Manager's Guide To Search Engine Optimization - Part 1, How Important is SEO? Published by Motarme Marketing Automation

1. A Manager’s Guide to Search
Engine Optimization
Part 1 – How important is it?

2. 2
How important is Search Engine
Optimization?

3. 3
Key Points:
• Business buyers as well as consumers search online when
looking for products and services
• 85% of those buyers find what they want via search engines
• If they can’t find you, they will find a competitor
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (ads) are
the two main tools to ensure you are found
• You should understand the basics of how search engines
prioritize search results
• Then you can decide what to do about it – do nothing, do it
yourself or hire someone to help

4. 4
1. Why is Search Engine Optimization important?1. Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

5. 5
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
Because buyers are doing more a lot more research before
contacting vendor sales teams
Source: “2011 Inside the Mind
of the B2B Buyer Survey”,
DemandGenReport
Source: “2011 Inside the Mind
of the B2B Buyer Survey”,
DemandGenReport

6. 6
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
Because customers will find you before you find them
In a survey of Business to
Business (B2B) buyers in the
US, 80% of decision makers
said they found the vendor,
not the other way round.
Source: MarketingSherpa –
“B2B Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey 2008”
In a survey of Business to
Business (B2B) buyers in the
US, 80% of decision makers
said they found the vendor,
not the other way round.
Source: MarketingSherpa –
“B2B Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey 2008”

7. 7
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
Because your website is the top source of leads outside of
personal connections
Source:
DemandBase and Focus.com
2011 Survey of B2B IT and
marketing professionals
Source:
DemandBase and Focus.com
2011 Survey of B2B IT and
marketing professionals

8. 8
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
Sources of information used
by US engineers for a specific
recent purchase
Source: MarketingSherpa –
“B2B Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey 2008”
Sources of information used
by US engineers for a specific
recent purchase
Source: MarketingSherpa –
“B2B Technology Marketing
Benchmark Survey 2008”
Because engineers and technologists use search when
researching and negotiating with suppliers for a specific
current purchase

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Because when people do search, they usually don’t look
past the first results on page 1
Most people (64%) click on the
first 3 results on Google page 1
•42% to the first result
•12% to the second
•9% to the third
Less than 10% click on pages
beyond page 1
Source: SEOBook and SEOMoz
Most people (64%) click on the
first 3 results on Google page 1
•42% to the first result
•12% to the second
•9% to the third
Less than 10% click on pages
beyond page 1
Source: SEOBook and SEOMoz
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

10. 10
Because most people (75%) click on the ‘natural’ search
results rather than ‘paid’ ads
25% of clicks
go to the
“paid”
advertising
results you
see at the top
and right-
hand side of
Google and
Bing search
pages
25% of clicks
go to the
“paid”
advertising
results you
see at the top
and right-
hand side of
Google and
Bing search
pages
75% of clicks go
to the “natural”
or “organic”
search results
you see at the
left hand side of
the search
results pages
75% of clicks go
to the “natural”
or “organic”
search results
you see at the
left hand side of
the search
results pages
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

11. 11
Conclusions
2. This is true for business-to-business (B2B) technology
companies as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) companies
2. This is true for business-to-business (B2B) technology
companies as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) companies
1. Your potential customers are probably looking for your
product or service online
1. Your potential customers are probably looking for your
product or service online
3. If you do not appear on Page 1 of the results for relevant
search terms then you are effectively invisible for those terms
3. If you do not appear on Page 1 of the results for relevant
search terms then you are effectively invisible for those terms
4. If you could take steps to get onto the Page 1 results for
relevant results it would increase traffic to your site, which
should increase your lead generation and sales
4. If you could take steps to get onto the Page 1 results for
relevant results it would increase traffic to your site, which
should increase your lead generation and sales
5. Improving your ‘natural’ search results will have most effect
because 75% of people click on those results, not paid ads
5. Improving your ‘natural’ search results will have most effect
because 75% of people click on those results, not paid ads
Why is Search Engine Optimization important?

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2. How does search work?2. How does search work?

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How does online search work?
If people are searching for your type of products or
services online then you need to understand:
1. How search engines try to respond to search queries1. How search engines try to respond to search queries
2. How humans search for things online2. How humans search for things online

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• Users choose the search engine they think will get them the answers they want
in the least amount of time
• Search engines compete with each other to return the best (i.e. most relevant)
search results
• Over the years less successful search engines have lost share
Where is ….?
How does online search work?

15. 15
Most people use Google to search
Source: Comscore June 2011
How does online search work?

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How do search engines decide what to show?
Content on a pageContent on a page
Links to that page
from other pages
Links to that page
from other pages
Social media
indicators about
that page
Social media
indicators about
that page
The main elements Search Engines use to determine which page to show

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• Search engines are trying to get the closest match between a person’s question (their
‘search query’) and a page on the web – they want to return the most relevant page
• They regularly ‘crawl’ and ‘index’ billions of web pages to ensure they know all the
pages that might be needed to answer a question
• When a user searches for something, the search engines decide which page is the best
answer to that search query as follows:
1.They try to understand the purpose of your question – your “searcher’s intent”
2.Based on that understanding, they look for content on the pages they have indexed
that might answer your query i.e. an analysis of the words, images and themes of the
page
3.They also look at the number and quality of other pages that link to those pages (each
link can be thought of as a ‘vote’ for that page; if a page has more links it generally
means it is a more relevant page)
4.They also look at Social media indicators of relevance e.g. if there are lots of ‘tweets’ or
‘likes’ for a page this too is a ‘vote’ for it being relevant
How do search engines decide what to show?

