A BrightEdger

M Posted 9 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

Year-End Budget Strategy

Everyone who sells faces the “I-have-no-budget” objection, and as we get to the end of the calendar and fiscal years we sometimes take the easy way out and start asking about how we can get in the consideration cycle for the following year. But in between this year and next year is a little window of budget that can emerge as actuals come in. The use-it-or-lose-it budgeting policies affect government buyers the most with research showing a five time increase in expenditure in the final week of the fiscal year vs an average weekly expenditure. Because of the compressed time schedule, purchases face less scrutiny at year end than in other parts of the year.

The end of the year is an important time for B2B companies and their budget strategy. It is common for businesses to experience a decrease in traffic and conversions during this time with the holidays and budgetary issues slowing spending. B2B companies looking to capture the leftover budget from their clients, however, may find success with online marketing and effective sales follow-through. Because it is less busy in many offices as the holidays and end of year approach, it can be a good time to work around your budget strategy and engage your prospects, but you have to start a few months ahead to identify your opportunities, build content, build pipeline, and advance your prospects on the customer journey to purchase.

Content development and online marketing are becoming increasingly important in the world of B2B marketing. Although many people associate online marketing with B2C, in the United States B2B e-commerce is already twice as large as B2C e-commerce and it is predicted that B2B sales will reach $780 billion by the end of 2015. This will be 9.3 percent of all B2B sales. It is also worth noting that as many as 67 percent of B2B buyers rely more on content for their research and guidance on their purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. Despite these numbers, nearly 60 percent of B2B marketers do not consider their marketing campaigns to be successful, particularly when it comes to demand generation. Fortunately, as we prepare to head into the close of 2015, there is still a little time left to ramp up your online marketing efforts and finish capturing new prospect and customers to include in your budget strategy. Here are some key ways to figure out your year-end budget strategy:

• Mine keyword data for end-of-year spikes and opportunities
• Know your competitors' strengths and weaknesses in key content areas
• Increase conversions by optimizing your landing pages to make it easy to find contact information
• Incorporate the search, social, and content trifecta
• Prepare for mobile
• Perpetually monitor with a platform that gives you the full picture

1. Mine keyword data for end-of-year spikes and opportunities. Data we have collected at BrightEdge indicates that an estimated 51 percent of traffic originates from organic sources. The majority of your site visitors find your page because they clicked on a page in the SERP and it took them to your site. Ranking well is critical to the success of B2B online marketing.

The BrightEdge Data Cube empowers you with key insights into the topics and keywords that your audience desires. You will have access to information gathered from millions of different websites, allowing you to pinpoint the exact areas where you can attract the attention of your customers and bring them back to your website.

You can use this information to begin identifying a targeted keyword list that will guide your content creation and keyword usage. By leveraging industry-leading technology, you can track what people are paying attention to throughout the last months of the year and the impact that your content is having on those visitors.

2. Know your competitors' strengths and weaknesses in key content areas. When it comes to ranking well on SERPs, you not only need the quality content and the keywords that match what your customers seek, you also have to outrank your competitors. You want to know where your competitors are performing well and where their campaigns are the weakest. Information about the keywords and content types that are resulting in the most leads and conversions can give you insight into where your marketing needs to position your brand. Analysis of your competitors’ weaknesses can also provide you with fertile ground upon which you can capitalize and draw out new segments of your customer base. Use this information to help refine your targeted keyword list, such as by prioritizing untapped profitable terms. The BrightEdge Data Cube and platform can also be a valuable resource when it comes to accomplishing these goals. You can monitor the sites of your competitors and get insights about their traffic and the keywords for which they rank well. You can run analyses that allow you to measure your progress against your competitors’ pages and gain greater understanding of how to maximize your exposure.

3. Increase conversions by optimizing your landing pages to make it easy to find contact information. The importance of content for a B2B online marketing plan cannot be underestimated. An estimated 64 percent of B2B technology buyers say that they read between 2 and 5 pieces of content before they make a purchase. Business customers want to have content available to help them understand the value of your products and services. This content should be developed based upon the targeted keyword list you created earlier. Compelling content will result in a client-centric experience throughout the site. That includes writing product descriptions and using language and adjectives that appeal strongly to your intended audience. In addition to creating engaging, informative content, you also need to optimize your landing page to bring people down the sales funnel. Keep in mind also the information that B2B customers want to see an appropriate amount of content and details about your company and customers on your website. For example, 53 percent of people in a KoMarketing/Huff Industrial Marketing survey said that Thorough Contact Information was necessary to establish vendor credibility. At the same time, 51 percent of survey respondents indicated that contact information is precisely what is missing on most websites. Following contact information, the next most important website feature was an About Page and Team Bios.

