The B2B buying cycle is complicated, really complicated. Not only do you have multiple people and departments involved in the purchasing decision, but the people involved make decisions based on more than just getting the best price or quality. One might think that business purchase decisions are made rationally, but as Gord Hotchkiss points out in The BuyerSphere Project, B2B purchases are often more irrational than B2C purchases.

Online research is a big part of the B2B buying cycle. Industrial and B2B websites need to provide information that will help all the players in the buying cycle feel comfortable with their final purchasing decision. Potential customers need to know the risk of buying from you is much lower than buying from your competitors.

Here are a few ways you can help to mitigate the fears of your industrial website’s visitors:

Provide free tools and whitepapers that help make your audience’s lives easier. This can be especially effective for industrial companies when complex, technical issues impact their day to day lives. Become a resource for them without forcing them to turn over their contact information or hear your sales pitch. If you can earn their trust before they are a customer, it will help them to feel more comfortable when it is time to choose a new vendor.

Make sure to clearly show your pricing information and any shipping or delivery fees. Don’t leave purchasers guessing about price – make it easy for them to compare your prices with other companies’ prices. Even if your price is higher, you may still win the sale because you’ve made the buying decision easier.

Give accurate and up to date about your company. Emphasize to website visitors what your company’s strengths are and how doing business with you will help to make their jobs easier. And don’t forget to give them your phone number and an email address so they can quickly contact someone when they have questions.

Let current and past customers brag you up. Use case studies and testimonials from current and former clients to showcase what you did for them. Not only will you be able to expand on your capabilities this way, but you also build trust.

All of these tips will help you to show your potential customers that you are a trusted resource and that they are safe buying from you, which helps increase website conversions. Additionally, they help you to generate additional content for your website and create link-bait, which will help your search engine optimization efforts and drive traffic. How great is that?

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Website analytics packages, like Google and Omniture, provide a wealth of information about your website and how it’s being found and used. There is so much data available, that it can be overwhelming and hard to know what to start measuring first. Here are a few of the basic metrics I think are important for any industrial website.

1. Unique Visitors – this is the number of unique people who go to your site each month. Each person gets counted one time per month, regardless of how many times they actually come to the site.
What to look for: You want this number to trend upward over time. Don’t get worried if it’s down for a month or two, it could just be seasonal trends. The longer time period you can measure, the better.

2. New vs. Returning Visitors – this is pretty self-explanatory. It’s just people who have never before visited your site compared to those who have.
What to look for: A high number of new visitors usually means your marketing is working to draw in new customers. High numbers of repeat visitors indicate a loyal customer base.

3. Traffic Sources – generally, visitors can come to your site one of three ways: 1)they type in your URL or use a bookmark to find it (direct traffic) or 2) they click a link from another site (referral traffic) or 3) they type keywords into a search engine and click on your link from there (search engine traffic).
What to look for: For industrial/B2B companies, look for about 75% of your traffic coming from search engines on a regular basis.

4. Organic vs. Paid Keywords – these are the actual terms people use to find your site. Just make sure to set up your analytics to track any pay per click campaigns, so you can get a clear view of which words are bringing you traffic from which source.
What to look for: This is a great place to start for doing keyword research for a new campaign. You also want to see more than just your company name showing up in the top 20 – you want to non-branded terms too.

5. Top Landing Pages – these are the pages of your site that are most often the first entry point. Sometimes your home page is most often viewed, and sometimes it’s another page.
What to look for: Make sure you have clear calls to action on all your top landing pages. Let visitors know what the next step is and make it easy for them to contact you.

6. Bounce rate – “bounces” happen when someone comes to a page of your site and then leaves without viewing any other pages.
What to look for: If a page’s bounce rate higher than 50%, it’s time to look for usability issues, clarifying calls to action, or revising keywords.

