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Increase Productivity and Leverage SEO/SEM Beyond Search for Enterprise Search Solutions

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What is Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search (ES) is typically defined as the practice of creating content from multiple enterprise sources, such as databases, intranet sites, and/or directories that is searchable to defined audiences. Enterprise Search differs from traditional web search by indexing data or documents from sources such as file systems, emails, or document management systems. ES has the ability to use access controls to limit the content that is available to user types.

How can my business use Enterprise Search?

Businesses of all industries and sizes can leverage Enterprise Search to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer services. Enterprise Search can help your sales team effectively and efficiently find product information (Product updates, features, and benefits, for example) to help them in their sales process. It also helps prospective customers quickly identify information related to products or services on your website. According to Google, customers that deploy an Enterprise Search solution report an increase of conversion rates by 25%. Enterprise Search solutions offer improved customer services and cut costs by providing relevant information to customers faster.

What Enterprise Search Solutions are available for my Business?

  • Google Search Appliance: Search Box with similar algorithm as Google for intranet, employee directories, internal databases, etc.

  • Google Site Search: Integrated into your company website to find product and service related information

  • Google Commerce Search: Integrated into your e-commerce website for a better shopping experience

  • Open Source Solutions: Constellio, Apache Solr, etc.

  • Other ES Solutions: Vivisimo, Attivio, SharePoint, IBM, etc.

How can my business apply SEO insights to Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search can incorporate SEO/SEM insights to provide query suggestions, related queries, dynamic navigation and synonyms for a better user experience for customers, and create internal operating efficiencies. Your business can also leverage meta data that aligns to web related searches and business information. Enterprise Search provides an opportunity to use the insights that are generating leads and sales to save your company time, money, and develop internal efficiencies.

Tip for Considering an Enterprise Search Solution

  • Be sure to choose the correct Enterprise Search solution base on your business goals and objectives.

  • Consider the impact of Enterprise Search on your intended audience.

  • Target your Enterprise Search on your intended audience.

  • Target your Enterprise Search solution and configuration according to your audience.

  • Test configurations, query features, and designs to maximize its benefits.

  • Measure the impact on revenue, internal efficiencies, and sales.

Conclusion

The power of search goes beyond search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. In general, we associate “search” with the customer finding us within the search results. As marketing professionals and business owners, we need to consider what happens when a prospective customer lands on business website. We work to create strategies to increase brand awareness and reduce our cost per lead, but we still need to identify opportunities to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer service. Enterprise Search provides us with the ability to leverage our findings from SEO or SEM to take advantage of these opportunities to better serve customers, create efficiency, and increase sales.

SEO Results for Regulated Industries in 2012

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There have been numerous predictions on what changes will be seen in 2012 for SEO. We are predicting that more companies in highly regulated industries such as Credit Unions, Banks, Pharmaceutical Companies, and Independent Insurance providers will start to proactively engage in SEO, Social Media Marketing and measurement of internet marketing tactics. Major factors determining marketers’ budget allocations to these initiatives will be the economic conditions and the marketing managers’ abilities to demonstrate the positive influences on ROI.

SEO & Social Media in 2012

As many have predicted in 2012, the days of implementing SEO campaigns without a thought or allocating resources to Social Media are over. This should be the catalyst needed to encourage Banks & Pharmaceutical companies to consider their presence online. Last year, SEOmoz and other industry internet marketing blogs displayed a correlation between high ranking companies and social media metrics. We assume the launch of Google + as well as the modifications to Facebook and Twitter promotions will be more relevant to the equation in the future. Metrics from these platforms have even been added to SEO software as a result.

Figure 1: SEOmoz Facebook Metrics Report

Internet Marketing Challenges for Regulated Industries

One of the biggest challenges for these industries is the interpretation of the financial services laws or the lack of a specific guide by organizations such as the FDA. There currently is a list a specific list of dos and don’t for online marketing provided by the governing organizations. In addition, privacy of customers’ or prospective customers’ information will continue to be a challenge. It is highly recommended that you have someone with marketing experience within the industry overseeing the marketing efforts who understands internet marketing tactics, and has a history of ethical practices. Otherwise, you will increase the probability of experiencing issues and public scrutiny.

Measurement & Privacy go Hand-in-Hand

The measurement of internet marketing is a cause of concern within these industries as well. All of the backlash from retargeting campaigns, the collection of personal information and the use of 3rd party cookies is understandable. But it is critical that all of the internet marketing tactics be measured and aligned to the organization’s goals and objectives. Otherwise budgets and personnel will be cut, because without measuring the marketing efforts there is no way to show how they impacted ROI.

In the case of Banks and Credit Unions, many of these organizations have websites with two different sections that included a secure domain for applications and an unsecure domain for product/service offerings. Many financial service companies do not track the secure domain due to privacy concerns. Generally speaking, as long as you are not collecting personal information within the analytical solution, you legally can measure if visitors completed a specific task (i.e. loan application submission). Since you can accomplish this, you will be able to measure the impact on ROI and demonstrate to senior leadership the value of your internet marketing tactics.

Figure 2: Even Google Analytics has the able to track secure pages.

Remember that SEO results go beyond keyword ranking. Consider the impact that SEO has on new visitors, on-site metrics, landing pages, and other marketing tactics such as PPC cost. Part of the process of SEO for regulated industries is to educate those that are less informed. As marketers, we do not just deliver reports; we must deliver the message and insights, as well as show ROI in a form that senior management can understand.