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B2B Content – SEO vs Customer-Centric Design

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms will tell you that you need to have keyword-optimized pages on your website in order to appear in Google’s search results for those keywords. Customer-centric design requires that your website be designed with your customer foremost in-mind. Can these co-exist? Can you have the best of both worlds?

Yes and no. Search engines put a good deal of weight on how often content is updated on the site and for each of the keywords in question. Keeping keyword-optimized pages updated can be (and usually is) a full-time job. Have you ever been on a keywords-optimized site as a customer who is trying to find something? Often it is difficult to wade through all the content written only for the search engines.

Customer-centric design means keeping your customer in mind. What are your customers looking for when they come to your website? Do most of your customers come from search engines? If so, taking a SEO keyword-optimized approach may make sense.  Or do you use other advertising methods such as web ads, print ads, word-of-mouth, blogging, conference appearances and speaking engagements? In these cases, it may make more sense to create landing pages for each of these audiences instead.

How do you get the best of both SEO and Customer-Centric Design? Create customer-centric pages optimized for what your customers are looking for and how they came to your site. Take SEO keyword optimization into account when you design those pages and your overall website. Both your customers and your wallet will thank you and, if done properly, this approach will lead to better search engine ranking for the long term.

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B2B Social Networks

So we’re hearing this and that about Social Networks being the next big thing in the B2B space after the success of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Digg for the consumer audience and LinkedIn for the business audience. What’s the big deal?

Social networks allow peers to communicate by sharing information, comments and ratings. As a social network visitor you can see what the overall community is doing, plus what individuals in your group are doing. The ABM-Harris 2006 Interactive B2B survey proved that a majority of B2B executives turn to the web when doing research for buying decisions. People are also more likely to trust information that comes from peers over marketing or advertising information. Social networks provide the opportunity to research and share information directly from your peers.

B2B websites have unique audiences – usually a very specific industry or niche, which is visiting the website specifically for information required to do business. One of the top reasons professionals attend B2B conferences and events is to network and connect with their peers. B2B Social networks offer a cost-effective way to connect with peers more often.

How do use this information to improve your own B2B website? Social networks are not effective unless the audience if reasonably large (at least a couple of thousand). If you don’t have that much traffic on your website, see if you can convince an industry association to form a social network so that your customers will be able to share, rate and comment on products and services in your industry. Take a look at a business social network, such as LinkedIn which allows associations to form groups, to connect with your peers online.

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A Look Back at the B2B Web in 2007 and a Look Ahead to 2008

Another year has come to a close. 2007 was pretty exciting in both the B2C and B2B space on the web, as community, sharing, and using the web to find information became commonplace. On the tail of B2C sites like YouTube, Flickr, and iTunes, the B2B audience started to demand video, image and audio information. Posting only a blurb of text about an event, service or product is no longer acceptable. The B2B audience wants to see and hear to make their own observations from as much raw information as possible. Many B2B news and information websites met this need by introducing video sections, posting regular podcasts, blogging and increasing the visual information included in stories. In 2008 this will extend to B2B websites themselves, as manufacturers and service providers increase the range of information they include on their sites.

Community has been big on the web for a couple of years now and most Internet users are comfortable with instant messaging (IM), boards, blogs and sharing information. With the emergence of sites like Digg, people now have the opportunity to share links and comments to stories. B2B sites have embraced this by including more forums and adding the ability to comment right on stories. Look to see this increase in 2008 to include more B2B user generated content, such as reviews and sharing capabilities on websites.

Customer-centric will be the name of the game in 2008 as the B2B audience becomes accustomed to customer-centric sites in the B2C world. Social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn have hit the news in 2007, and the buzz has started for these to be big topics for B2B in 2008. The B2B audience in 2008 will demand more user-generated content with the ability to connect and share information.

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