Digital marketers would like to imagine that every member of their prospect's B2B Buying Center would be somehow arriving at their website and either (a) Call or fill up an information request form or better still (b) Place an order if there is an e-commerce option. It turns out that the landing page is a huge deterrent in the actions you want your web visitors to take. But first, let's understand the mechanisms by which your web visitor arrives at your website and why content is both King and Queen ! Here is how visitors arrive:
- Through referral: This referral could be from another website,social media or your own offline advertising, maybe the website URL appears in your packaging or mail brochures. Naturally, this "direct" web traffic is powerful because they have already thought about what they need and have at least a preliminary sense that your organization might be able to meet those needs. This segment of customers are fairly committed to checking you out provided your website is easy to navigate and you provide content that is helpful to this segment. Simple instructions related to your product or service, copies of manuals, a how-to video are examples of content. Such useful may not be sensitive in a competitive sense, but can make life easier for the "direct" web visitor and can build your brand and franchise.
- Search or SEO traffic:The search traffic are those who search Google,Yahoo or Bing and visit maybe the first page results of such searches. Every business would like to be on the first page of Google- for their product or services but many are not. If you wonder why – it goes back to useful content. As explained in an earlier post, Google is primarily interested in having happy searchers. So if your content precisely answers the search "intent" of the searcher, you come out on top. Once you do – you have less time to convince the visitor that that they should not leave. Analyzing which pages are receiving visitors through "Search", using Google Analytics, can help identify those pages that need strengthening by way of content.
- PPC and Banner advertising: PPC (Pay-per-click) like Google AdWords or banner advertising is a fairly inexpensive way to drive qualified prospects to your website. People search online and although you are not on the first page of Google-they see your ad on the first page and click to arrive at your website. Making sure that they land on content that's relevant to their search "intent" is very important. For example ,you might pay $20 for a click and have people arrive at the wrong landing page – that causes them to leave. On the other hand if the content on your landing page is relevant to their search , your visitors are likely to stay and you will notice that your price per click goes down.
To summarize, content is indeed king and queen when it comes to reaching B2B Buying Center members on the web. Contact StratoServe.