BtoB Media Business - January 2008 - (Page 9)

COVER STORY THE BY MARIE GRIFFIN IS ON M SEARCH While business media continue to evolve as online companies, they are putting more attention and resources into search and are using both search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) to bring a continual flow of traffic to their Web sites. SEM, or paid search, is a marketing tool b-to-b media companies have used for years, but SEO, also called natural or organic search, is growing in importance. Why haven’t most print-legacy media companies made SEO a priority before now? SEO has been put on the back burner for a number of reasons. One is that b-to-b media making the transition from printcentric business models have been wrestling with more urgent issues, such as investing in Web technology, developing successful monetization models, creating original digital content and staffing e-media departments. There also has been a tendency to take SEO for granted. Wouldn’t natural search favor the b-to-b brands that constantly produce online content specific to a particular industry, using the language—keywords in search engine parlance—of that business sector? And, because b-to-b media had other ways to drive Web site traffic, such as their print magazines and e-newsletters, search-driven traffic was not considered essential. Another obstacle has been the controlled-circulation mentality of print-based media. Some b-to-b publishers have been reluctant to open themselves up to an online audience that might dilute the value of their print readership. However, the b-to-b media are discovering that kind of logic doesn’t translate well to the online world. “Print publishers are waking up to the fact that just because they own a particular audience offline, they are not automatically granted the same audience online,” said Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist at The New York Times Co. Web issues force new ‘organic’ searching to take priority over traditional paid search methods edia companies are getting better at search engine marketing these days, especially when it comes to optimizing their Web properties for search engines. Many are also reorganizing for search, hiring search engine marketing specialists and training editors in search engine optimization, another indication of search marketing’s increasingly important role. As Chuck Richard, VP-lead analyst at market research and advisory company Outsell, put it: “Traffic has become the currency of the Web.” Jeff DeBalko, president of the Interactive division of Reed Business Information and Reed Business’ chief Internet officer, agreed. “It’s just critical that we capture as much time and attention as possible from our users, whatever the source of the traffic,” he said. Courtney Lake, online audience development manager for the CMP Electronics Group, echoed that sentiment. “You cannot say you are a Web 2.0 company and not have search as a piece of your overarching proposal for progress,” she said. In fact, Web site traffic coming via natural search from the big search engines—Google, Yahoo, MSN and others—is the No. 1 source of traffic for business media sites, according to a study conducted in 2006 by Outsell. A sample of 23 key business media companies reported that 37% of their traffic came from search engines, a higher percentage than the 34% coming directly by way of bookmarking, e-newsletter links or referrals from print products. By comparison, SEM was the source of only 9% of the traffic. While SEM has its place, it doesn’t provide the bang for the buck that SEO does, b-to-b media online experts say. Prescott Shibles, VP-new media at Penton Media, said business media companies need to understand when to use SEM and when not to. “If you’re using SEM with a conversion in mind, you can put a value on that conversion and make sure the value you get outweighs the expense,” he said. “But if you’re using paid search just to drive traffic, you have a real problem. It’s not cost-effective to run a business renting traffic.” “At PC World and Macworld, my focus is to get the fundamentals of SEO in place as a strategic initiative for the organization, and to use SEM sparingly,” said Colin Crawford, exec mediabusinessonline.com | January 2008 | Media Business | 9 http://mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - January 2008

BtoB Media Business - January 2008
Contents
Upfront
Industry Snapshot
Cover Story
Sales & Marketing
M & A
Events
Online
Production
Circulation
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - January 2008

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