In the last couple of years, the pace of digitalization and competition of businesses in the web world has seen a rapid increase, and that primarily says a lot about the effect of SEO. Whether to create leads, or to convert them into sales, SEO is now used much more than ever before.
What Is SEO?
Before getting started on the concept of lead generation using SEO, one should be aware of what SEO is. In simple words, SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is a process with which one can enhance the visibility of his website or webpage when people search about the product or service related to his webpage on a search engine.
SEO is done to make a business or webpage as much visible to people as possible. The scalability of the business depends on the visibility of the web page. The more the webpage is visible to people, the more it will attract the desired attention.
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What Is Search Intent – Understanding and Nailing It
Anything used to describe the purpose of an online search in detail is called search intent. It is a wholesome purpose for which an online search is pursued in a search engine.
The algorithm of search engines is improved continuously for understanding the search intent of people. Based on the search term used by people, a search engine ranks the pages on its list of results.
There are three different types of search intent:
Informational intent:
If people are looking for information on a particular subject, it comes under informational intent. It involves a specific question about a topic.
Navigational intent:
This intent is used to direct one to a specific webpage and is used to ensure the visibility of a website when someone searches about it.
Transactional intent:
It is used when someone is using a search engine for buying something. It indicates that the user has a basic idea of the product for which he is looking out and wants to visit directly to the product page for the final decision of purchasing it.
What Is SEO Lead Generation?
Given the rise in the use of SEO for gaining traction, many have started using it for lead generation, so that the incoming traffic can be converted into potential clients. SEO lead generation is a process with which one can convert the traffic coming on a website through a search engine into potential customers of a product or a service.
For SEO lead generation, a proper strategy and list of resources are required, based on which one can create a funneled list of products/services for target audience.
SEO lead generation is a good strategy for B2B brands, where a business is ensured of a consistent supply of leads.
“Good SEO work only gets better over time. It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.” – Jill Whalen
Main Principles Of SEO Lead Generation
There are three basic principles on which everyone who wishes to use SEO for lead generation should follow:
Focus on quality content
When it comes to SEO, content should be elaborative but crisp at the same time. What we mean to say is it should be detailed enough to provide every precise information one is seeking on the web world.
The content should be educational and relevant to the topic. If your content is good, it can authorize your business and make it trustworthy in its segment.
Understanding the user intent
Thanks to consistent development in the working of search engines over all these years, they can understand the intent of the people searching for something on them.
Whenever you write even a basic keyword about something you wish to see, the search engine tries to show accurate results about the content you wish to see. So, it is crucial to understand the user intent for generating leads using SEO-based content.
Think beyond driving traffic
It is where the concept of lead generation using SEO comes into effect. You have a significant amount of traffic coming on your webpage. However, you need to understand the potential of that traffic, which can convert into leads for your business.
There are various techniques through which you can not only increase the traffic coming to your website but also drive them to make potential leads.
Why Do You Need SEO For Lead Generation?
While you might think that SEO only works in increasing the visibility of your business, there’s a bigger picture to it.
Here are the top five reasons why SEO has become essential for lead generation in both small-scale and large-scale businesses in the modern era:
·Increasing visibility and brand recognition:
Given that your website is the first point of contact for your online audience, it should be used as a perfect platform to make people aware of your business and drive leads and sales through them.
SEO makes sure that the ranking of your business is given a higher priority, so that it is more visible to your audience and makes it popular by driving traffic and eventually the conversions.
·Enhancing the user experience:
SEO makes your website friendlier to use for the visitors who are new to your website and want to know more details about it.
SEO optimizes your website by factors like increasing the page speed and improving the quality of content, all of which work together to better the engagement of your visitors on your website and increase their overall experience.
·Delivering long-term success:
Apart from delivering quick results on a short-term basis, SEO also brings in success in the long term with a consistent ROI over the period.
If you work on factors like quality of the content, optimizing keywords and monitoring the health of your website, the SEO consistently makes your base stronger. It results in an increase in traffic over time and consistent improvement in rankings.
·Keeping up with the evolving trend:
Given that SEO works as a long term marketing strategy, it also evolves consistently with time using new practices based on continuously changing algorithm updates.
Hence, you can be updated with the latest shift in dynamics of the web environment and are also helped in keeping up with the competition too.
·Incoming of relevant traffic with high conversion rate:
The use of SEO opens the doors of realization about the scalability of a business model. With SEO, the incoming traffic can be funneled rightly and has a good conversion potential. SEO helps in increasing the traffic with the use of trending keywords and searches.
On a broad scale, I see SEO becoming a normalized marketing tactic, the same way TV, radio, and print are traditionally thought of as marketing tactics.” – Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager, Bing
Tips For How To Turn SEO Leads Into Sales
You have got a significant number of leads on which you can work to convert them into sales. And that can be done again using SEO. Following are some ways which you can use to convert the leads into sales via SEO:
Clever use of keywords:
Apart from being ensured about the right keywords for your content, it is also crucial to know about the places where you can use them. Optimally use the keywords in specific areas such as URLs, headings, image descriptions, meta descriptions and page titles.
Creating quality content:
The only use of keywords at required places is not enough, as a search engine prioritizes a webpage based on the quality of content. Create your content in an informative and engaging way using blogs, videos, infographics, animations, guest blogs, how-to guides and product reviews by users to cover every possible ground.
Using social media
The social media platforms help gain leads and can also be used optimally to convert those leads into sales. One can use social media platforms by putting up links to the product pages. A click on the link will direct a user to your product page.
