and microsites are designed with conversion in mind, while other pages within a corporate website are more informational, simply describing the product or solution offered. I advocate that a strong call-to-action should be present on all of your landing pages, even informational pages.

SEO programs for most consumer-oriented sites are focused on tracking orders and sales, but B2B marketers must be able to track other types of actions (conversions) such as white paper downloads, sign-ups for virtual tours, and contact form registrations. This type of tracking is common with PPC campaigns, but unfortunately often ignored within SEO efforts.

Measure linking effectiveness

Are you tracking the effectiveness of your linking campaign? Linking not only helps search engines place value on your pages, but it also helps drive highly targeted prospects to your website. I suggest creating a list of all the websites that link to yours and track this on an ongoing basis.

• The easiest way to determine websites linking to yours is by conducting this Google search: link:www.yourwebsite.com
• To find additional sites that might be linking to yours, try: @yourwebsite.com

Again, compare this linking information to your analytics data. Are your link partners actually driving traffic to your site? Linking should always be an ongoing initiative, so use these insights to continually improve your linking initiative. If you find that one type of site is driving more traffic, or higher quality traffic, than another type — focus future link building research in this direction.

Measuring additional off-page initiatives

In addition to linking, measure the effectiveness of other off-page SEO efforts as well, such as:

• Social media. Measure traffic and results from social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and blog sites such as Technorati.
• Video SEO. Measure traffic and results from video community websites like YouTube.
• Optimized PR. Measure results from sites where your press releases and articles are posted.

All of these efforts must be related back to your web analytics data to determine how effective these channels actually are for driving targeted traffic and bottom line business results.

Web analytics integration

It all circles back to analytics.

Bottom line: web analytics is the cornerstone of measuring SEO success. But don’t stop there. Combine analytics data with keyword ranking, linking reports, and conversion metrics to track improvements over time and to proactively prove the value of SEO.