Getting page views means nothing if you aren’t converting. The goal of all SEO projects should be to generate more leads, especially quality leads. High conversion rates were simpler to achieve in the past; as the digital marketplace evolves and becomes more complex, you have to work a bit harder for your leads. The bar for getting quality SEO leads has been raised.
For instance, Google began mobile-first indexing in 2019, which means that it will prioritize the mobile version of your website when indexing your web pages. If you haven’t optimized your site for mobile users, you are likely to get lower rankings. Another challenge is that, as more and more businesses move online, the level of competition increases.
Businesses have become wiser when it comes to using SEO for lead generation, making it a bit harder to rank and generate quality leads. However, if you approach your SEO in the right manner, you can still outshine the competition. Want to generate better leads through SEO in 2021? Here are a few best practices that will boost your business:
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Claim and Optimize Local Listings
Local listings can be your new best lead generation tool. In January 2021, 46% of all Google searches were local. Customers are always looking for businesses within their vicinity, and optimizing local listings could improve your search visibility. If you want to optimize your local SEO for lead generation, Google My Business is an ideal listing to start with.
Google lets you include a lot of information on your profile, including PAN data (contact details, addresses, and company name) and current events. Optimizing your profile could help improve your rank on Google and make your business discoverable on Google Maps. Other local listings worth following include Yelp, Glassdoor, and any industry-specific listings.
The best part of optimizing these profiles is that it allows customers to share reviews of their experience with your business. Great reviews will help you earn the trust of customers trying to gauge your business’s reliability.
Create Detailed Buyer Personas
Buyer personas could easily help inform your SEO strategy for lead generation. A one-size-fits-all targeting strategy might not attract the level of quality leads you want. Take the example of a diaper company. Targeting parents as a whole is different from targeting parents who value environmental conservation. If you create content that shows how environmentally friendly your business is, you will appeal to the latter.
Such buyers are bound to come back, which means repeat business for you. A great place to start would be to research your typical customer’s psychographic data — that is, their behavior, attitudes, preferences, and values. You can then design the key elements of your website and content around this.
You don’t have to narrow down your content to appeal to a specific, niche demographic. The better SEO strategy for lead generation would be to dedicate specific parts of your websites to specific customers. You can also hyper-personalize your website like Amazon and Netflix have done. Higher levels of personalization satisfy customers; 80% of consumers prefer to buy from a brand that offers personalized experiences.
Create Quality Content
Gone are the days when creating content for search engines was enough to generate SEO leads. Back then, businesses used to stuff blogs with keywords just to catch the attention of search engines. Such content was not designed to provide value to its audience. If you want to use SEO for lead generation, creating quality content should be a priority. You need to find the right mix between writing for search engine bots and customers, but your priority should be delivering valuable content to customers.
When adding keywords to the content, make sure they appear naturally. Also, use the buyer personas you create to inform your content calendar. Valuable content makes it easy to attract customers and eventually increase your conversion rates.
Be sure to vary the kind of content you put out there to maximize SEO for lead generation. Blog posts might be ideal for specific types of content, while video content will gather more engagement in other cases.
Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
How fast does your site content load? Does your site have inconsistencies between different mobile devices? Your bounce rate matters when it comes to turning site visitors into paying customers. If visitors are frustrated by your site being unresponsive on their devices, the chances are that they will leave for the competition.
Since over half of the world’s internet traffic comes from mobile devices, creating mobile-friendly sites is essential. Something as simple as images taking a long time to load could easily put off potential SEO leads. To maximize SEO for lead generation, be sure to:
- Optimize your site speed
- Reduce the number of pop-up ads you use
- Make font and CTA button sizes easy-to-interact with
- Embrace simple website design
- Make the navigation bar accessible
- Test your website on different devices
- Space touch elements far enough
Embrace Page Optimization
To ensure your website can be found, optimize your pages. This includes adding keywords to all relevant components of your pages:
- Titles
- URLs
- Meta titles
- Meta descriptions
- Content body
Ensure that there is a healthy mixture of long-tail and short-tail keywords throughout your web content. What you include in your meta descriptions matters when you’re trying to maximize SEO for lead generation. You want to urge customers to visit your website whenever they search online. Use engaging meta descriptions, and add relevant CTAs. This ensures you can get leads to visit your website in the first place.
Character count also matters when creating metadata. Limit meta titles to 50-60 characters and meta descriptions to 150-160 characters. If you exceed these numbers when writing the descriptions, the extra characters won’t be displayed on Google search result pages.
Consider Your Long-Term Success
The good thing with leveraging SEO for lead generation is that it can benefit you long-term, as long as you avoid common mistakes. When done right, SEO is a gift that won’t stop giving. However, you ought to set KPIs and keep measuring success if you want to generate a lot of SEO leads. Leverage both free and premium tools to maximize your efforts.
