SEO digital marketing is an invaluable part of lead generation.
It’s also absolutely daunting and mysterious.
As you dip your toes into the water, you’re looking for answers about what SEO can, and cannot do, for your business.
Instead of clear-cut answers, you’re forced to grapple with an onslaught of acronyms, best practices, and updates.
You wind up asking yourself “How does it work? Does it really generate leads? Is it all a waste of time?”
SEO is a value-add for your business because it can elevate your visibility in search and bring in qualified leads.
So, let’s dive in and unpack how it works. There’s no reason to remain intimidated by SEO.
How SEO Digital Marketing Creates Lead Generation Opportunities
Before we can discuss how you get SEO leads, we need to lay out what SEO is.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the tactics and strategies you use to increase your visibility in online searches and bring more traffic to your website.
How does SEO work?
Search engine crawlers read webpages looking for information relevant to the searcher’s query and return a list of results likely to satisfy search intent.
Why should my business care about SEO?
Search engine optimized sites get found by people actively looking online for your solutions and services.
When your solutions resolve their problems, you can win new customers.
Great! Can I rely only on SEO for leads?
No. SEO does not create leads. Done right, it boosts traffic to your website.
SEO does not make a visitor:
- Contact you
- Download an asset
- Fill out a webform
- Request more information
SEO gets people on your website
You still need to create assets, prominently place powerful calls to action on your pages, have form fills, and develop content that leads visitors through the Buyer’s Journey for your SEO digital marketing strategy to deliver results.
Maintaining a high rank is a constant battle
Sites that rank at the top of Google regularly make updates and optimize their pages.
How to Optimize Your Site and Improve Visibility
To get leads on your site, they have to first find your site in a search. Here are 8 steps you can take to improve your rank.
1. Bake SEO in from the beginning
If you’re starting a website development project or redesigning an existing site, bake SEO into everything you do – from the URL structure to your solution pages. Don’t wait to add it after the website is developed.
2. Develop a killer content marketing strategy that satisfies search intent
People turn to search engines because they want more information. Give them what they’re looking for in blogs, solution pages, videos, guides, and graphics.
3. Earn high marks for engagement
One way Google determines if you’re satisfying search intent or not is through engagement. A low bounce rate, high time on site, and strong pages per session demonstrate to Google you have a high-quality, engaging site that deserves to rank well.
4. Regularly push out fresh content
Fresh, relevant content trumps old, outdated information. Keep your site up to date and don’t only publish blogs. Work in videos and infographics too. Have strong calls to action in all assets to create conversion opportunities.
5. Extract value from old content
Your old content is still valuable – especially if it brings a lot of organic traffic to your site. Keep these pages up to date with new statistics, facts, or figures.
If part of your service offering changes, update your solution page to explain what’s new.
6. Let keywords guide you
You know keywords get you to certain sites – it’s what happens anytime you search on Google. You type in a term and get a list of websites that use the term.
But there’s more going on behind the scenes.
Let’s say you manufacture medical supplies
You’ll need keywords that are relevant to what you make and the industries you serve so that Google recognizes you as a potential top result when someone searches “surgical device manufacturer.”
But if your page structure is a mess, your site takes ages to load, and the content you built around “surgical device manufacturer” is weak, you’ll never rank for that keyword and searchers will not see your site.
A single keyword, no matter how many times you use it, will not cause you to rank
There are other on-page, off-page, and technical factors that feed into Google’s ranking algorithm.
7. Get up to speed on on-page vs off-page SEO
What is on-page SEO?
On-page is exactly what it sounds like – the SEO tactics you use on your webpages to increase visibility.
Here’s a sample of what goes into an optimized page:
- You’ve sprinkled the keyword naturally throughout the content
- Related keywords are present
- The URL is clear and succinct
- Subheadings structure the page
- Images and videos keep the visitor engaged
- There are no walls of text
- Your meta description is informative
- The page title previews the content and contains the main keyword
- Links in the content point to other pages on your site
What is off-page SEO?
It’s not only about what takes place on your website. Off-page activities matter, too. Here’s a sample of places and activities that lead people back to your site and increase your SEO visibility.
- Backlinks from other websites to your site content
- Social bookmarking content to sites such as Reddit and other news aggregators
- Social posting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites with links back to your content
- Directories with your name, address, phone number, and one-liner about what you do
8. Conduct technical SEO audits
Links will break on your website. “Orphaned” pages will pop up, canonical issues will emerge – the list is endless.
If you don’t take care of these problems immediately, visitors will have a hard time navigating your content. This poor user experience drives down engagement and causes your rankings to drop.
Technical SEO audits tell you if your website has errors that need immediate redress
You’ll also find out if there are any warnings or notices. The audit will reveal if your overall site is “healthy” and primed for SEO success.
You’ll discover if:
- Search engines can find and crawl your pages
- Anything is broken
- Pages load quickly
- Duplicate content exists
- Every page has title tags and meta descriptions
Technical audits don’t reveal conversion-related content issues
Layer a content audit on top of your technical audit by working with an SEO-focused website development company. When we do content audits for clients, we’re able to identify:
- Reasons web visitors don’t convert
- Messaging and formatting problems that cause people to leave your site
- What you’re doing well
- Areas for improvement
- Content changes that deliver the biggest ROI
14 SEO Tools to Bookmark Right Now
Google operates in a black box. Algorithm updates happen and then everyone reacts. No one knows exactly what goes into ranking criteria because Google rarely discloses it. Gaining insight is critical.
Which is why the first set of resources to bookmark are websites where pros weigh in on what’s happening.
5 websites to stay on top of Google’s constant changes:
2 free tools for conducting technical audits
Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Lighthouse are free to use and are a great starting point for gauging the health of your website.
In-depth auditing tools cost money
If you aren’t ready to invest in a subscription, have a digital marketing agency conduct an audit and review the results with you. When we perform an audit, we quickly identify technical issues, irrelevant keywords with negative impacts, directory issues and more.
Using the findings, you determine where to start with your SEO or what to change.
7 ways to conduct SEO keyword research
Never guess what terms people search for. Conduct SEO keyword research so you nail down the search intent related to your solutions. Here 7 popular options:
2. SEMrush keyword research tool
4. Ahrefs
5. QuestionDB
7. KWFinder
Tip: Balance volume and difficulty to hit on words you can and want to rank for
As you review the research, you will see low volume keywords. These are typically easier to rank for than high volume, high difficulty terms.
While you can rank for a keyword with 10 searches per month, how much traffic is that really going to bring your to site? Not much or none.
Find the sweet spot between volume and difficulty with long-tail keywords
These narrower terms can tell you the specific questions and concerns your target market has about a broad topic.
You Don’t Have to Dive Into SEO For Lead Generation On Your Own
Going all in on SEO can feel like jumping off the high dive at the pool. You’re confident as you climb to the top. Then you stare over the ledge and wonder if you’re ready to take the plunge.
You don’t have to dive in on your own.
Our SEO experts are here to consult, guide, and manage your SEO digital marketing strategy for you.
Set up a quick call to hear how we’ll manage everything from your keyword strategy to creating conversion opportunities: https://www.klagroup.com/contact-us/
