Let’s face it. A lot of businesses need high-quality leads to generate revenue and stay afloat. Any inbound digital marketing strategy should be designed to enhance lead generation.. Unfortunately, most businesses struggle with generating quality leads, especially with SEO.
What is SEO
Search Engine Optimization is a technique that aims to increase the quantity and quality of traffic visiting your web pages. By pivoting content to search term trends in your niche, generating leads becomes more efficient. What makes it attractive is that generating leads with seo is more affordable than those obtained through other means. What’s more, SEO generates higher quality leads with a 14.6% chance of converting into buying customers.
How to Generate Leads with SEO
A State of Inbound report 2017 shows that 63% of businesses consider lead generation a big headache. Incorporating SEO can enhance a business’ lead generation strategies. Lead generation with SEO can help you win some of the 63% of consumers who start their search for products or services online.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Every business is different. You cannot generate organic traffic using a one size fits all tactic. Effective content marketing requires substantial analysis of the needs, desires, and behavior of your target audience.
The more specific you get, the better you can target potential customers. Start by:
- Researching your buyer personas,
- Define your target audience,
- Create content that hits the center of the target.
2. Understand User Intent
Understand the real meaning behind the keywords your target audience uses when searching for your offerings. You want to know why a consumer conducts a specific search and what they are looking for. These insights will enable you to optimize your content to fit their intent.
3. Go for Long-Tail Keywords
Effective content creation starts with a keyword search. In this case, we recommend looking for long-tail keywords. The longer your keyword tail, the more specific you can be about your target audience.
These keywords also improve your ranking on result pages. Start by looking at:
- What best describes your offering
- What’s working for your competitors
- What’s working for you
- What services you are offering
This data will help you narrow down your keyword search to a few unique ones. Note that long-tail keywords do not account for the bulk of search queries. However, they ensure you have extremely targeted audiences visiting your site.
4. Optimize Homepage and Content
A significant aspect of generating leads with SEO is content creation. Quality content encourages meaningful conversations with prospects. Every piece of content you create needs meticulous planning.
Remember that your goal is not high traffic, but traffic that converts. Here’s how you can achieve this goal:
Homepage Optimization
Use the content on your homepage in the best way possible. Start by adding:
- Business address, city or local information
- Relevant keywords
- Quality concise content
- Specific URLs
- Titles tags, and H1 tags among others
Content Optimization
Audit your existing content to:
- Correct subheadings
- Add relevant keywords and links
- Consistently create relevant and relatable content
5. Adopt Local SEO Strategies
Local SEO strategies enable you to create an enviable web presence. These strategies include:
- Claim listings. Start by building and marketing yourself on local online directories. This tactic drives quality traffic and helps you rank in a more favorable position in local search engines.
- Optimize content with local keywords. When crafting content, remember to specify your location. Local keywords are especially important if you are selling products or services. For instance, if you are a dentist, include your location in the same sentence. You can mention “Dentist in Brisbane” throughout your website and whenever relevant. Just make sure not to overstuff it with keywords as it will look spammy. Let it flow naturally within your website.
- Generate positive reviews. 88% of online consumers look to reviews to make a purchasing decision.
- With this in mind, consistently provide high-quality service and ask for reviews. The more positive reviews you get, the more leads you’ll get.
6. Optimize for Mobile
In recent years, consumers have been steering away from desktop searches and embracing mobile search. 58% of all Google searches originate from mobile devices. Thus, mobile optimization is a crucial lead generation strategy.
The majority of these consumers use their phones to search for products or services with the intent to buy. Google reports that 78% of all local mobile searches result in offline purchases. This proves the importance of optimizing your website to improve your sales.
So, if your website is not mobile-friendly, consider optimizing it to make it more readable and appealing to your mobile users. Investing in mobile optimization increases your chances of attracting high-quality leads.
7. Create Effective Meta Descriptions
A meta description is an HTML code that summarizes what a web page contains. While they don’t influence a web page’s ranking directly, they have a substantial effect on its click-through rate (CTR). To increase conversions, create a meta tag that is interesting to the user. It should also be optimized for user intent.
Some factors to consider when creating a strong meta description include:
- Length: Ensure your Meta description uses the entire pixel limit set by Google. Such meta descriptions have a CTR that is 36% higher than those formatted using the old pixel limit.
- Make it specific and appropriate by adding target keywords
- Create value by adding a solution or benefit
- Use action-oriented language to get clicks
8. Use Alt Tags for your Images
Did you know that Google can only tell what a picture is about if it has Alt tags? Tagging your images increases their chances of appearing on Google image search. So make sure you add a descriptive text on your images, ALT Tag.
9. SEO your Landing Pages
Optimizing your landing pages ensure they show up high in search results. A good landing page is designed to cater to a specific segment of visitors. It should feature bold headlines, engaging media, effective call to action, and benefit-oriented copy.
10. Build an active blog and optimize your blog posts
Consider your blog an avenue where you can create fresh, optimized content, and share it with your target audience. A blog post with relevant keywords and links boosts social media engagement.
Tips to optimize your blog:
- Create content consistently: The more you post, the more results you get.
- Create useful and engaging content: Your content should not only inform visitors but also entertain them. The more engaging and valuable your blog is, the more it will be shared and linked. This will open you up to more business.
- Use H2 or H# subheadings: These subheadings improve user experience. They also help Google to grasp what your content is about.
- Consider link building by submitting guest posts to other sites to drive traffic.
- Use relevant keywords: Add relevant keywords throughout your content and your headlines. Just make sure not to overstuff them.
- Add relevant links: Link to older content from your site or other credible websites. Google ranks pages with relevant links higher on search engines.
11. Be active on social media
Most search engines index social media content. The more active you are, the more likely you will appear on search engines. Also, most consumers use social media platforms to search for something.
To generate more high-quality leads, optimize your social media profile, and posts for maximum visibility. You can achieve this by:
- Using relevant keywords on each post
- Using relevant hashtags
- Adding a social media sharing button to your website
- Being active on social media
12. Avoid Common SEO Errors
Keyword overstuffing is one of the most common mistakes people make when looking to up their SEO game. Not only does it make your content hard to read, but it also ruins your chances of nurturing a consistent and loyal fanbase. Other common SEO mistakes include:
- Link buying: When advertising on other websites, ensure your link is set to “no-follow.”
- Article spinning: taking an article from another site and rewriting it to make it look new.
- Duplicate content: ensure all your products are unique and not duplicated
- Invisible /hidden text: do not use the same font color as your background-color
13. Speed
Lastly, how fast your website loads can change your luck at generating leads with SEO. Search engines consider your website’s loading speed when ranking it. Also, faster websites respond to search quicker, making them rank higher than yours.
To improve your website speed, choose a reliable web host. Also, remove any website baggage like spam messages, unnecessary scripts, and plugins. Don’t forget to clean up your database and fix broken links.
Try any of these 13 tips at generating more high-quality leads with SEO. If, however, they sound overwhelming and time-consuming, do not worry. Partner with a professional SEO agency to help you leverage SEO for lead generation.