Education & Training | by Danny Meadows-Klue
In search engine marketing, by creating a strategy rather than a campaign, brands can build a sustainable rich feed of quality traffic. The effects can be transformative on the business. In professional services from law to accountancy, or business solutions from IT systems to equipment suppliers, search marketing is the key not only to discoverability, but also to unlocking the value already invested in the brand’s existing website.
In the top end of business solutions, search engine optimisation is critical for getting the products found in the right way and at the right time. The web has become the starting point for the majority of supplier searches and while PR and trade press advertising will take some of the messages actively out there, when people are looking for suppliers, their sites need to bubble up in search results pages fast.
Is the website just there for leads?
The role of the website is normally much more than just a leads vehicle. For most firms it forms a core plank for delivering the brand values and brand image. In fact, for most clients, the first experience they have of a prospective supplier or partner is through the website, and the first experience of the site is on a search engine.
As the process of product discovery gets shaken up by the web, everything is to play for, and yet most brands fail to invest effectively in either their own sites or the search process that invites customers in to take a look.
Getting search rankings for key terms, not just your own brand
Business solutions firms and professional services providers will want to gain good rankings for all the terms used to identify that sector and what’s on offer. At Digital, our Keywords Consequences game is a good starting point for this, but most firms leap straight into the implementation without thinking enough about the strategy; that’s why they miss out on all the related points that could have performed a critical bridge in helping get it right from the start.
Is there enough content?
While great attention goes into the graphical design of websites, and increasingly their usability, many firms are slow to get to grips with the content that’s needed for search engines to understand the site effectively. Pay-per-click offers the immediate solution, but smart brands will look at additional content and pages as a way of providing searchers with the proof that their sites are relevant. The tactics will probably need adjusting in different national markets, and the language will certainly need more than a simple translation, but unless the content is there at the start, then the search engine has nothing to index. If the business didn’t brief in SEO as a key element of the mix at the start then there’s usually a heap of things to tackle to get it right. But if you can get your listings in place the right way, then you’ll end up with a marketing model that works fast and neatly below the radar of the competitors and turns your site into a business engine rather than simple a product showcase.
SEO – steps to successful search engine optimisation
For business solutions and professional services, there are a common series of steps to walk through. These will vary for each brand, and many agencies will create their unique way to deliver it, but beyond the core elements of on-page and off-page implementation, there are probably a series of common steps. The project plan could look something like this…
- Figure out the keyphrases, or at least the families of words that matter; follow Digital’s model for their discovery and discuss with stakeholders before progressing
- Understand the scale of the challenge by running diagnostics using the engines themselves: find out where you are today
- Map out the process and the stakeholders so there’s a clear picture of the landscape; looking at the relationship between the centre and the regions, as well as the economies of scale and the need for pace
- Get a sense of what can be done with on-page content, what needs offpage/link equity support, and when you’ll have to fall back on PPC
- Getting the senior management buy-in remains key, but the transformative power of search on the business often needs to be explained 6. Get the analytics and metrics right so you can see exactly what’s happening; don’t bother doing anything before they’re in place as you won’t know who is on your site, why they are there or what got them there
- Use specialists when you need expert knowledge, but only once you’ve gotten organised enough to know the precise nature of the problem (remember you’ll always know much more about your business and your sector than any external agency)
- Look for those test areas of ‘exposed’ and ‘control’ activity that you can use to benchmark your work with
- Implement in a test phase and then test the implementation; looking for how you can refine this and learn from issues that are stumbled upon
- Once the model is right, throw the heavyweight resources behind it – extra bodies, agencies, analysts – and push through the changes quickly so the team can see results and then move onto the next task; this part of the build is fast and easy
- As always use Digital’s 4Rs: Review, Revise, Reflect and Rebuild; the plan may be needed again for the next time
Remember that these notes need to be read in the wider context of Digital’s 10 step plan for search marketing, and the series of on and off page factors that need to be addressed in SEO, but the roadmap forms a useful base for navigation and helping structure the challenges ahead.
Search is key to discoverability, but getting it right takes great skill, strong customer insight, and all ten steps in the search marketing training programme developed at The Search Academy. It will take your time as well as agency support, and most search marketing budgets fail to deliver anything like what they could, because the agencies and technical teams are not given the right direction at the start.
Remember that it’s not simply about the amount of resource thrown at the search effort, but it’s about using it smartly and sequencing the activities to create a strategy not a campaign.
