B2B SEO Accountability
There are many B2B companies that think Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a foreign practice. Understanding SEO is made even more difficult when there are SEO agencies over promising and practicing “Black Hat” SEO. How can you tell if you’ve got the right agency to manage your B2B SEO? There are 3 steps you can take to hold your B2B SEO agency accountable:
1. Make Keyword Choices Appropriate for your Business
2. Watch and Follow More Than Rankings
3. Research ROI
Appropriate Keyword Choice
Every good B2B SEO program begins with solid research. Most of that research will be utilized to select keywords you’ll use to help have increased visibility among various search engines.With that said, do you know what criteria your SEO agency had in place when choosing your targeted keyword phrases?
It’s very important that your keywords match audience or searcher’s intent.When a keyword or phrase that you are optimized for is searched, the user should be looking for your specific service.
Are the search volume figures(the average number of monthly searches for that keyword or phrase) for those keywords decent? Your B2B Search agency should make their keyword recommendations based on search volume, level of competition, and applicability to your service. With tools such as Google’s free Keyword Tool you can determine search volume and PPC competitive data. In addition, your SEO agency should also analyze your online competition and get to know your services.With all of the research combined they should be able to determine the best keywords and phrases for your SEO program. It’s important that you’re involved in this portion of your SEO program, don’t get left behind! Don’t hesitate to ask questions and get all of the information you need, on why certain keywords are being chosen.
I Want More Than Rankings…Give Me Traffic!
Your search agency should be tracking the results of their efforts as part of your B2B SEO program.This means more than just rankings should be considered. Better rankings are a good step in the track to SEO success, it’s not 100% reliable data point due to factors like localized and personalized search.Search results can change from location to location, it doesn’t matter the distance it could be from home to the office or state to state the search results will be different.
A better measure for SEO success is an increase in organic traffic. You can find these results in any analytics provider, of course only if your company in fact set up analytics. If your B2B SEO agency has done everything correct and has recommended the right keywords and implemented your program than analytics should show increases in traffic via search engines. These statistics should be on the rise in addition you should be seeing direct traffic from your selected keywords and phrases.
They Say ROI Can’t Be Tracked?
Perhaps one of the largest challenges in finding success in your B2B SEO program is finding your Return on Investment (ROI).Analytics give you many insights, tracking organic traffic to the final conversion can be rather difficult for B2B companies because of their long complex sales cycles. So, how can you hold your Search Marketing Agency accountable to your ROI when most end conversions take place off-line as opposed to on your website?
Target conversions!A B2B company will discover the value of the lead and then use that to wage the success of their off-line marketing print and television advertising campaigns. Your analytics should be programmed to monitor your users actions such as downloading a whitepaper, filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or reading a case study.
These actions can’t necessarily convert a user to into a client, the do however become more engaged with your company and can be considered a prospect.You can start to measure if your B2B search agency has given you ROI on your SEO investment by giving each different prospect a value.
Use this guide to hold your agency accountable for traffic quality as well. You can also find the targeted keywords and phrases that are driving high quality traffic through goal conversions.
Holding Your B2B Search Agency Accountable with Proper Expectations
You don’t have to know the entire SEO process in order to hold your B2B SEO agency accountable for delivering results. You can detect a great search marketing agency if they start every project with proper expectations. Program goals should be considered along with those expectations.How will your company benefit?Can you track your success? It’s important to insist that your agency gives you the data and thinking for selecting your keywords.Request to see more than just search rankings to prove success. To ensure you’re getting ROI track your site activity and assign a value to prospects. Become part of the process and you won’t have a problem holding your agency accountable.