4. Incorporate the search, social, and content trifecta. Search, social and content are intimately connected online. Strong content always forms the backbone - the rest of a campaign will fall apart if it is not supported by a content that matches the reader’s needs with well-formed copy that is easy to digest. To help that content succeed on search, however, you need to also leverage the power of social media. Google has said that they do not directly measure social signals, such as likes or shares, as a part of their algorithm. They do, however, measure traffic and backlinks, both of which social media will be useful at providing. When you have well-written content that meets the needs of customers and promote it through social media, it will naturally bump your traffic rate and can also increase your backlinks. Social media is particularly important when it comes to online commerce. When your content helps to increase your brand reach, you in turn increase the chance of engaging with readers across social media. Forty percent of B2B buyers say that LinkedIn is a valuable resource for researching technology and services they might want to buy. Forty five percent of B2B marketers say that they have generated leads through LinkedIn and another 39 percent say they have found leads through Facebook. Maximizing your use of social, however, requires careful considerations about the types of content and the topics you write about. Tools like Social SEO Recommendations can help you follow social trends and publish content that will capture people’s attention about their favorite subjects. This will help to amplify your social efforts and get your message in front of more members of your intended audience.

5. Prepare for mobile. As of April 2015, more Google searches have begun to take place on mobile devices rather than computers in 10 different countries, including major consumers like the United States and Japan. At BrightEdge, our own research has also indicated that customers are buying both large and small items on mobile devices, so mobile e-commerce matters even more now. Over the course of the first three quarters of 2014, we found that the average order size was within a 10 percent range between mobile and desktop. Given the willingness of customers to buy items of all sizes on mobile, you need to make sure your B2B site is ready to meet the need. Mobile is also a prominent factor in the use of social media. Forty percent of cell phone owners say that they use social media sites on their phones, with 28 percent they do so on a typical day. Given the importance of social media in securing leads for B2B marketers, it makes sense that having a mobile friendly site that can be easily accessed will help enhance any end-of-the-year online campaign. Mobile friendly sites should include responsive web design to ensure that the site fits easily on the smaller screen. The site should also be easy to use with a touch screen and the needs of mobile customers - such as phone numbers and addresses - should also be easily found on mobile site versions. Avoid major mobile errors by reviewing Google’s mobile recommendations to make sure your site is ready to go.

6. Perpetually monitor with a platform that gives you the full picture. As you begin to implement your plan for the end of the year marketing season, you want to make sure that the platform you use can show you the entire picture. You need to be able to see how you and your competitors are performing in real time throughout the last few months. Watch how your keywords are performing, where you are weakest and determine what you need to do to improve. As new keywords and content trends begin to form on social media, make sure that you are ready to produce and publish content that fits these needs to help expand the reach of your brand and the power of your content marketing campaign. BrightEdge is here to provide these service and more. With industry leading technology, you can dive into the data that will help drive your business forward. It will help you not only take preventive steps to avoid unnecessary drops in revenue during this important season, but actually thrive throughout this period. The end of the year is a critical time for B2B brands. It is the time to finish the year on a strong note and prepare to enter the new year in the black. Position yourself wisely, plan, develop content, deploy, and keep reaching out, so you will be equipped to capture the leftover year-end budget and contribute efforts toward your budget strategy from your prospects. Increase your online marketing leverage now to make it happen at year end.

A BrightEdger

M Posted 9 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

Google made another announcement recently that is generating considerable conversation. Over the next few months they will create a new mobile index. What's really notable is this new index will become their primary index, eventually replacing the desktop-first version. The goal of this move is to provide the ever-increasing number of mobile users with a superior online experience. The move towards a separate mobile index comes in response to the hyper-growth in mobile usage. In 2015 when speaking about the need for mobile indexing, Gary Illyes said that having a separate index for mobile users did not make sense when more searches were performed on desktop. Since the tide has shifted and mobile searches have outpaced desktop since about half way through 2015, it's now time for a mobile-first index.

What will the mobile index change?

What this means for rankings, SEO, and user experience precisely remains to be seen as we all wait for the index to officially go live. We do know, however, that in the past Google ran into at least two problems.

1. People do not link to the mobile version of sites as much as they do for desktop. Since the Google algorithm takes links into account when determining the value of particular sites, this problem impacts their ability to effectively rank sites.
2. Many users also have a tendency to shorten the content they post on the mobile versions of their site. In these situations, often two pages are considered canonical, depending upon whether the user is on desktop or mobile - but one is longer and more thorough than the other. While sometimes mobile users appreciate this, as they were not looking for long content to scroll through, other times they get frustrated because they land on a page that does not have all the information they thought they would receive.

Since Google has announced that they are closer to releasing their new mobile algorithm, we can assume that they have found ways around these challenges. It is possible, therefore, that certain signals will rise or decrease in importance on the mobile index.

When can we expect the mobile index to go live?

Google has worked on the mobile index for a few years, with them publicly confirming the project back in March 2015. Since Google has now said that they are only a few months away from release, it seems as though they are close to completion. We think SEOs and site owners may start to see the index in the first half of 2017, but we will update our prediction as we receive more information.

What can site owners do to prepare for the mobile index?

