Revive Stagnant Paid Search Campaigns: Brian Geddes @ SMX West 2014

Brad Geddes is one of the acknowledged experts in paid search marketing. I've had the pleasure, and the competitive advantage, of taking his Google Adwords classes in the past. Brad Geddes's presentation "Breathing New Life Into A Tired Paid Search Campaign" at SMX West 2014 is worth a serious look and review, especially for those of us who have been running Adwords campaigns for years. In my case, for over 11 years. Paid Search is too effective for lead generation to be taken for granted, or allowed to wallow on extended auto-pilot mode!

Breathing New Life Into A Tired Paid Search Campaign from Search Marketing Expo - SMX

SMX West 2014: Blog Coverage Recap

What happened at SMX 2014?

This informative posting on Search Engine Land by Barry Schwartz provides a quick but detailed listing and links to the major topics and highlights presented at SMX West (Search Marketing Expo West) for 2014 in San Jose. For any serious search engine marketer, this SMX West post is worth a digging into!

Google Search Amit Singhal At SMX West 2014

Amit Singhal, the top manager of Google Search, was interviewed by Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan during SMX 2014 in San Jose. Here is a link to that interview. For anyone who is exploiting search engine marketing for leads, revenue, and ecommerce, this interview is worth a quick read.

Live Blog: Head Of Google Search Amit Singhal Keynote At SMX West 2014

There is also a surprise appearance from another famous Google Employee.

A partial video feed can be seen on YouTube.

"The SEO Revolution Will Not Be Televised" - Presented at SMX West 2014

Presented during the Keynote session of the first day of SMX West 2014, Rand Fishkin presented a short but thought-provoking presentation sharing his opinions on where he sees Search and Search Engine Marketing are going in the near future.

The SEO Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Rand Fishkin of Moz from Search Marketing Expo - SMX

B-to-B Web Marketing Should Help Sales People Sell

An effective B-to-B website is a salesperson's friend.

Successful B-to-B internet marketing is not only focused on search engine tactics, lead generation, and branding. Effective internet marketing also provides tangible aide and support to the business development team. A good B-to-B website should help open those proverbial closed doors and open the minds of valuable prospective clients.

A recent success underlines the importance of why supporting your sales team with good web marketing will pay strong dividends. An admirably persistent senior business development professional with decades of successful industry experience wrote the following sales report regarding a strategic key account target opportunity:

An Effective B-to-B Website Helps The Sales Process. 

"I've been trying to contact this prospective client for a while and I finally got a meeting with him. The contact explained that he typically does not meet with vendors of our size, but thought that this particular contract was warranted of some research as I continued to leave messages and emails."

"The contact went on line prior to our meeting and researched our website and was impressed with what he saw…"you guys could obviously handle the work".

"The contact has put us on the bid list and we should expect the bid package shortly."

How did internet marketing help bring about this important sales step? By helping to inform and educate the prospective client about our company, at his own time and choosing.

The website acted as a strong verification and validation of our company's capabilities and expertise, helping convince this important contact that our company offers the right products, expertise, and services his company needs. His research into our website convinced him that we were a vendor worthy of consideration, and helped our business development representative "close the deal" by putting our company into their coveted bidder's list.

For successful web marketing, "Content is King". This approach helps your sales team. Good content can be used at all the multiple stages of the sales process, from early research to validation, verification, and call-to-action. Having intelligent, precise, concise, content is key to technical B-to-B success. Like a good sales brochure, effective website content acts as an educational sales tool, helping the client navigate from the initial discovery & research phases to sale and post-sale follow-up.

How does one ensure web content is helping their sales team? Listen to the sales team, ask questions. Get feedback. Go out and meet clients. Walk in the shoes of your business development team. Mingle with clients and prospective clients at trade shows, conferences, and other events. Track industry news. Take an interest, roll up your sleeves, and get involved. Don't be remote.

