Can Google be your next, new sales rep?
Guest editorial by John Fox of Venture Marketing
John Fox is a specialist in B2B marketing, and one of my early mentors
Can Google be your next, new Sales Rep?
Crazy question?
…not if you knew Google can connect you to your next opportunity… No charge.
Over the last 6 months, I’ve given a number of B2B Lead-Generation workshops. Typical questions I get are on prospecting, getting the word out and referral selling. All very good questions to tackle.
The #1 question?
“What marketing activity has the lowest-cost and highest return?”
Answering that is a no-brainer… Your Website.
Why? Because your Customers and Prospects are starting their search for solutions and suppliers with a Google search. They’re not picking up the phone and calling you. And they certainly aren’t waiting for your Sales Reps to call them.
Nope. Google stands between you and your next new piece of business. And optimizing your B2B website so Google can easily index the content is crucial!
What’s surprising is that so many small businesses have entrusted their website to marketing staff and creative agencies who think a website is just an online brochure of pretty pictures, maps to your office and plain-vanilla “About Us” pages.
Not only can Google NOT read pictures, so many of the sites I’ve evaluated were so poorly constructed, you’d almost think companies were purposely trying to be invisible to Google.
If Google Optimization is as important to your revenue generation as I believe it should be, start by listening to the Free audio (mp3) of a recent B2B Lead-Generation workshop during your drive-time today.
- Discover the major criteria that Google uses to judge your website
- Connect the dots between physical sales people and online marketing
- Take my search engine awareness quiz
workshop audio/mp3: www.GoogleOptimized.com/lead-gen
Another tool I developed is the Google Website Scorecard. Give the Scorecard to your web or IT staff and make sure ALL the checkboxes get checked for every web page on your site. It’s a one-pager for making sure Google can find all your content.
Having Google on your Sales Team is a very good thing. But like any new Sales Rep, you have to “train” Google. If it’s impossible for Google to “read” your website, you’re ignoring one of your best and *most cost-effective* lead-gen strategies.
Good Selling!
John Fox, President
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Thanks for amother amazing audio that has been very beneficial to others and myself.
Perry:
I agree — A website is not just a brochure. A website allows you to test, retest and see what works what doesn’t. It also allows you to track what your visitors are doing, what they like, what pages they don’t like, even for professional services you can track how many people are filling out the contact form, quote form, etx and continue to improve it even more.
You’re right google can’t read images but you can definitely go the next step by adding in text into the Alt tag. Granted that’s not like having real text that visitors and search engines can read. Proper coding technique is a good idea too.
If possible try to limit images to logo, product images, but nothing that has text. Flash logo and some header flash animations are fine but if you’re entire website is built on Flash then that’s a big no. Adobe is testing making text on Flash readable but it’s not quite there — yet.
Make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for and you’re one step closer to a lead.
- Sam
All, a few people reported having difficulty downloading the free B2B workshop audio. I’m terribly sorry about the inconvenience.
1. The link to the workshop is at the very top of the page (www.GoogleOptimized.com/lead-gen). The button says: Download Free B2B Workshop.
2. My web server did crash this morning, so if you were one of the “lucky” ones, pls try again.
The one point I did want to stress is this: if you are a B2B business who sells through sales reps or distributors, your very best resource for website content (the stuff that Google really wants to index) is most likely sitting in your sales training manuals. And it’s most likely NOT in the head of your web designer.
If you are a web designer, and you want to get a leg up on your competitors, get your customers to give you their sales training materials. You’ll surprised how much content you can use on the website. They’ll think you’re a genius.
If you’re building your site in-house, then make sure your sales teams is making this rich material available to your web guys.
Thanks for making the recording available, there is a definite shortage of B2B material online.
I could certainly use google as a sales person. There is a decent amount of competition for Googles attention.
The google optimized link looks broken. Is there another link?
sorry I think that links is gone
@Superstar-Houston Web Design: The audio is now part of the Google Optimized product. However, as a PM member, I’m happy to send it to you. Just note your request in the subject line in the contact form at http://www.googleoptimized.com/contact.php
Perry
I totally agree with the fact that a website is just not a simple piece of information.
A lot could be done via just your online presence. Many companies are already doing it and infact many have their more then 50% sales generated via their website now.
So definately having a website is more then having a brochure in hand.