As opposed to outbound marketing (another term for traditional marketing) where the marketing reach was from the company to the customer, SEO is an inbound marketing technique that aids marketers to be found by prospects.
The primary work of a search engine is to find relevant results for user-provided search terms. And, lead generation means focusing on activities that drives traffic to website. So in order to highlight a website link during those searches, B2B marketers need to optimize their web pages for higher visibility. SEO practices help to raise marketer’s webpage rankings compared to those of his competitors.
Lead generation is the first step in any marketing activity and it requires help from various quarters, of which SEO is primary. Therefore, building a SEO-friendly website becomes the first priority for a B2B marketer. By creating one, B2B marketers can project their websites as being popular and resourceful; and as part of his lead generation efforts, he can also:
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Highlight content embedded in the site
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Project value propositions/offers
SEO is a very dynamic area. This means, rankings may fluctuate severely for terms, phrases and links. This may be due to sudden change in search engine algorithms as well. So, time and again marketers may witness ups and downs in their search engine rankings. During such fluctuations marketers need to carefully review page elements and check if action has to be taken for violations or optimization improvements. Above all, marketers must remember that change in content will also be reflected in rankings. All these considerations should go in during the building of a stable marketing automation system as well.
Listed below is a five-point checklist for SEO that marketers can use to build a SEO friendly website.
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Use Free Analytics – Google Analytics and other tools provide fairly decent metrics that can be use to baseline SEO activity.
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Get the list ready – Research, brainstorm and pool in ideas from Sales and Marketing to create that first list of keywords. For starters, Google Adwords is a great place to ascertain keyword rankings and trends. Finalize keywords based on uniqueness, popularity and relevance.
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Prioritize use of keywords – Start SEO activities with a small set first so that further analysis is easy and compensations can be made based on the results generated from them. For this, use the keywords in content that is visible to readers. Creative content like blogs, Tweets, forum discussions, Facebook, and PR releases can provide the much needed publicity and search ranks as well.
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Monitor – Constantly assess rankings and work on those that don’t create enough impact on search engines.
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