In April 2015, when Google released its Mobile Update, businesses needed to ensure their domains were mobile friendly to avoid being penalized. When the index goes live, it is likely Google will be even more particular about their standards for ‘mobile friendly’. Sites will need to do more than just use responsive design - they will need to understand the unique behavior of their mobile users and create content that meets their needs. Good mobile sites should avoid:

• Blocked or unplayable content
• Redirects that take users to unrelated pages on the mobile site - such as redirecting those who click on your site’s About Us link to the homepage
• Error messages that only appear for mobile users
• Interstitials that cover the contents of your page when a user tries to access your materials. Google prefers fixed banners.
• A slow load time
• Small font sizes that are hard to read on mobile screens

It's also important to make your site easy for mobile users to navigate. This entails using buttons that are easy for mobile users to click, and limiting the number of form fields or pages to click through in order to accomplish their objectives. To significantly improve page load speed, which is critical to the mobile customer experience, also consider Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) as a core component of your strategy. For pages with a high number of mobile visitors, AMP-enabled pages load lightning fast, keeping customers engaged and reducing abandonment rates.

How BrightEdge can help

BrightEdge can help you by identifying the needs, wants and moments that matter to your mobile audiences. BrightEdge Data Cube gives you market-wide insights on the moments, or topics, that your target audiences care about on mobile, so that you can create the right content. BrightEdge Recommendations will help you optimize your web content for mobile so that it aligns to your audiences' needs, and with AMP support for Top Stories, you'll know when you need to AMP-enable content. Then with BrightEdge StoryBuilder, you can track and measure results from those who visit your web site from mobile devices. Bringing this all together, you'll be equipped to create mobile experiences that will engage and convert your target customers -and keep them coming back.

A BrightEdger

M Posted 9 years 8 months ago

t 9 min read

It has been a few weeks now since Google announced the introduction of Penguin 4.0. This latest version revolutionized how we all think about Penguin, as it now runs real-time as part of the core algorithm. This means that the filter will impact websites with poor link building strategies during a regular crawl. Similarly, websites that correct their errors and build quality backlinks will no longer be penalized once their website is crawled again. It the past, it could take months, or even years, for Google to re-run the filter. In our last post, we discussed how Google now limits the penalties to a more granular level. Rather than influencing the entire domain, Penguin 4.0 issues a more measured impact. In the weeks since the release of the latest version, more information has been uncovered about the filter and how it operates, helping us better understand Penguin 4.0.

Penguin devalues not demotes

Google has announced that Penguin 4.0 will adjust how they penalize sites. To understand Penguin 4.0, it is necessary to make a distinction between ‘demotes’ and ‘devalues’. To demote a web page, Google would lower the rankings of that site. Devaluing, on the other hand, refers to ignoring the attempts to artificially inflate ranking. The latest Penguin update focuses on devaluing. In other words, rather than sites receiving a direct penalty that lowers the position of their website, the low-quality links that attempt to boost the ranking are ignored. Since the site will now have fewer inbound links, its position may drop. So, it might seem like a direct penalty if the page rank drops.

Google uses link labels that users can check

Google has confirmed that the search engine uses link labels - a system of classifying links. These labels can vary, including ‘footer link’, ‘Penguin-impacted’ link, and “disavowed link”. A ‘footer’ link describes links in the footer of the page, thus not in the main body of the content. These do not carry as much importance. A ‘Penguin real time’ label indicates links penalized by the algorithm. Finally, a ‘disavow’ label indicates that the link is in a disavow file, meaning you've indicated to Google that you want their crawl to ignore the link. Links can have more than one label, which together determine the value of that particular link. Google then uses this calculated value to help rank sites. The Google manual actions team also uses these labels to guide them on when they should dive deeper into the content to determine whether there is a need for a manual action penalty. Gary Illyes also says that you can see these internal labels for the links and anchors.

So disavow is again, basically, just a label internally. It’s applied on the links and anchors. And then you can see that, as well. Basically, you could have like a link from, I don’t know, WhiteHouse.gov, and it has labels Penguin RT, footer and disavow. And then they would see that — they would know that someone or the webmaster or content owner is actively tackling those links.

This also demonstrates the value of using the disavow tool - it lets Google know that you work to fight webspam.

Google only checks the source site for link value

Most SEOs do understand that Google is mostly concerned about the source of poor links, rather than the destination, but there have been some rumors that Google also evaluates the target site. Google has confirmed that they only look at the source site. As Gary Illyes said in an interview with Barry Schwartz: “But it [Penguin] looks at different things on the source site, not on the target site, and then makes decisions based on those special signals.” This should help make site owners more confident as they link to other sites around the web.

Once they understand Penguin 4.0, how can brands move forward?

Penguin 4.0 was added to the core algorithm to improve Google's ability to filter out spam and provide users with high-quality websites. The key to succeeding with this filter, therefore, is to focus on creating links that benefit the end user. This means linking to relevant and valuable sites and cultivating links from other pages of similar caliber. The BrightEdge Platform has core capabilities to help you comply with this algorithm and link to relevant, high-quality sites. Our Backlink Checker suggests opportunities to request quality backlinks. You can also use it to evaluate your existing backlinks. Given what we now know about Google’s backlink labels, distancing yourself from any spammy sites by disavowing them can be very useful in the identification of webspam and poor quality sites. As we all work to understand Penguin 4.0 and the latest Google updates, BrightEdge will continue to look for insights to help you improve your own SEO strategy.