Focusing on local audience and use of mobile:
Studies have shown that 30 per cent of mobile searches have a local intent, such as searching about nearby joints and products or services provided in a particular locality. In such cases, the use of local keywords and landing pages should be more emphasized.
Managing social reputation carefully:
The conversion of leads into sales depends very much on your social reputation, which is controlling the content which people see when they search about your business. It is better to keep a note of feedback, especially the negative ones so that the trust while making a decision is not hampered.
Developing internal strategy to track your progress:
The effect of keywords is not always the same and keeps on changing with time. For boosting sales using SEO, you should have a good strategy in place, which involves a team of people skilled in SEO for tracking the goals of a company and creating both short-term and long-term strategies with a consistent scope of improvement.
“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.” – Phil Frost, Main Street ROI
How To Use SEO For Lead Generation?
Following are the ways with which one can use SEO for generating leads for his/her business:
·Create a blog using SEO-optimized content by using keywords, subheadings and links, and publishing regularly.
·Increasing the speed of your website by using a reliable web hosting provider, optimizing the scripts using plug-ins, fixing broken links and cleaning your database using plug-ins.
·Conduct keyword research using research tools for finding relevant keywords leading to your website.
·Start link building with high-quality sources to improve the ranking of your domain by making a list of people to reach out to.
·Use local strategies like claiming listings in online directories and optimizing content for locals search to rank higher in a confined area where your business mainly operates.
·Actively use social media channels for boosting SEO lead generation campaigns.
·Promotion and management of customer reviews, by encouraging, responding and repositioning the user reviews.
How To Use Keywords For Your Website’s Content?
The correct use of keywords at the right places in content makes the SEO implementation very effective. There are a few places in a webpage where keywords should be placed optimally.
Those places include article title, meta description, SEO title tag, within the first 200 words and the last 200 words, once in every (732) 724-7234 words throughout the article, sub-headings, anchor text links, image alt-tags and URL.
The use of keywords in all these places will help the search engine in relating your webpage with the same keyword inserted in the search engine by the user. The more optimum is the use of keywords, the higher is your website visibility.
How To Measure Your SEO Success Rate?
Following are all the factors that determine the success rate of SEO applied on a webpage:
Organic traffic
It is the number of people visiting your website by clicking on the name or link of the webpage whenever it appears on the search engine after inserting relevant keywords.
Keyword ranking
It is the performance and specific spot of a webpage of a keyword in the search results on a search engine. The spot on which the result is shown on the webpage determines the keyword ranking.
SERP visibility
The Search Engine Results Page (SERP) consists of organic results and ads, which measure how many people can see your website in the results of the search engine page.
Click-through rate
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of users clicking on the webpage when it emerges as a result of the SERP.
Bounce rate
It is the percentage of people who are visiting the website just for the sake of casual surfing and do not indulge in further interaction, such as giving out details or taking more click actions.
Backlinks
These are inbound links that represent other web pages and are present in your webpage as a supporting measure to increase traffic on that particular directed page.
Page speed
It is the rate at which the content on your website loads. The faster the web page, the better is its ranking and overall performance.
Conversion rate
It is obtained by dividing the number of conversions by the number of total interactions on a webpage.
How Does The Online Lead Generation Sales Funnel Occur?
It takes a lot of effort, time and resources for converting basic-level leads into potential sales leads. Following is a step-by-step process, which should be followed for online lead generation sales funnel:
Mapping of the lead journey:
The lead journey is a gradual process until a lead is matured by passing through various touchpoints. You can map your lead journey by determining your desired action, defining your free offerings, outlining required touchpoints and creating a qualification framework.
Building awareness through content:
You can create free content like blog posts, YouTube videos and social media posts, or paid content like social media and pay-per-click ads, to make your target audience aware of your business.
Creating interest with a lead magnet:
A lead magnet is usually present within both free and paid content which is used to get contact details of your target audience. This lead magnet can be anything – discount coupon, free trial or a guide. Using lead magnets, you can get the contact details of potential users, using which you can focus only on those leads for conversion.
Distributing awareness content:
You can distribute awareness about the business, product or service to your classified leads using organic search engine traffic, paid advertising and organic social media search.
Increasing interest with landing pages and form submissions:
You can offer a lead magnet by creating a different landing page or a form in explaining the idea behind your lead magnet to your target audience. Using landing pages gives an impression about you as an expert in your field, who provides high-value content.
Making a thanksgiving page:
A user contributes to your plan of action by giving in his details. For that step alone, you need to acknowledge that effort by creating a Thank You page, which will display a confirmation and thanks message with clear instructions and recommendations related to the lead magnet.
Creating a lead scoring framework:
The next step is to invest in a particular set of quality leads, for which their classification should be qualified deals. It can be done using a lead scoring framework, which gives a score to the leads based on their behavior on the website and their demographics. Out of these leads, you can select only those leads which project a score higher than 80 out of 100.
framework:
“The ultimate search engine would basically understand everything in the world, and it would always give you the right thing. And we’re a long, long ways from that.” – Larry Page
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FAQs
How do you get SEO leads?
There are many techniques for generating leads using SEO, such as building a blog with SEO-optimized content, increasing the website speed, conducting keyword research, building links, using local SEO strategies, being active on social media channels and managing customer reviews.
What is lead generation in direct marketing?
Lead generation in direct marketing is a process of capturing the interest of people towards a product or service of a business vertical. The main goal of this process is to develop sales out of those prospects captured.
What are the lead generation techniques?
There are multiple methods of lead generation, some of which include SEO, pay-per-click advertising, online marketing videos and tools, webinars and blogs.