7. Conversions – conversions can be just about any action you want visitors to take on your site. For example, PDF or other file downloads, page views, contact form submissions, newsletter sign ups, request for quote submission, checkout completions.
What to look for: Before you can measure conversions, you’ll need to set up goals in your analytics package and define what you want to measure. Once your goals have been set up, look to increase conversion rates whenever you make changes on your website.

One very important thing that web analytics won’t tell you is how many phone calls are generated from your website and online marketing. This is especially true of industrial websites, so make sure your salespeople are asking potential customers how they found you, and then recording it. Although low-tech, this kind of tracking can give you invaluable data. A better alternative is to set up call tracking with assigned numbers for different marketing campaigns.

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It seems like it’s getting tougher and tougher to get your industrial website to rank in organic search. The number of online competitors is growing and it’s getting harder to keep that #1 position for your most effective keyword. And now, the search engines are pushing your results under the fold with shopping, maps, images, and other universal search results. Then, add the fact that Google is putting more and more emphasis on personalized search, showing different results to different searchers. Well, it’s almost enough to make you throw in the SEO towel.

Even though it’s getting harder to rank, that doesn’t mean you should give up. Rather, just make the very most out of every visit to your website. That means you have to go beyond just looking at rankings and optimize your site not just for search engines, but also for conversions. Your site could be getting the bulk of its traffic from long tail searches – and often, these visitors are more apt to convert. How many visitors fill out your form, request a quote, or buy from your industrial website? How many phone leads started on your website?

In order to make the most out of your website traffic, you need to look at your landing pages and their bounce rates. Bounce rate is the percent of visitors who land on a page and then leave, or bounce, before looking at another page. An article by Carrie Hill sheds some light on how to eliminate 75% of the issues causing bounces on your pages in 2 easy steps.

Eye Tracking Tools
Use eye tracking tools that can provide heat maps of what visitors see on your site. I tested out www.attentionwizard.com, a site that generates a heat map based on algorithms for the images you upload. Their “lite” (aka free) version allows you to get one free heat map per day. I tried it on our very own Ecreativeworks site and it was eye-opening, to say the least. (And it makes me think we’ve got some landing page work to do for our own site.)

Conversion Obstacles
Look at your landing pages to address any obvious obstacles to converting. For example, if your call to action (contact us, buy now, add to cart, add to quote, etc.) is hidden below the fold in a paragraph of text, it may not give you the conversion rate you’d like to see. Here is an expanded list of questions to ask of your landing pages:
Does the landing page match the keywords visitors typed into the search engines to find your site? Are those keywords clearly above the fold?

What is your call to action? Is it clear to visitors or do you have so many calls to action that they can’t decide what to do next?

How is the copy on your site written? Is it organized with bulleted lists, easy to scan headings and small chunks of text?

Do you have spelling or grammatical errors that can lead to a poor impression of your company?

Does your site give all the necessary information your customers need to buy or request a quote – or are you leaving them with the wrong impression?

Is your phone number clearly located on EVERY page of your site so potential customers can easily call you? (Especially important for industrial websites.)

Do you have images or videos that showcase your products or services?

By taking care of your landing pages, you can increase the impact of your organic search engine optimization efforts and move beyond rankings.

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Don't Get Punk'D by Social Media!

As online marketing evolves, an understanding of the power of social media to make or break your brand has become indispensible.  As industrial internet marketers, we are often challenged by our clientele to prove the worth or utility of social media as it applies to their company or particular industrial niche. Granted, some products or services just don’t lend themselves all that well to Twitter or Facebook.  But generally, there is always an opportunity to manage your brand by participating in some form of social media, if only to monitor what people are saying about your products and services.

Now, it’s one thing to not participate at all in social media and simply rely on strong onsite and offsite SEO tactics or a smart pay per click campaign to gain good exposure for your brand.  You may be missing out on important conversations or trends that relate to your company, and as they say, ignorance is bliss.   But if a negative trend has developed and you have no idea how dissatisfied or angry your clientele are, you may end up blind-sided with slumping sales or even a potential lawsuit.  You also miss out on opportunities to gain valuable insight into your customers, thus losing out on valuable feedback and potential new product ideas.

