My mentor, John Sonnhalter posted these three points on B2B search on his blog Tradesmen Insights.
These were gleaned from just released research from Google:
- Search – Still big and this should be no surprise. Internet usage among the B-to-B sector jumped from 71% to 88% over the last year. Even more enlightening is when asked about how they used search to research business purposes; there was a 23% increase over last year from 67% to 90%.
- Videos – More companies in the B-to-B space are creating videos. They range from how-to videos to thought leadership topics. Here’s an interesting stat – the C suite indexes very high on using videos to find info.
- Digital marketing to reinforce the sales force – By the time a B-to-B purchaser actually engages with a company or sales rep, they’re 57% of the way through the decision process.
The trend continues to grow for companies to find other companies- suppliers and customers- online. And that almost always means via search- where “almost always” is 88% according to the first bullet above.
We here at Speaking of Precision have lost count of how many topics we have that are page one on Google.
Here are 5 tips from my experience to help you be findable:
- Post regularly– it increases you visibility and Your “trust factor;”
- Provide compelling facts and information- not just promotional text. SHARE REAL VALUE;
- Always include a photo– often the photo gets to page one on Google images even when the text doesn’t;
- Tag. Tags should be relevant and include combinations of terms, not just single words. Think, “search phrases.”
- Share on LinkedIn Groups
I can tell you that folks aren’t calling in from seeing advertisements in the phone book these days. And they aren’t seeing salesmen or returning your voice mails.
They do connect when they find what you have posted online.
Be findable!
How about you? Do you have any tips to share to increase your “findability?”
