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B2B Marketplaces Vs. Search Engines – What Is A Better Marketing Platform?

By: Sabra Easterday Click author's name for more of his/her articles

The Internet has evolved itself into a powerful medium for advertising and marketing. In fact, the global economic meltdown has strengthened its position has an effective and competitive medium to market products and services and generate leads for businesses.

Marketing on Search Engines
The first thing that comes to mind when talking about marketing your business on the internet is having a website. Once the website is launched, the next logical step is to optimize it efficiently so that it features in the top positions of search results. The idea is, when a potential customer searches on the web for your product or service, your website should be listed as the first option. The top results are regarded as the most relevant ones and that is where the majority of searchers go!

Marketing on B2B Marketplaces
B2B Marketplaces are online portals where buyers and sellers come together and get in touch with each other to further profitable business endeavors. Businesses need to register themselves on a B2B portal and search for potential buyers and service providers to get in touch with them and either post RFBs or bid for projects.

What is Better?
Let us evaluate both the mediums on various standards and examine their various aspects:

Audience Base
Search Engines are used by people across the world. There can be people searching for business or there can be some just in need for some information and then there can be people just doing some window shopping.

B2B marketplaces on the other hand, are frequented only by people who are serious about doing business. Creating a presence here would mean you would be marketing to a highly targeted audience who are ready to spend money on your products and services.

User Comments & Reviews
Search Engines just deliver you relevant links based on your search query. The credibility and quality of a business website is solely determined by its relevancy and how well it matches your search query. It doesn't give you any hint about the quality of services delivered by the company.

B2B marketplaces include provision for comments and reviews by the clients. Just by browsing through the profile page of the website, you can get to know what its previous clients think of the company and get a hint about the quality of work they deliver.

Security of Business Deals
When you do business with a business whom who found on the Search Engines, its totally a one-on-one affair. Though you may have necessary SLAs and contracts in place, there would be no third party to stand witness. In case of any issues or conflicts, you would have to go to the courts and abide by the clauses included in the contract.

B2B portals on the other hand always act as a presiding party. These portals have strong moderators who look out for all the aspects of a business. In case a buyer or service provider does not get the promised service or payment, the webmaster can suspend the account of the other party and prevent them from registering again. This can have a severe negative impact on that business and in addition to loss of revenue, the company also stands to lose its credibility in the market. This mechanism always ensures that all the businesses adhere to credible business practices. Moreover, many B2B portals provide Escrow services where buyers and sellers can exchange money through the website itself. This highly reduces the potential for any fraud.

Ease of Searching
With Search Engines, buyers would need to go through each and every company listed in the search results in order to get information about their kind of services, price details, portfolio, testimonials etc. Each website would be different and so would be their presentation style and so comparison becomes a tedious task.

With the business Profile Pages on B2B websites, it becomes very easy to browse through the various listings and compare all their key aspects.

B2B marketing cannot be ignored. If you want to have more than just a steady presence on the web and establish an effective channel wherein you can generate leads and market your products and services to a niche audience, its about time you get registered on a B2B2 marketplace!

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: Sabra Easterday is an established attorney and founder-director of MatchB2B, a Global e-bidding platform. She nurtures a keen interest in commercial businesses and has vast knowledge about the business opportunities and ways to extract their full benefits.