Along with quality lead generation, helping salespeople close sales should be a top priority for B-to-B marketeers. Sales people are one of the main spark plugs which make a company engine run. Having been a successful B-to-B industrial salesperson myself for many years has greatly influenced my approach to marketing.

If marketing doesn't help sales people, it won't help the rest of the company very much, either.

Good marketing succeeds on the ground, in the trenches, and is viewed as a valuable resource business development people want to use. So be useful!

Give Your Sales Teams What They Crave This Valentine's Day - Good Leads.

How to increase your budget and invest in SEO and Content Marketing?

Budget sufficient resources to a proven lead generator: Search Engine Marketing.

A marketer recently posted an excellent question on a Linkedin marketing group, asking "How do we free up budget to invest in SEO/Content Marketing?". He was hearing clients complain that their companies were not investing sufficient resources into search engine marketing when compared to traditional media such as print advertising and trade shows. He posted this question to encourage input on how to resolve this budget and resource challenge.

Budgeting for SEO is an excellent question. My answer is below:

For B2B, my 12+ years of Search Engine Marketing experience show that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are, by far, the number one drivers of new leads. This happy reality can be shared and brought home to upper management by diligent tracking and reporting. Sharing lead statistics and educating management on the evolving nature of how leads are generated really help in creating support for SEO and SEM, and both organic and paid search.

Search Engine Marketing Dominates Lead Gen.

If managed properly, SEO and SEM can produce many, many, more leads than print, trade shows, etc, and cost much less per lead. Search Engine Marketing will not replace these other activities, you need them all to be most effective.

But with search engines producing almost 75% of all business leads, according to a recent survey, B2B marketers and companies must pay attention to SEO and SEM, or risk losing business opportunities (strategic & transactional) and market share.

This new Pardot lead gen survey is very educational, and one excellent graphic in the survey is well worth showing to people in order to assist growing your SEO and SEM budget. I've blogged about it and related B2B lead gen experiences at: "Want B2B Leads? Pay Close Attention to Google Search and Content"

Want B2B Leads? Pay Close Attention to Google Search and Content.

A recent study by Mathew Sweezey, Marketing Evangelist for Pardot, reinforces the key role of search engine marketing for lead generation. In his paper "The State of Demand Generation 2013", the results of a user survey clearly list the main effective ingredients needed to enjoy successful B2B lead generation:

1. Obtain Search Engine Marketing Success, especially Google Search Engine Success.

2. Employ Short Content on Webpages and White Papers.... Concise, Precise, and Relevant.

In summary, B2B Buyers use Google Search, and like Relevant and Short Content on Webpages and White Papers. Worth Repeating: "B2B Buyers use Google Search and like Relevant and Short Content."

The same study indicated that an impressive "72% of product research for a future business purchase begins on Google." Nearly 3 out of 4 B2B leads start on Google.

72% of B2B Leads Begin on Google Search, per Mathew Sweezey, Pardot.

No amount of creative branding content or social media chatter will mitigate this fact. If you're not focused on winning with search engine marketing, you're at risk of missing nearly 3 out of 4 potential leads!

From my own experience, this simple formula of efficient content and effective SEO has produced over 10 years of outstanding organic search engine marketing lead generation success for B2B niche markets. I've focused on what our potential customers need and are looking for, in order to provide solutions to their problems.

Like a good consultative selling sales pitch, my webpages provide features which bring benefits to meet the prospective customer's needs. This customer-centric approach works for Google SERPs as well, based upon the superior search ranking results I commonly enjoy.

To optimize your lead generation success, craft webpage content to be efficient and relevant, focused, and concise. Content should be as short as reasonably possible, to best provide key information easily to a hectic, busy, potential client. Quickly give them the facts they need in order to be educated and motivated to contact you as a quality business lead.

Potential clients will not waste their valuable time attempting to sift through wordy webpages or white papers full of flowery, self-important, lightweight "content". They want straight facts and answers, and they want them now.

