How to Use SEO to Bring in Higher Quality Leads

Marketing and sales leads are the lifeblood of many organizations, but they’re rarely created equal. In fact, many of the leads that marketing acquires end up being rejected by sales because they’re not qualified enough. This isn’t new and it’s an issue that’s been plaguing companies for years. The remedy is clear;

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Marketers must focus on bringing in higher quality leads to their sales team

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The question then becomes how to get better leads. We’ve found that the right search engine optimization (SEO) strategy can do wonders for businesses, but you first need to understand how search engines work. So here are some of our best SEO and Google SEO tips to help you figure out what you can do to improve your lead quality through SEO.

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The quality of your SEO leads depends on how well you know your audience

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The beauty of acquiring leads through organic search is that people are actively looking for what you provide, or how you can solve their problem. They’re usually eager to find you and your products now. This means hot leads who found you because they wanted to, score!

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Throw away the idea that you want all the leads, and that volume is an indication of success. Instead, remember that you want targeted visitors. Instead of trying to cater to everyone who could possibly be a client on your website, get focused.

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Here’s how to start:

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‍Create three to four in-depth, informed buyer personas that include detail about who your ideal customers are and their demographics. Determine your top one or two personas, and reshape your online messaging to appeal to them.

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‍Conduct market research. Find out where these target customers spend their time. A lot of this information is readily available online. For example, you can search for the age ranges and education levels (demographics) of users on a certain social media platform, and quickly identify whether it’s a good fit for you based on your key personas.

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Use what you’ve learned to rework your SEO strategy

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Search engines, and how they work, are constantly changing. Some best practices have stayed fairly consistent through the years. For example, your website content must include targeted keywords in order to make a splash with SEO. So, using what you learned from your personas and market research, your next step is to do keyword research.

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Here are some keyword research tips:

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• We like using the Google keyword planner tool, since Google is the heavy hitter of search engines and has the most sway in SEO.

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• Look for keywords that your ideal buyers are most likely to search for. You want a mix of lengths, and words or phrases that are not overly specific or overly general. For example, “swim schools near me” is a better choice than the very specific “swim schools for toddlers 12-36 months old near me” or the more general “swim schools” keyword.

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• The best keywords are high in search volume, but low in competition. This gives you the best shot in pulling rank when you use them.

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• Review your website content, including everything from your URLs, to the titles of your content pages, image alt descriptions, meta descriptions, blog posts and more. Wherever you can, work in your targeted keywords.

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• Keep up with the best Google SEO tips by regularly reviewing Google’s own best practices. These change often, so it’s a good idea to refer to them often.

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• Generally speaking, the more videos and photos you can include (while not slowing down your page speed), the better for SEO. Also, posting content regularly on your site helps to keep you appearing relevant to Google, which helps in your rankings.

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Review and revise your SEO strategy

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Once you’ve reworked your SEO, let it fly for about a month. At that point, compare your analytics to what they were previously. Some good metrics to track include time spent on page, conversion rate and bounce rate. You can ignore overall traffic for the most part, since these other measurements will tell you much more about whether you’re attracting the targeted audience you want.

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Next, meet with your sales team. See if these SEO changes you’ve made have been helpful to them. Are the leads they’re getting higher quality now? Based on your analytics and feedback from your sales team, you’ll know whether to keep things as they are or continue looking for new keywords and new strategies.

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A good SEO strategy can provide you with higher quality leads and make a big impact in your customer acquisition. But SEO is also a very complex digital marketing strategy. We’d love to help you succeed, and we know SEO.