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Sophisticated B2B Buyers Search Deeply
By Mike Murray | June 20, 2007
B2B internet searchers seem to be growing wise and patient as they hunt down products.
It’s good news for businesses that want to rank high for strategic keywords on the major search engines.
The trend is covered by two information and research firms, KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa. They recently teamed up for the second part of a series called “Content Distribution - Where Information Intersects With Demand.” It explores how B2B buyers search for content and how marketers make it available. You can get it for no charge by filling out a form here.
For example, 56% use three or more words in their search phrases (not just one or two broad keywords). Amazingly, 19% say they’ll normally look at up to five pages of results (34% will go up to three pages). Nearly one in five B2B searchers use search operators such as “and” and “or” with a phrase. Only 11 percent of buyers don’t go beyond the first page of results.
The surveys conducted earlier this year involved more than 3,000 business and IT professionals (including B2B technology marketers) in diverse vertical industries.
If someone is willing to look through several screens for the right information, it means businesses don’t need to be in the top 10 to be found. At the same time, as B2B searchers use more specific phrases, their queries will more closely match the products that companies offer through their websites.
Of course, the top 10 world is the best place to live, but depth in internet searching can never be a bad thing for businesses who get near the first page of results but can’t seem to make the cut.
Effective search engine optimization is the key, but that involves a lot of work, from site architecture and content to selecting the right keywords and obtaining quality inbound links.
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June 22nd, 2007 at 4:20 pm
This is interesting. In a way, it is intuitive that B2B searchers go deeper in search engine results and search with longer phrases. Often the sales cycle for business products and services is longer and requires more research than a consumer item. Remember that old saying “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”? Part of this mentality goes into business search. You want to make sure you have uncovered every possibility, therefore more research.