Derek Edmond

A few weeks back I wrote a column for Search Engine Land on B2B buyer personas. In exploring the persona concept, it further supported my opinion that for SEO to truly be effective for the B2B organization, SEO needs to run hand-in-hand with traditional B2B marketing initiatives.

In this post, I want to discuss how B2B SEO discovery can be integrated into buyer persona development, in turn creating a more effective search engine optimization strategy in the long run.

B2B marketers realize organic search engine referrals are a critical component of the B2B website traffic mix. According to respondents of Optify’s B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, organic search is the #1 driver of traffic, accountable for 41% of all visits...

If you have ever been in an environment where sales and customer communication comes at you at a rapid pace (think call center, inside sales, etc) than you understand how important product or solution expertise is. You also understand the luxury of preparation. Call center environments require you to react very quickly to customer information and it’s in product expertise that more productive communication can be made.

The same thing applies with link outreach, particularly when considering direct, B2B email link outreach. From the recipient (the link prospect) end, link requests might seem like an unending barrage of unwanted email, social media updates, or even IM messages. Your own product and solution knowledge is critical in communication as well.

But the key difference is that with link outreach (B2B or B2C), you have the ability to thoroughly prepare for the communication at hand (at least the initial steps). Preparation is critical. ...

We are experiencing a significant shift in the SEO landscape which started early last year and will continue to evolve. As search engines become more aggressive in dealing with links meant only to manipulate search engine rankings, SEO’s reliant on short-sighted link building strategies are suffering mightily.

As uncovered in a recent news article on our site, Search Engine Roundtable ran a poll asking whether webmasters effected by Google’s Penguin update had recovered from the damage. 81% of the 500+ respondents claimed no recovery.

Perhaps one of the reasons sites have not recovered is because we (SEO’s) are thinking about link building in the wrong way. We are focused on the link...

A client emailed me this weekend with a message about a potential guest blogger for their website. The blogger’s proposal was written concisely, the objective clearly stated, and the message illustrated a basic understanding of the client’s website initiatives. However, we turned the guest blogger down because the individual’s experience did not reflect any affiliation or relationship (direct or indirect) with the organization’s industry and market.

About a week ago, Matt Cutts addressed the issue of guest blogging for links in a Webmaster Tools Video. While Cutts acknowledged the value in building out a search presence through guest blogging, he stressed that this can also be taken to extremes. Marketers who look to do the “bare minimum” for writing requirements, or who simply outsource post creation, will not find similar value in terms of search engine presence.

The growth in...