The Essential Guide to SEO for Sales and Lead Generation

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is without any doubt the oldest and best digital marketing tactic there is. However, over the years many B2B digital marketing agencies have started considering this strategy as just a traffic booster.

Therefore, many businesses fail every year in capitalizing on this opportunity to increase their sales revenue and lead generation.

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Though there is no harm in opting for traditional marketing technique that to generate leads, the results of these tactics have seen a sharp downfall. The primary reason being the rapid expansion and awareness of digital media.

If you focus on adopting modern SEO tactics that not only focus on site ranking and website optimization, I assure you that you’ll generate more high-quality leads within no time. Here are four crucial tips to take your lead generation to the next level.

1. Target Prospects Based on Their Purchase Cycle

You need to make sure that your SEO content is aligned with the purchase cycle of a customer. However, the cycle may not be the same for everyone as it can change according to the type of commodity or market niche.

Although, a general buying cycle will comprise of the following aspects.

i. Awareness

The first and foremost important stage. If you are unable to create awareness for your brand within the industry, I’m afraid the cycle will never go on. Your SEO efforts should be focused on providing prospects with more information about your brand through various types of content.

ii. Exploration

Now that they know your brand, you can engage them with more detailed and long-form content like eBooks, tutorials, and how-tos. It’s also a great time to ask them to subscribe for your updates or newsletter.

iii. Consideration

At this stage, most prospects must have already gotten the thought of making the purchase. However, you can use your content to target their pressure points and give them the reason to go for it.

iv. Purchase

You need to be more aggressive at this stage. They are ready to purchase the product now, but they’ll also keep their eyes open for an alternative to save money. Target them with more engaging content.

v. Retention

If the prospect bought something from you, that’s not the end of the story. Now your goal is to retain that customer. Build a relationship with customer and make them follow your content. Reach out to them every once in a while with an email so that they don’t forget you.

2.Target a Few Buyers Persona

Remember, you can’t ever target every potential prospect there is in the world. There’ll be too much competition for you to be able to do that. In fact, a wide-spread marketing approach may even lead to close leads slipping out of your hands.

Instead, we advise you to pick a few buyer personas to target. Make a list of the best keywords that you could focus all your content on. That way, at least you’ll be able to capture a particular segment of the audience. Your buyer personas should comprise of the following aspects.

• Personal interests, hobbies, dislikes, likes.
• Demographics: Income, gender, age, location, family, education, and profession
• Common factors and pain points

3. Utilize Local SEO Tactics

It’s always best to target your local audience first, then move towards an international approach. In order to become competent in your local market, strong efforts need to be implemented on your local SEO strategy. This strategy is especially beneficial if you have a brick and mortar business and are looking for high foot traffic in your premises.

Research shows that almost one-third of all mobile searches are related to locations. In addition, 78% of these searches lead to an offline sale. Wondering how you could join the local SEO party? Read on!

i. Optimize Your Content

Content is king, and if you don’t make your content optimized for local SEO, you are losing big time. Prospects will use specific keywords to search for local businesses, so it’s your job to add these search terms in your content. However, keywords have to be used naturally, or may even get penalized for spamming.

ii. Join Google My Business

Add your business to Google My Business to appear in local searches. Make sure that you provide the right name of your business, address, work hours and contact information.

In addition, you can also register your company in local business directories. This will not only enhance your web and foot traffic but will also help you rank better on significant search engines like Google, Yahoo, Baidu, and Bing.

4. Identify User Intent

Even if you align all these techniques to understand the consumer’s spending behavior, many will naturally come and go making all your research utterly pointless. Don’t lose hope, it pretty much natural!

However, if you know their intent in advance, it may save you the effort of targeting them. You’ll be able to understand what a potential customer wants. I’m pretty sure by now you’ve already gone through extensive keyword research and are ready to use them.

All you need to do now is sort them out according to different intents that you’ve observed. By aligning these with your SEO strategy, the chances of hitting a ‘bull’s-eye’ every time will rise. Distribute your keywords in the following three common intent categories.

i. Navigational Keywords

These keywords are more focused on locations. If a prospect uses a navigational keyword like “Where to post for free?” it’s pretty apparent they are looking for a free submission website.

ii. Informational Keywords

These keywords are used when prospects are looking for informative content. For example, how-tos, guides, tutorial, product reviews, etc.

iii. Transactional Keywords

Transactional keywords are the ones that make your cash-register go cha-ching! When you see transactional keywords like coupons, buy, free delivery, and sale you can expect that the prospect is looking for a product or service to spend money on.

Recommended: 10 Tips for Finding Profitable Keywords for Your Business

If you know your potential prospect’s intent, you can target them accordingly with your content. This strategy will undoubtedly lead to the higher lead generation and sales.

 Wrap Up:

These modern SEO tactics can surely be used to revamp your lead generation process and increase the number of sales. From knowing the intent of your customers to creating targeted content, all these techniques can turn the tables for you and land you in a win-win position.

Remember, SEO is a competitive marketing strategy that all most all B2C and B2B marketing experts are using so you can’t stop using the basic SEO tactics while considering our modern ones. Align both of them together to create a good marketing approach to boost both your sales and lead generation.

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