According to a new survey by Regalix into the State of Marketing in 2014, almost three quarters (72 %) of B2B marketers are now using content marketing as part of their organic search engine optimisation strategies. The report surveyed almost four hundred marketing professionals, seventy eight per cent of whom were B2B focused and twenty two percent B2C focused.
More and more B2B marketers are now valuing content creation as one of the most important parts of their SEO strategies.
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The participants were asked about their goals for their search engine marketing strategy and campaigns. The results were as follows:
- 96% wanted to provide educational and informative content to users
- 86% wanted to establish themselves as thought leaders
- 83% wanted to enhance their brand reputation and awareness
Social Media
Although their goals varied, something that the survey found as an underlying trend was the use of social media in SEO strategies. It found that seventy six per cent of those surveyed use social media to support their SEO efforts, with 96% of those who do use social media, claiming that LinkedIn is the most effective social media platform for improving SEO.
The survey found that participants favoured the social media site, LinkedIn for improving their websites’ SEO.
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Paid Search
Although organic SEO techniques are favoured for providing high quality, long lasting results, paid search still continues to be popular with marketers. Paid search is great for generating instant results and for supporting organic SEO campaigns. The survey found that sixty eight percent use paid search for lead generation, as it allows them to develop meaningful leads at a faster pace. Sixty three per cent of those surveyed were found to be using paid search to sell their products and services.
The State of Marketing 2014 survey found that most participants (71%) used ‘broad-based information keywords’ in their PPC campaigns ‘to capture prospects from the top funnel.’ The survey also found exact match and negative keywords to be popular tactics used by SEO experts to optimise campaigns, with sixty one percent of participants claiming they used them.
For those who don’t know, negative keywords are used to prevent ads from showing to people searching about things that a website does not offer. They ensure that your ads are only shown to people who are likely to click on them, allowing you to reduce costs on keywords where you might be spending without generating a return.
Budget allocation
The State of Marketing 2014 survey also looked into how B2B marketers allocate their marketing budgets. The results found that the most money was allocated to organic search and content marketing, with eighteen percent of respondents saying they spend between forty and sixty per cent of their marketing budgets on these area. The area that received the least amount of funding was pay per click advertising, with sixty eight per cent of respondents saying they spend less than twenty per cent on display advertising and sixty one percent saying they spend less than twenty per cent on paid search.
Why is content so important?
Today it is more important than even before for businesses from both the B2B and B2C sectors to concentrate on improving their content. Great content not only helps to engage an audience, but also has excellent SEO benefits. In order to make sure your content marketing efforts are benefiting your business, you need to ensure that you are producing unique, high quality and industry-relevant content on a regular basis. It is not enough to simply refresh your website content every now and then. If you want to make a real impact you will need to create a wide range of content from blog posts to social media blasts.
If SEO and content creation are not your favourite areas to work on, why not outsource them to us? Get in touch for more information.
Image credits: SEOPlanter and Matthew Gain