However, the trouble really starts when a company participates in social media without having the first clue about how to strategically run a social media campaign, how fast information is shared online or the power of a single voice to become the voice of thousands (for better or worse). A lack of transparency when utilizing social media on behalf of a company can also create a quagmire of difficulties when the facts finally come to light.  There are myriad ways a company can be Punk’d by social media, from something as simple as over-promoting your brand on Twitter to pretending to be a customer when in fact, you’re the CEO!

Below is an extensive and well-organized post about well-known companies that found themselves Punk’d, whether because of sheer ignorance, inappropriate responses to customer tweets, or having employees who misused or abused social media on company time.  Take a lesson from these stories and use them to better understand the power of social media!

A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media

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While watching the football game this past Sunday with my family, I automatically started singing along to a commercial that came on. It was a catchy tune and a song that was well known. At the end of the commercial, my brother turned to me and asked, “What was the commercial for?” I started to answer and then stopped, realizing I had no idea. So, though the creativity for the commercial was completely there, the main point was completely missed. What was the advertisement for?

My sisters and I used to play a game whenever we happened to sit down and watch a show together. It’s played like this: every time a commercial comes on, guess which company it’s for. The first person to guess correctly wins. Some of the commercials were ones we had seen before; many were brand new as we didn’t watch a lot of TV. Depending on the commercial, whether it was new or not, we could guess the brands based on the setting, characters, or slogans. However, many of the advertisements backfire. Though we remembered seeing them and could even recite a line or two from a couple of them or sing along with the song they choose to use, we didn’t know which companies they are for until the very end (or until the brand is shown which in some commercials, is only at the end).

Developing Brand Recognition

It’s important to develop brand recognition, however how can you have that when people don’t recognize your product when it’s presented to them? You have to come up with an idea of how to best portray your products or company in a way that ensures it won’t be forgotten. For example, Progressive Auto Insurance has commercials out there with a basic theme; each one includes the use of Flo, a sales representative and each have their logo splashed across the screen everywhere you look. Rice Krispies uses family time to accentuate their product. In every commercial, the family is either making Rice Krispie bars or eating the cereal, listening to it “Snap, Crackle, Pop”. Whether you like them or hate them, the instant they are on, people recognize them immediately.

One of the things these brands have in common is repetition and logo placement. It’s the same commercial every time with a slightly different story for each one. Same or similar characters and similar settings make them easy to remember. The easiest way to represent your products is to showcase your brand throughout your entire website, commercial, or advertisement of any kind. Also, choosing a common theme that is easy to remember is important. You want people to automatically think of your company when they need something specific. For example, when you think of auto insurance, what do you think of? For me, it’s the companies that use commercials with repetition. Regardless if they are the best, they are usually the first that comes to mind which drives people to the companies when shopping for car insurance.

Try this; which brands do these commercials represent? I chose a mixture of visual aspects and commentary:

• Peyton Manning & Justin Timberlake

• “Hello, I’m a Mac” “and I’m a P.C.”

• “There’s a map for that”

• The little pile of money with googly eyes

• “If you think all batteries are the same, consider this…”

• A white duck

You may have easily known them all, if not, the answers are, in order: Sony Electronics, Apple, Verizon Wireless, Geico, Duracell Batteries, and Aflac. (click on the brand to view the commercial mentioned).

Developing Your Brand on a Website

When creating your industrial website, you want to make it easy to navigate and visually appealing. If the navigation is simple and your site is easy to jump from one page to the next, people will stay on it for longer periods of time once finding it in the search engines. You may be one of the top spots but if you don’t have what the customer is looking for or you make it hard to find, your conversion rate will be much lower. Also, the more visually appealing your site is, the more clients will return to your site for additional services or information. For instance, consider your website to be like a commercial. If you provide unique, quality information for each page yet construct them to be the same in color scheme, navigation, and cross-linking, your site will be easier to follow and clients will be more likely to convert. After all, isn’t that the overall goal?