Include and use appropriate technical terms, acronyms, and jargon, because that specialized vocabulary is a key component in the business language of the targeted niche clientele. It is also good practice to spell these abbreviations out at least once on the page, as appropriate, both for visitor comprehension and search engine optimization. Make content simple and relevant for the potential client.

B2B lead generation content is usually designed to reach and influence lucrative and small market niches, not a mass audiences. You want that "1%" of the global potential audience, so talk directly to them. Don't worry about the other "99%" who will not give you any business under any circumstances.

Avoid creating excessive content. Don't 'tell a story' and yammer on telling the world how wonderful and great your company is. Potential clients can see right through this self-centered hype and quickly move on to a competitor who is more focused on the client.

In short, for superior B2B lead generation, focus on search engine marketing combined with concise and precise webpages, white papers, and other content. Include a clear call-to-action. These best practices are true big B2B lead generation winners.

A special thanks is given to Ayaz Nanji, with MarketingProfs, for his post which alerted me to Mathew Sweezey's paper. Ayaz gives an excellent overview of the Pardot report at: B2B Buyers Prefer Short Content; Rely Heavily on Google Searches.

B-to-B Web Marketing Should Help Sales People Sell.

FEED Your Website. FEED IT.

Alternatives to Google Analytics 'Not Provided' Organic Search Keywords

Google Closes The Curtain on Organic Keyword Research

Google has mostly shut down the ability to see the organic search terms visitors use when visiting our websites, creating an unwelcome blind-spot when applying organic keyword research to search engine optimization efforts.

To understand what Google did to expand "Secure Search" and what it means to SEO practitioners, read a recent article posted by Thom Craver on September 23, 2013: Goodbye, Keyword Data: Google Moves Entirely to Secure Search.

This is not the end of life as we know it.

But using keyword research to enhance SEO is not dead!

Jennifer Slegg has produced an excellent overview on useful options and tactics to obtain meaningful keyword data for SEO: Google '(Not Provided)' Keywords: 10 Ways to Get Organic Search Data

Here are Jennifer's alternative keyword research suggestions. Read her informative article to learn more:

1. Google Experts (Avinash Kaushik, for example)

2. Non-Google Keywords (BING, for example)

3. Google Webmaster Tools

4. Analyze On-Site Searches

5. Google AdWords

6. Search Volume Tools

7. Filters to Segment "Not Provided" Data

8.  Historical Data on your website

9. Google Trends

10. Additional Ways to Capture Keyword Data

From my own perspective the action Google has taken in cloaking organic search terms is irritating from an SEO perspective, but at the same time this development is not fatal. Far from it.

Organic keyword research solely based upon looking at one's own website analytics can be risky, because like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the organic search terms you see (saw) in Analytics are there only because your webpages ranked for those search terms, and this implies that you already have related, relevant search terms in your website and webpages. But what about the search terms you don't (didn't) see, because your website either doesn't have them, or Google didn't think the content was relevant?

The bottom line is that keyword research must by necessity go beyond the organic search terms used by visitors to your website. In order to cast a wider net for lead generation and target new or overlooked lucrative market niches it is important to use all the options listed by Jennifer in her article.

The best source of valuable keywords will be from your customers and potential customers. What search terms do they use? What terminology and acronyms are important to them? Get close to your markets and customers, find keywords they find important, and you'll be able to ID lucrative opportunities your competition will overlook.

Search Engine Marketing is Industrial Strength Lead Generation (Or Should Be)

Selling B-to-B Services and Products?

Use Search Engine Marketing to give your business "Industrial Strength" Lead Generation.

With nearly 11 years of successful and global search engine marketing lead generation success under my belt, it's easy to assume that everyone should by now understand that good b-to-b marketing and lead generation should include a high dosage of brilliant PPC (pay per click), SEM (search engine marketing), and SEO (search engine optimization) at all times.

But for many companies, search engine success is clearly not working. Many B-to-B companies ignore, discount, flounder, under-invest, follow foolish or bad advice, and badly under-perform when judged by the harsh light of search engine marketing results.