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• There are other elements too. These are known as ranking factors.
• They differ for different search engines and can increase and decrease in importance
over time
• SEOMoz (www.seomoz.org) publishes a table listing what it thinks are the most
important ranking factors, shown below
How do search engines decide what to show?

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How do people search?
• The way people search is not as predictable as you might think
• For example, every day about 20% of queries are completely unique terms that have
never been searched before
• You can categorise the purpose of searches (generally) as:
Informational – I want to learn or research somethingInformational – I want to learn or research something
Navigational – I want to find a particular place on the webNavigational – I want to find a particular place on the web
Transactional – I want to purchase or download somethingTransactional – I want to purchase or download something
Source: Eric Enge et al, “The Art of SEO”

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• You can categorise some common ways of searching as:
The actual question or a shortened version of itThe actual question or a shortened version of it
Source: Brad Geddes, Advanced Google Adwords
The answer to the questionThe answer to the question
A description of the problemA description of the problem
A symptom of the problemA symptom of the problem
A description of the causeA description of the cause
Product parts or brand namesProduct parts or brand names
How do people search?

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How do people search? – The ‘Long Tail’
Source: SEOMoz.org
• The most popular keywords account for 18.5 % of search traffic
• They are the most competitive terms – it is usually hard to get a new web page
onto the top of page 1 for these terms
• However, over 70% of searches are for less common terms – these are the ‘long
tail’ keyword phrases
• Usually these terms are 3 words or longer and are more specific e.g. “1996 green 3
series bmw” rather than “bmw”
• Targeting these ‘long tail’ keywords is a good way to get more traffic to your site

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How do people search? – Keyword Analysis
• You don’t have to guess what keywords people use
• Google’s free keyword tool lets you enter words and phrases to see the local and
global volume of searches for those phrases.
• It also suggests other keyword phrases that may be relevant
• There are many other tools you can use to analyse keywords
• Looking at which keywords might be useful for your business is known as
“Keyword analysis” and we’ll discuss it in Part 2 of this guide

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How do people search?
Search route 1
Search route 2
Search route N
• People take different routes when searching for your kinds of products and
services
• You need to understand which kinds of searches are best at bringing your desired
buyers to you online
• You should analyze each major ‘search route’ into your site so that you can
increase that traffic

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What is Search Engine Optimization?
• Search Engine Optimization is the process you use to appear higher in the search
engine results pages for searches relevant to your business
• It is based on first understanding how people search for terms related to your
business - keyword analysis
• You then use that understanding to update your website, interact with social
media and seek links so you can push your business higher up on the search results
Website settingsWebsite settings
Links
(incoming, outgoing
and internal)
Links
(incoming, outgoing
and internal)
Social mediaSocial media
Content on your
pages
Content on your
pages
Keyword AnalysisKeyword Analysis

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Why is Search Engine Optimization important?
Conclusions
2. If you understand how search works you will understand how to
get found more easily
2. If you understand how search works you will understand how to
get found more easily
1. Online search traffic is important for any business1. Online search traffic is important for any business
3. You can take steps to get pages on your website onto page 1 of
the search results for particular searches – this is search engine
optimization
3. You can take steps to get pages on your website onto page 1 of
the search results for particular searches – this is search engine
optimization
4. You can decide to (a) do nothing, (b) do it yourself or (c) get help4. You can decide to (a) do nothing, (b) do it yourself or (c) get help

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Search Engine Optimization is
important.
Decide what your business will
do about it.

27. 27
Good resources
Links
• Google Keyword Tool – https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• Google guide to SEO – http://goo.gl/opukk
• Bruce Clay – www.bruceclay.com
• SeoMOZ – www.seomoz.org
• Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com/
• PRChecker – checking page rank - http://www.prchecker.info/
• MajesticSEO – www.majesticseo.com
• SeoBook – www.seobook.com
• SearchEngineLand – www.searchengineland.com
• Neil Patel’s blog QuickSprout (www.quicksprout.com) has pretty good info on search
traffic
Here are some suggested resources (we plan to add to this list)
Books
• “The Art of SEO”, Eric Enge et Al
• “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies”, Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza

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About Motarme

29. Motarme is an easy-to-use enterprise Marketing Automation system. Motarme is
specifically designed to help business-to-business (B2B) companies in the technology,
software and industrial sectors generate sales leads online. In addition to our web-based
Marketing Automation product we provide consulting, web marketing and lead generation
services. Our customers include Siemens, Mergon, SF Engineering and mid-size and early
stage technology companies.
Web: www.Motarme.com.

30. Clients
“ We have seen for ourselves how a solid
strategy has helped to drive traffic to our
site and generate sales leads.”
“ We have seen for ourselves how a solid
strategy has helped to drive traffic to our
site and generate sales leads.”
Caolan Bushell
Business Development Manager
Mergon Group
Barry Rooney
Chief Operations Officer
Siemens ITSS
“The system delivered real,
measurable results in a short
timeframe – sales and contacts from
our target audience at Tier 1
companies.”
“The system delivered real,
measurable results in a short
timeframe – sales and contacts from
our target audience at Tier 1
companies.”
Joe Lynch
General Manager
IMEC Technologies
“Generating leads online is now a
central part of our sales strategy.”
“Generating leads online is now a
central part of our sales strategy.”
About Motarme

31. Thank You
Automated Marketing That Drives Sales
michael.white@motarme.com
@michaelgwhite
www.motarme.com