| Here are some statistics from a recent B to B Survey: | | | | Building inbound links is also a critical part of SEO. Many |
| 93.4% of respondents use the internet to research a B | | | | business websites will naturally attract inbound links |
| to B purchase decision. | | | | over time--however, few websites achieve enough |
| 63.9% of respondents go to the search engine as the | | | | natural link strength to exclude a targeted link-building |
| first step in the buying process. | | | | campaign as a component of their SEO efforts. SEO |
| 54.6% of the people are 1-3 months away from | | | | professionals need to acquire inbound links...usually a |
| making a buying decision. | | | | significant number of them...in order to achieve the |
| 89.7% of the people are 2 weeks to 6 months away | | | | desired search engine results for the client. |
| from making a buying decision. | | | | I don't need a SEO to trade links for my company...I'll |
| 36.8% researched and bought online; 27.3% | | | | just send out a bunch of e-mails to people in my |
| researched online and bought offline; only 7.9% didn't | | | | network and I'll get all the links I need for my corporate |
| find what they were looking for. | | | | SEO effort. |
| 76.7% of Google users used the natural search links. | | | | Similar to SEO novices, some professional SEO's still |
| The top 3 organic listings accounted for 59.6% of the | | | | research and contact webmasters of relevant |
| click-thrus. | | | | websites one-by-one to ask for a link exchange. This |
| (Source: Enquiro Search Solutions Inc.) | | | | is frequently a slow, inefficient process that likely will |
| The evidence is overwhelming: If a business website | | | | achieve underwhelming results and can even subject |
| isn't ranked as one of the top natural search results in | | | | the SEO to spam complaints. Recently, many |
| the prospect's search, the company won't likely be | | | | link-trading networks have evolved whereby a |
| part of the buying decision. Without search engine | | | | webmaster can easily and quickly contact large |
| optimization, it is extremely unlikely that the site will rank | | | | numbers of relevant webmasters who know the value |
| well enough to be found naturally by potential | | | | of link-trading and who are receptive to link exchanges. |
| prospects. | | | | Over time, an SEO can acquire large numbers of |
| SEO is easy...all I need to do is write good meta-tags | | | | targeted inbound links through networks...however, an |
| for my company website, right? | | | | SEO must be carefully not to acquire too many |
| While many Search Engine Optimizer novices might | | | | inbound links too quickly as that can be construed as |
| even know---or think they know---a few basic SEO | | | | search engine spam. |
| rules, it's unlikely they'll be equipped with enough | | | | Link text (the text that someone uses to link to you) is |
| knowledge to effectively compete with SEO's in the B | | | | a critical element of link trading and SEO. The link text |
| to B marketplace. With few exceptions, B to B | | | | needs to contain the most important keywords to the |
| websites in well-trafficked online niches, without a | | | | SEO effort since link text is given a lot of weight in |
| professional search engine optimization effort, won't | | | | search engine algorithms. Furthermore, link text |
| achieve high enough natural search rankings to make | | | | shouldn't always be the same...it needs to be varied so |
| more than a very modest number of sales. | | | | as to cover the breadth of the website's top |
| OK, you convinced me. What will an SEO actually do | | | | keywords in order to achieve optimum results. |
| for my company? | | | | My SEO finished the textual optimization and |
| An SEO campaign consists of two primary tasks: | | | | link-trading. The process is complete, right? |
| 1)Optimizing the website content / creating new | | | | Not quite. An SEO will also monitor the levels of web |
| optimized content, and 2)Building inbound links to the | | | | traffic the site is generating, as well as the search |
| website. | | | | keywords/search engines used by website visitors. A |
| Before an SEO can work with the site's content, he | | | | business might be focused on the rankings the website |
| she must perform a detailed website keyword | | | | is receiving for their top keywords...of more value to |
| analysis. They need to determine what keywords a | | | | the SEO is reading their web stats to see how site |
| prospective customer could use to find the business | | | | visitors are actually finding the website. Armed with the |
| online. From this list, they must make a determination | | | | necessary information, the SEO will tweak the website |
| as to which keywords / groups of pertinent keywords | | | | text over time to achieve optimum rankings and results |
| they can reasonably expect to achieve high rankings | | | | for the client. One can see some results of the initial |
| for the client...for it makes no sense to waste effort on | | | | textual optimization relatively quickly...however, it could |
| keywords where success is remote. Then, the SEO | | | | take 3-6 months to see the results of a link-building |
| must map the targeted keywords to the page(s) on | | | | campaign in conjunction with optimized content. For |
| the website where they most logically fit. The most | | | | optimum results, a link-building campaign should never |
| critical keywords on the list need to map to the index | | | | really end...new inbound links should be added every |
| page because the index page possesses the most | | | | month. |
| search engine "strength" of any website page. If there | | | | If 93.4% of B to B purchase decisions have an internet |
| are keywords that can't logically map to any existing | | | | component, businesses that have "Internet Invisible" |
| area of the site, the SEO might want to rely on the | | | | websites can only equally compete for 6.6% of the |
| services of a copywriter to add website content. | | | | total market. An SEO campaign can get a company |
| The SEO then "massages" the website text, working | | | | noticed by the 93.4% who go online to research and |
| the targeted keywords into the existing content with | | | | or purchase a product or service. If a company can |
| dual goals: | | | | truly understand the large number of leads and sales |
| 1) Achieving optimum keyword density and optimum | | | | they are not getting by being "functionally offline", the |
| page length. | | | | business case to be made for SEO is very powerful. |
| 2) Making the text read as naturally as possible. | | | | |