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Revenue Generation Tactics With Search Engine Optimization

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Posted by John Beveridge on Sep 6, 2012 6:21:00 AM

inbound marketing SEO tacticsI've been fortunate to see Rand Fishkin of SEO Moz present twice in the past 30 days and wanted to share some of his latest advice on how to get the most out of your search engine optimization efforts.  Fishkin is truly a thought leader in the field of search engine optimization and his insights represent the latest thinking on the topic. 

Google's Penguin and Panda updates to their search algorithm have had a profound impact on search engine optimization strategies over the past two years.  At the risk of oversimplifying complicated search algorithms, the two recent updates have made it easier for small businesses that produce great content to drive web traffic through search engine results and social media shares of their content.  At the same time, Penguin and Panda make it more difficult for sites that over-optimize for search engine optimization and don't produce good content.

So why is all this important for your B2B revenue generation efforts?

  1. Google recently announced that there were 3 billion search engine queries conducted per day in 2012, a doubling of 2011's pace.
  2. The DAC Group's 2011 Study concluded that 71% of enterprise purchase decisions originate with a search engine query.

If you want to gain a competitive advantage in your revenue generation efforts, you need to be using your website and social media to sell.  If you're using the web for revenue generation, you need to be using search engine optimization strategies that reflect today's realities.

Here are some tips and tactics from Rand Fishkin to give you a competitive advantage in your inbound revenue generation.

Being Ranked #1 Doesn't Ensure the Highest Click-Through Rate

While it's true that higher-ranked search engine results generally produce more clicks, searchers are now looking more closely at how the results are displayed before deciding which to click on.  Here's an image from Fishkin's presentation at Inbound 2012 that illustrates the concept:

SEO Moz

In addition to search engine results, other factors including the date of the post, images and video snippets in the results and ratings of the content all influence which results are accessed.  All things being equal, search engine results with images, videos and rankings will give you a competitive advantage.  Here's a blog post that details how you can include your photo in the search engine results for your articles.

Go Beyond Twitter and Facebook with Your Social Sharing

Prevailing SEO wisdom over the past few years was that you only really needed to worry about Facebook and Twitter to gain a competitive advantage with your search engine results.  Most marketers know that LinkedIn is 3 times more effective than either Facebook or Twitter for B2B revenue generation.  Google+ plays a major role in your search engine results - if you're not using Google+, you should be.  New social media channels like Pinterest are also rapidly gaining influence in search engine results.  My recommendation is that you should be using at a minimum Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn to share your content.  Depending on your target market, you may also want to consider other channels like Pinterest (image-based) and Orkut (major social media channel in Brazil.)  It's very important to create good content and share it through social media channels to influence search engine results.

Social links build themselves - if you produce good content that's shared on social media, you will get links to your site without trying.  This is another reason why social sharing can produce a notable competitive advantage.  Don't be afraid to promote good content more than once on your social channels; social media timelines move so fast that your messages move quickly out of view.  If you post a good piece of content at 7 PM, make sure to post it again in the morning to ensure the maximum audience reach.  Inbound and social software packages like Hubspot and HootSuite can calculate the optimal timing for your social sharing.

 

Social Media Planning Guide Download

Don't Just Focus on High-Search Volume  Keyword Terms

If you're just focusing on high-search volume keywords, you'll be facing a lot of competition.  Small businesses should focus on targeted long-tail keyword terms.  For example, rather than focus on the keyword term restaurants, consider a more targeted term that more accurately reflects your business like Northern Virginia Italian Restaurants.  By doing so, not only will you face less competition for search engine results, but the traffic you generate to your website will be more highly qualified as a potential purchaser of your products and services. 

Believe it or not, 15% of Google's daily searches are for keyword terms that have never been searched before!  I recommend that you review the organic search terms producing traffic to your website on a weekly basis.  When (not if) you find keyword terms that you haven't been targeting are driving traffic to your site, add them to your target list and consider using them in your content.

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These are just a few tactics to consider to gain a competitive advantage through your SEO efforts.  I recommend you review Rand Fishkin's SlideShare post of his presentation at Inbound 2012 for a deeper dive into his SEO thinking.

Topics: Inbound Marketing

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