When designing and creating your online presence, first consider the things you like about other company’s sites. What draws you to them? How does the content, visual effects, and navigation grab your attention? Second, consider what you have to offer your clients. What sets you apart from your competitors? What makes you a high quality industrial company? Highlight those things through visual stimulation and quality information. Recently, our company completed a website for a company that wanted to highlight their “green-friendly” guarantee. The site used green for their headers, navigation, and cross-linking and included the recycling image on every page. From the first page, the “Thinking Green” campaign succeeds. Third, consider your own visual appeal. What colors do you associate with your company? Use that color scheme throughout the site and make sure your name and logo are visible on every page. Also, use the name of your company throughout your online copywriting as this will relate your information to your brand.

For more information regarding brand recognition, contact the SEO team of analysts at Ecreativeworks. We’ll help you determine the best way to build your online presence.

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Providing a text version of your podcast or webinar

Webinars and podcasts are common in the business to consumer and b2b sector. Even the industrial marketplace is jumping on board with teaching sessions via the web. While a webinar or podcast is a great asset to your site, they can sometimes get lost on your site, if not promoted properly.

This is where I suggest you turn to an old technique of creating a transcript. Since the search engines can only capably read text, it is best to turn your podcasts and webinars into transcripts if the resources are available. Depending on the length of the session, this might require a bit of work, but it will be well worth it. Having a text version of your webinars and podcasts and posting them on your site will open a gateway for people to find them. Once they see that the text is a transcript they will likely find the original media, listen or watch it. Also, this helps users to uncover that you are a great, modern resource of industrial inowledge. This will likely bring repeat viewers to your latest web or podcast.

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I was waxing nostalgic over the Christmas and New Year break, thinking about my job and where I am now as an industrial search engine optimization specialist, versus five years ago, when I first started learning SEO and web design.  When I first began exploring SEO, Google Analytics was brand new and Google AdWords was only three years old!

Industrial search engine optimization wasn’t even around ten years ago and website design companies focusing solely on industrial clientele were only on the horizon. Now, I work in a highly specialized niche in online marketing and design for industrial clients.  I also learn more everyday about the ever-growing arena of social media and its potential for the industrial marketplace. 

Jill Whalen posted a thoughtful and detailed look at SEO in the last decade, with interesting tidbits like:

• In 2000, the engines and directories that we were talking about were: Lycos, Excite (almost dead by 2001), Snap (soon changed to NBCi), LookSmart, Go (formerly Infoseek), Hotbot, AltaVista and, yes, Google.
• In 2001, the meta keyword tag was already known to have little to no bearing on search engine rankings.
• In 2002, Google launched AdWords, and changed the face of online advertising and search marketing for the entire decade.
• In 2003, Yahoo purchased Inktomi, AltaVista and FAST, which was basically the end of all of them.
• In 2004, 301-redirects were becoming all the rage.
• In 2005, Google introduced Google Analytics, which changed the face of how to measure SEO success for the rest of the decade, and presumably beyond.
• In 2006, buying text links was huge business, but Google started to fight back.
• In 2007, Sphinn was born. And paid links got smacked down even more by Google, at least in terms of toolbar PageRank.
• In 2008, Jill continued to spread the word that rankings were a poor measure of success, while also showing how you should sometimes look past search engines.  Twitter also fired up!
• In 2009, the debate on meta keywords still raged while focus on keyword density finally was biting the dust.

So much has grown and changed in my profession and it continues to challenge me and keep me engaged in my ever-changing internet marketing career.  Here’s to a profitable and educational 2010!

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Do you ever go through those moments when you can’t write; the days when your brain feels dry, as if nothing is able to be squeezed out of it? Do you ever have a hard time finding the words to use that will best describe who you are and what you can do? Writing for the industrial market can be difficult. Separating yourself from every other company that seems to do pretty much the same thing is important yet how can you write about what you do without making it sound like every other website?

