If you work in an office environment, you probably have a vendor that provides your office supplies. Do you follow them on Twitter or have you friended them on Facebook? There may also be a company that cleans your company’s floor mats. Do you read their blog?

Probably not, right?

Our SEO Challenge

Customer engagement is a big SEO challenge for many B2Bs. We’ve experienced this firsthand as a photo identification products retailer (in other words, we sell the stuff that your company needs to design, make, and wear your photo ID badges).

We are strictly a B2B serving a variety of industries, including government, education, healthcare, and retail. While we are fortunate to have very loyal customers, our products don’t tend to inspire conversations that are shared socially or linked to online.

Our Jump Into SEO

Over the years, we’ve checked off a host of SEO to-dos, including an on-site keyword strategy, fresh website content and product descriptions, an active company blog, and even a Twitter page. Although these initiatives have driven traffic to our site, customer engagement is a challenge.

To take the next step in our SEO efforts (with a primary goal to increase inbound links and improve search engine rankings), we knew we needed to put on our thinking caps. After holding several brainstorming sessions, we came up with a new campaign: a Custom Lanyard Design Contest.

While a lanyard contest is related to our core business – ID badge lanyards are a common way to wear an ID badge – the contest allowed us to engage a new target audience in online conversation: the artists who make and sell handmade badge lanyards. The contest first ran in the spring of 2011. Due to great success, we ran the contest again in the spring of 2012.

How the Campaign Worked

The hub of the contest was a landing page on our website that allowed visitors to enter the contest, view the lanyard entries, and vote for their favorite design.

The Lanyard Design Contest Landing Page

While entrants were vying for a cash prize, we got to reap the SEO benefits. For one, the contest allowed us to tap deeper into social media. Like many B2B retailers, we’ve struggled with how our business fits into the social media landscape. However, social media was perfectly suited to this campaign and served as an outlet for promoting the contest.

We also saw a jump in inbound linking. Visitors were encouraged to link to the main contest page and share a link with others. We provided each entrant with a contest badge to place on their own website, which included an optimized anchor text link back to our website. The badge helped the lanyard artists promote their entries and encourage their friends and followers to vote for them.

The Results

The excitement of a contest with a cash prize and winners decided by a public vote proved to be a success. The 2012 contest brought in 87 entries, 7,450 votes, and close to 1,000 Facebook “likes.” It also motivated visitors to blog and write articles about the contest, participate in conversations on Facebook, and request votes on Twitter – online activity that most B2B retailers rarely experience.

In addition to social engagement, we were pleased to see increases in traffic and rankings. Since launching the contest, we have realized a 90% lift in non-paid traffic related to variations of the keyword “lanyard.”

Non-Paid Traffic from Variations from the Keyword “Lanyard” – Source Google Analytics

We also have seen an increase in our rankings in Google. Prior to the contest, we had been ranking #22 in Google for the term “ID badge lanyards.” By the end of the contest, we moved up to #2 and have maintained this placement!

Ranking History for Keyword: ID Badge Lanyard – Source SEOmoz

Overall, we’re extremely pleased with the results of the Custom Lanyard Design Contest. Our teamed learned a lot through the process, which we’ll build on not only with our next social campaign, but in our everyday optimization efforts. We’ve proven that, with a little creativity, B2B retailers can ignite conversation online.

Has your B2B successfully tapped into the world of social media and initiated active conversations online? If so, do tell in the comments below!