Much has been said about the volume and quality of backlinks to your B2B or corporate website, determining your SEO success. That will be covered in a part II of this SEO article for B2B marketers.
But what about the importance of SEO on your website? This is what you have immediate control over and when optimized appropriately, will drive the most immediate returns (in SEO page 1 Google visibility). But the ongoing Google changes, sometimes at a whim and seemingly meant to penalize B2B sites, are making it harder for B2B marketers to stay in top.
Here are 5 ways B2B or corporate websites can evaluate their on-site SEO program to have 2014 success in SEO:
Google and other major search engines are placing heavy emphasis on on-site user experience. It is important that your site is not only gaining qualified target leads; but also that those leads then stay on your site, follow their intended user path and convert into customers for Google to give you a thumbs up in the world of SEO.
One major factor of how well your site is optimized for SEO is shareable on-site content. Are your PDFs being downloaded and shared? Have you performed appropriate SMO (Social Media Optimization) of your site content? Do you have a Blog that provides real value to your target audience? Is the Blog set up for subscriptions and social sharing? Are you contributing original content weekly? There are many ways you can drive attention to your site through good content. That content being shared gives yet another thumbs up to Google.
Consistent analysis of your keywords and related Meta data, alt tags and the like to determine and enhance your online market position in SEO will help you to stay in the game. If you set a keyword plan with a one-time on -site optimization on your site and keep the same old Meta data, you are doing your SEO program a disservice.
With the aggressive world of SEO, your B2B site cannot afford to be penalized if even for a week. Your rankings will drop fast and so will your new business development. Duplicate on-site content on page or even in Meta data is a no no for SEO. Make sure to check your B2B site for such issues via Google Webmaster Tools easily and make the appropriate changes.
With the wide array of open-source development programs available these days, many B2B sites find themselves with problems with site load times because of plug-in issues. Don't be one of these sites. There are plenty of sophisticated web hosting companies out there who can make sure you have the right hosting solution for your platform and development needs, whether that means VPS or Dedicated server if you have lots of on-site functionalities.
There are, of course, more ways you can improve your on-site SEO performance and more I can get into on each point above. However, these 5 ways to evaluate will certainly get you going quickly to where you need to go for SEO rank in 2014.
Don't underestimate the importance of your website in 2014, whether you are driving content from other webpages or simply on your site. Your website is and should be your B2B marketing machine for driving consistent new business. Make it work for you.
Image: Mashable composite. iStock, alashi
This article originally published at ClickZ here
ClickZ is a Mashable publishing partner that provides marketing news and expert advice. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.