Question

Topic: SEO/SEM

How To Attract B2b Trade Traffic (to A B2c Site)!

Posted by Anonymous on 9/4/2008 at 9:27 PM ET 250 Points
A potential client recently approached us with an interesting problem. While they've done a great job optimizing their site for organic searches for their niche yellow pages directory, they were having a very difficult time figuring out how to optimize a page of the site dedicated to attracting (and converting) paid advertisers. (The members of the trade that want to have an enhanced listing to attract all those consumer visitors)

When you think of it, few people are really searching for what they're selling:

"Ideas for Business Growth". "Advertising Ideas", "New leads"

We initially thought we could buy related trade-only words (to try and catch B2B searchers when they were looking for something unrelated to buying yellowpages ads on our directory.) However, obviously, while the terms would result in qualified traffic, the terms are not related.

We' did some preliminary trials with terms related to competitor's lead gen sites, but, again, relevancy was low so bid prices got out of hand.

We'd like to help but we're a bit stumped.

Is this a search problem or a more prosaic marketing problem?

How would you solve this? How HAVE you solved this?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 9/5/2008 at 9:14 AM Accepted
    If you have good traffic, you could simply use AdSense to place ads based on keyword searches.

    If you're trying to get existing listings to become paid advertisers, then contact the listings directly (how small is your small niche directory?) and offer to have their listing get "special treatment".

    If you want to attract new paid advertisers, then consider marketing to professional organizations for the niche/region.
  • Posted on 9/5/2008 at 9:24 AM Author
    Jay: On point 1, yes, they already earn some income from AdSense.

    On points 2 and 3, they have tried traditional off-line methods which work poorly.

    The key issue: is it possible to use paid search to sell ads in this directory? If possible, what works?
  • Posted by Levon on 9/5/2008 at 11:34 AM Member
    2 words: FREE INCENTIVE
  • Posted on 9/5/2008 at 11:45 AM Author
    Not sure I understand what you mean by "free incentive". Client offers free (limited function) ads. The challenge here, however, is to get them to go to the landing page offering ads in the first place.

    Specifically, what type of keyword strategy should we use to sell 'yellow-pages' ads to vendors and merchants serving the B2C audience of the directory.
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