Companies burdened with poor Search Engine Marketing (SEM) capabilities are literally leaving high value quality business leads (money) on the table, just waiting for someone else to pick them up. Entire business streams worth millions of dollars are won or lost this way.

Industrial Strength Lead Generation.

I know, because I've been on the winning side of these search engine wars for a long time. I'm picking my competitor's pockets over and over and over again. Your competitors may not even be aware there is a "search engine battle" for leads going on! Guess what? They lost before the fight even started.

Intelligent search engine marketing, both organic and paid, works extremely well in generating quality leads. When managed properly, SEO, PPC, and SEM work so well they should be considered as strategic "industrial strength" lead generation machines.

How well does search engine marketing work? From my experience, obtaining 67% of all monthly visits to key B-to-B websites by search engines is not unusual. Organic search can often run at over 58% of total visits, while paid search visits produce around 9% of visitor traffic. My approach is to use paid search to produce an additional, smaller, flow of quality leads. Paid search is like adding cream and sugar to your coffee, where organic search is the coffee and paid search is the cream and sugar. Organic search should ideally carry the larger lead gen load.

The percentage of leads generated from search engine visitors via the web is very high. I can't imagine running any serious lead generation campaigns without search engine marketing being a top tactical and strategic component.

Search engine marketing  pulls in leads from unexpected, previously unknown, high-value contacts. Would you like to experience a successful trade show every day, churning out valuable leads for your business on a 24/7/365 basis? Then pay attention to search engine marketing. Success will come for the diligent, the patient, and the persistent.

Stick with the basics and success with SEM will happen. With technical B-to-B, it really helps to know and understand the markets and customers you are targeting. Build relevant, concise, and precise content, using thier terminology and jargon, not yours. Be customer focused. Use proven and sound SEO and PPC practices, and ignore bad, 'trendy', incompetent, or 'black-hat' advice.

When properly designed and applied, Search Engine Marketing is true "Industrial Strength" lead generation.

Give Your Sales Teams What They Crave This Valentine's Day - Good Leads

Updated February 2017.

Search Engine Marketing Psychology

Study Search Engine Psychology for Success, Seriously.

Customers are in "Hunt Mode" when using Search Engines.

Understand and apply Search Engine Marketing Psychology and you'll greatly increase the probability for high organic search rankings, more effective paid ads, and achieve higher conversions and quality lead generation.

When technical business-to-business professionals use a search engine, time is money. They want answers and solutions quickly. They don't want their time wasted! Search engine marketing is high-stakes and is not like other website traffic.

Search engines attract B-to-B customer and prospect usage when:

• They are actively seeking information.
• Searchers are researching. They are in hunt mode.
• Searchers are solving a problem.
• Searcher wants to learn more - NOW.
• They want relevance and answers - FAST.
• They want tangible solutions to their problems.

They usually don't care at this crucial search psychology stage about how wonderful your company history, logo, heritage, or brand are. They want relevant information, a solution, a solution provider, and they want it now.

To boost the chances of being seen in search results and 'win" with quality lead generation, focus is vital. Provide clear, concise, precise, content that a busy professional will usually "scan" (not "read") and make it easy for that prospective customer to take positive action in contacting your company.

How should webpages be optimized so that a organic search engine searcher's psychological need for content clarity and focus are met, and a lead is generated? 

The solution is simple. Focus on what is important. Cut out extraneous verbiage and clutter. 

Reduce or even better eliminate verbose, flowery, brochure-ware content, corporate-talk, and other marketing fluff. Produce lean content which will quickly impress a potential client. Don't use bloated content built to flatter and please you and your management. Focus on the core solutions, features, and benefits, instead. Use the technical terminology your potential client is going to use, remember your target market is that small but lucrative B-to-B niche... not the general public.

Reduce marginal and distracting clutter surrounding the core service or product content. Make it simple and painless for your potential customer to find what they are looking for.

Last but not least, provide a clear and easy call-to-action. Don't make the visitor think too hard about how to contact your company!