{"id":8691,"date":"2013-04-03T10:23:26","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T17:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/blog\/?p=517"},"modified":"2019-11-13T23:03:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T23:03:38","slug":"are-tech-companies-better-digital-marketers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/blog\/are-tech-companies-better-digital-marketers\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Tech Companies Better Digital Marketers?"},"content":{"rendered":"[Author Note:<\/i><\/b>\u00a0This post was originally written to be published simultaneous with and in support of the April update for the GeekWire 200<\/a>. \u00a0The folks at GeekWire<\/a> liked it enough that they wound up publishing virtually the entire post on their site. \u00a0My intention isn’t to duplicate the post but I wanted to post it on the Rival IQ blog as well since the concepts I cover are valid for any marketer to consider and I want to make sure our full audience at the Rival IQ blog got a chance to see the post as well. \u00a0Enjoy — John Clark]<\/em><\/p>\n

In our last few posts we\u2019ve explored a couple of key SEO techniques by comparing key players in specific markets and drawing competitive insights from what we saw.<\/p>\n

And that got me wondering\u2026are tech companies more savvy when it comes to digital marketing?<\/p>\n

Lucky for me, through our partnership with\u00a0Geekwire<\/a>, Rival IQ<\/a> monitors and benchmarks the digital activities of approximately 297 Seattle-area tech companies that move in and out of the GeekWire 200<\/a> ranked index every month. So it didn\u2019t take long to find answers\u2026<\/p>\n

Drumroll please…<\/h1>\n

I decided to compare these high-growth tech companies to the thousands of companies Rival IQ tracks\u00a0regularly. \u00a0Specifically, I looked at the quality of their meta descriptions and whether or not they were exposing their keywords to the world.<\/p>\n

Top-Notch Meta Description? No better than the average bear.<\/h3>\n

Even though homepage meta descriptions play an important role in getting people to your website, Rival IQ determined that 56% of the companies in our database had left their meta\u00a0descriptions blank or had descriptions that were too long to be effective. (Read more at – Is Your Meta Description Working As Hard As Your Tagline?<\/a>)<\/p>\n

How did the tech companies compare?<\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Meta<\/a>

Companies in the GeekWire 200 fare no better than the typical company on meta description quality<\/p><\/div>\n

Turns out 36% of the GeekWire 200 had missing meta descriptions and another 19% had written descriptions that were too long and therefore getting cut-off mid sentence in the search results. So 55% of the tech companies rated a fail.<\/p>\n

Score<\/span>: \u00a0TIE<\/p>\n

Keyword Savvy? Not so much.<\/h3>\n

Even though the search engines no longer leverage meta keywords in their algorithms, quite a few companies, over 50% in our database, are still populating these fields on their website and 27% of those are optimizing their content. As a result, they\u2019re exposing their keyword strategy to the world. (Read more at – Are you accidentally exposing your keyword strategy?!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Are tech companies on the ball?<\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Meta<\/a>

Slightly fewer GeekWire 200 companies are not exposing their meta keywords<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ll give this a qualified yes. Only 35% of the GeekWire 200 is sharing their keywords with the world and fewer are actively optimizing them. Better, but that\u2019s still a lot of opportunity for market-watchers to gain valuable insight on how to compete against these market-leading tech companies.<\/p>\n

Score:<\/span> Point to the Tech Companies.<\/p>\n

Conclusion?<\/strong>\u00a0Technology DNA Doesn\u2019t Necessarily Raise Your Digital IQ<\/strong><\/p>\n

Running With The Social Media Big Dogs<\/h1>\n

Many of the GeekWire 200 leverage social media in their marketing mix. Analyzing their activity on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn gave me a great opportunity to explore the strategic insights available to marketers, including:<\/p>\n