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B2B Tagging

You’ve seen the tags that you can add to your Flickr pictures, YouTube videos, blog posts, submissions to Digg, etc. These are important because they change how we can find and use information:

Why is tagging important? Because you no longer to have to “file” information in one “folder.” Information can be tagged with multiple keywords or keyphrases and then “exists” within these multiple places. Usually you can search for information based on words included within it, meta information (usually invisible information used to describe the type of information), and the keywords. This allows multiple ways to find information and usually results in a more satisfying search experience (more – we still have a long way to go).

Tagging on a customer-centric website allows your visitors to determine how to organize your information (instead of you), which leads to a more satisfying experience (so they’re more likely to come back). Tagging can also be used to tie various pieces of content together which you can use to show your customers what other people tagged with the same tags, most popular content, etc. which also gives your customers a sense of community.

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B2B Website Usability – Does It Work?

You may be wondering if all these tips for redesigning your website to be customer-centric work.

A month ago we redesigned the flagship website (a B2B publication) at the publishing company where I work. The redesign focused on increasing the amount of content that is updated more frequently, offering more content (including blogs and video), and making it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for (by following good usability practices).

Since the redesign we’ve been monitoring their traffic using Google Analytics because it filters out all search engines and crawlers. The average weekly visits have increased 34%, average weekly page views have increased 23% and average weekly visitors have increased 36%. The change was so dramatic that the traffic on the first day was higher than it had been in six months (probably due to word-of-mouth or a forum post somewhere) – the publication didn’t advertise the redesign in print until the following Monday which had another increase in traffic.

Website optimization is a constant process so there still is work to do to see what works for our customers (readers) and what doesn’t. Using Google’s stats and site overlay we’re able to constantly tweak the site to help readers find what they’re looking for. Next step is to take a look at few more customer-problem sections as shown by a high percentage of exits on certain pages (through Google analytics) and to consider removing registration requirements from the rest of the content. We’ll also take a look at the keyword cloud on the site (what keywords are repeated throughout the content) and how they relate what readers are looking for through search engines (including our own).

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B2B Audiences

We’ve been talking about customer-centric websites, but what are your customers doing at home? Obviously these results apply to the consumer market instead of B2B, but B2B is usually not far behind:

Silicon Alley Insider: Almost All Consumers Now Use Web for Buying Decisions –

  • 53% share bookmarks
  • 56% use RSS feeds
  • 35% use tag clouds
  • 70% read blogs regularly
  • 67% regularly watch videos on YouTube, etc.
  • 92%+ use the web when making product buying decisions (research, reviews, retailer location, price comparison, etc.)
  • 54% start their product research at a search engine
  • 55% rely on user reviews most when choosing products
  • 21% rely on expert reviews most
  • After product selected, most important criteria when choosing where to buy are price (38%) and site reputation (38%)
  • 36% use mobile phone to check headlines

There is a pretty huge jump in the acceptance of many of these technologies, including RSS, tag clouds and videos. All three should be considered in the design of your b2b web site. If you were in doubt about the importance of your website: 92%+ use the web when making product buying decisions and as we’ve shown in the ABM-Harris 2006 Interactive B2B survey, this applies to B2B research as well. And community is important, as is the thoughts of peers in the reviews of products and services.

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