The top things to consider when writing content for your website are:
1. Who is your general audience?
2. How do you want people to perceive your company? (e.g. professional, casual…)
3. What services/products/manufacturing methods do you use or sell?
4. What separates your company from your competition? Why do customers choose your business over others?
5. What is the first thing that people need to know about each of your products/services?
6. How has your company improved or expanded since your beginning?

By writing high quality content, you are selling your company to the people you are targeting. Create a list of everything you do and make sure to include it on your site. You can also highlight the products or services that you use most throughout your entire site. Create links to other pages within your site on all your content as it’s important to link your site together.

Never copy from someone else’s site for your own content. Not only is this plagiarism, but it’s also blacklisted from google. Word your information differently as well. Put your most important information at the top and use bullet points. Search engines love seeing a lot of content which can be stressful for many people. Yet as long as you focus on the top 6 things to consider, writing out 300-500 words (typically the recommended amount) shouldn’t be overly difficult. Remember, this is no time to be shy, instead, tell your audience everything you can do for them. By stating it all out, you’re not bragging or overselling yourself. You’re just being honest.

To find out more about writing websites, contact us. We can help you understand the ins and outs of industrial website content. Visit our website to see a list of case studies that show strong, quality copywriting.

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Many Distributors Selling the Same Products

In the industrial marketplace many distributors sell the same product. When selling those products online, often distributors just use the stock product specifications that are given to them by the parent company. While it is imperative to keep your product information accurate based on the manufacturer’s given content, there is still room to enhance the product specifications. From an SEO standpoint and a usability standpoint, adding extra information to the stock product specs can be very helpful.

Add Your Own Information

For example, when I am researching a company’s industrial product, I often search for information using Google. I jump to and from a few different websites such as the main manufacturer’s website to a few distributor websites. If the information on the manufacturer’s website and the distributor’s website is exactly the same, that adds no value for me, as I’ve already read that information. What I find really helpful as a consumer is when there are extra bullet points with new information such as
   
 ”Great for use in high temperature climates” or “Great commercial cleaning machine for educational institutions”

This extra information sticks out to me because it is different than all the other distributors, it is true, and it is valuable, giving me insight into the exact applications of the industrial product. This is a tremendous usability enhancement.

From an SEO perspective, that unique content adds more possible keywords into your content, adding more opportunity to be shown in the search results.

So, as I mentioned, always keep your product specs accurate, that is the number one priority. But also consider elaborating on the content to give users an even richer idea of the best use for the product. If you do this, your search engine traffic should increase as well, due to more keywords being added to your content.

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To the Industrial Market
By Josie H.

Employees still smile, they’re joking and laughing
Christmas is coming, and people are crafting.
Machinists, technicians, the boss and the staff
all hunker down, machining dowels and shafts.

Yet the workload is waning, the economy is down
sadly, a holiday bonus is hard to be found.
Yet your staff continues with spirit in their hearts,
employees keep manufacturing production parts.

The workforce keeps toiling, they love what they do.
providing materials and products, quality all the way through.
The boss knows there’s an issue, more customers are needed
We really need more clients, to Santa they pleaded.

Santa Claus answered with a smile and wink.
I have a solution; it’s easier than you think!
You need website development with a new design,
social marketing, copywriting, and SEO intertwined.

You provide the product, the service, the parts
They’re ready to help you, they can’t wait to start.
They’re the answer to all of your problems online
Ecreativeworks can help you, they’ll make you shine.

They’ll bring you results in Google and Bing
with optimization that’ll make your company the king.
A fantastic website that’ll appeal to all
Soon your phones will be ringing, the customers will call.

Your employees will thank you as the workload increases,
the lull in machining and fabrication decreases.
So pick up your phone, give Ecreativeworks a call,
Your New Year’s resolution, now get on the ball!

Happy Holidays from Ecreativeworks!

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