Holding a Search Marketing Agency Accountable for B2B SEO Strategy

B2B SEO Accountability

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is difficult to understand for many B2B companies. Understanding SEO is made even more difficult when there are SEO agencies over promising and practicing “Black Hat” SEO. How do you know if your B2B SEO agency is the right agency for your business? Your B2B SEO agency can be held accountable with 3 steps:

1. Make Keyword Choices Appropriate for your Business

2. Watch and Follow More Than Rankings

3. Figure out your ROI

Solid Keyword choices

Every good B2B SEO program begins with solid research. Much of the research performed will be put to use when selecting keywords used to help increase visibility in search engines.With that said, do you know what criteria your SEO agency had in place when choosing your targeted keyword phrases?

It’s very important that your keywords match audience or searcher’s intent.When a keyword or phrase that you are optimized for is searched, the user should be looking for your specific service.

Do the chosen keywords have good search volume figures (the average number of monthly searches for that keyword or phrase)? A B2B Search agency should decide which keyword are appropriate based on applicability to your service, search volume, and level of competition. Keyword research tools such as the Google Keyword Tool are free and can be used to determine search volume data and PPC competitive data. In addition, your SEO agency should also analyze your online competition and get to know your services.With all of the research combined they should be able to determine the best keywords and phrases for your SEO program. Don’t get left behind, it’s important that you’re involved with this process. Don’t hesitate to ask questions and get all of the information you need, on why certain keywords are being chosen.

Rankings Look Good But I’ll Take The Traffic!

Your search agency should include tracking results of their efforts as part of your B2B SEO program.This means more than just rankings should be reviewed. Rankings are the first step in SEO success however the data is not 100% accurate because of local and personalized search.Search results can change from location to location, it doesn’t matter the distance it could be from home to the office or state to state the search results will be different.

Organic traffic is a more accurate measurement for SEO success. Analytics (if set up) can be tracked through any analytics service provider. Analytics should show increases in traffic from search engines, if your B2B SEO agency took the right steps in choosing keywords and implementing your SEO program. These statistics should be on the rise in addition you should be seeing direct traffic from your selected keywords and phrases.

They Say ROI Can’t Be Tracked?

Perhaps one of the largest challenges in finding success in your B2B SEO program is finding your Return on Investment (ROI).Analytics give you many insights, B2B companies have a difficult time tracking final conversion rates because of they have such a long complex sales cycle. How do you hold your Search Marketing Agency accountable to ROI when most of your end conversions will happen off-line instead of on your website?

Target conversions!A B2B company will discover the value of the lead and then use that to wage the success of their off-line marketing print and television advertising campaigns. Your analytics should be programmed to monitor your users actions such as downloading a whitepaper, filling out a contact form, signing up for a newsletter, or reading a case study.

These actions can’t necessarily convert a user to into a client, the do however become more engaged with your company and can be considered a prospect.Give every unique action that provides a prospect a value and then you’ll be able to analyze if you’re getting an ROI on your SEO investment from your B2B search agency.

Use this guide to hold your agency accountable for traffic quality as well. Determining the targeted keywords and phrases that are driving high quality traffic can be filtered through goal conversions.

Holding Your B2B Search Agency Accountable with Proper Expectations

You don’t have to know the entire SEO process in order to hold your B2B SEO agency accountable for delivering results. You can detect a great search marketing agency if they start every project with proper expectations. Program goals should be considered along with those expectations.How will your company benefit?How can you track your success? Make sure that your agency reveals the data and reasoning for selecting your keywords.It’s necessary that you see more than search rankings as proof of success. Figure your ROI by tracking your site activity and assigning a value to prospects. Put yourself in the action and you won’t have any problem holding your agency accountable.

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