Generating high quality leads and seeing them all the way through to conversion is central to the mission of every marketing leader. SEO can be a powerful tool in helping you accomplish this objective, but successfully generating leads through SEO requires a very specific approach.
An effective SEO lead generation strategy is the perfect long-game to compliment the quick results often achieved through a paid advertising strategy. When you do SEO lead gen correctly, the true expense of the paid side comes into sharp focus—especially with all the required constant testing, tweaking, and spend. In contrast, when you use the right SEO lead generation techniques you can build a machine that will run on its own and bring in results for months, with better overall ROI than a paid advertising strategy.
But how do you do it? Let’s dive into exactly how to generate B2B leads through SEO.
Marketing 101 is to know your audience. With SEO for lead generation this is doubly important. You not only need to know who you’re talking to, but you need to zero in on their intent as well.
You can do this by taking a close look at the keywords you’re targeting—particularly long-tail keywords. Look for those that indicate your audience is further along in the buyer journey and ready to take the next step. Long-tail keywords in particular often have lower search volume but higher conversion rates due to their relevance to the user's query.
For example, if you sell a financial SaaS product, top keywords may be around more general topics—”audit preparation,” “month close best practices,” or “AR reporting.” High volume rates can tempt you to focus efforts on these keywords, but someone searching for best practices is likely just doing it on their own; they’re not really interested in your software.
In contrast, if you move deeper into the long-tail keywords you can find opportunities around phrases like “audit preparation software” or “best month close tools.” These indicate your audience is searching for a solution, and offers you the opportunity to start showing up as that solution.
By building your SEO lead generation content strategy around the right keywords, you can increase the likelihood that the traffic landing on your page will be ready to convert, improving your SEO lead gen results.
B2B decision-making processes and sales cycles tend to be more complex and time-consuming than those in B2C markets. This means your SEO lead gen strategy must focus on nurturing leads over an extended period of time—and you can’t move faster than that relationship develops.
For example, asking someone to commit to a 12-month contract, paying thousands of dollars each month, is not the right move if they’re landing on your site for the very first time. Don’t propose on the first date. (Just imagine how fast that date would be over—you’d be out the door and telling your friends about that crazy person in no time.)
Instead, you need to make sure your content is aligned with where your audience is in the buyer journey. You can do this through a wide variety of content pieces:
But no matter the format your content takes, you need to meet your audience where they are at and move them deeper to related topics. For example, rather than jumping right from a landing page to a “Buy Now” button, you may instead offer an original research report, which then points to a case study featuring the results of a client who applied the research findings. The case study could prompt readers to check out a product demo, which could then point to scheduling a sales call.
Keeping the buyer's journey in mind will help you connect with the buyer, meet them at every stage, and build out an effective lead gen content strategy. Keeping your call to action (CTA) aligned with the intent of the individual piece of content (including sales and nurture emails alongside any other lead gen content) is crucial for earning a buyer's trust, establishing credibility, providing value, and making a final sale.
Effective SEO lead generation relies on this relationship-focused approach where your content and CTAs are aligned with what the audience is looking for at this particular stage.
Once you’re driving the right traffic and meeting the buyers where they’re at with the right content and CTA, the final step is to make sure you keep an eye on things. Like any good machine, your B2B SEO lead generation strategy will need maintenance to keep it humming along. Luckily, if designed and built properly, the effects should last for months and repairs should be simple.
First and foremost, it is vital to consistently track and analyze your performance. By monitoring key metrics and making data-driven adjustments, you can optimize your efforts and continuously improve your lead generation results. Please note: you’ll want to track and analyze every page and piece of content on your website. This allows you to see what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be adjusted in your SEO lead generation efforts.
Basic evaluation of your B2B SEO strategy should include:
Analyzing this data will help you know where to strategically add content, where to introduce new refreshed formats, and how to refine existing content so you can keep your SEO lead generation machine running smoothly.
SEO lead generation definitely requires an upfront investment in the time and effort to build out the content needed. But it’s an investment that will more than pay for itself over time as you can count on it to deliver solid ROI month after month.
Worried your efforts will fall flat? Don't let the gap between data-driven SEO and content marketing hold your business back. At Search to Sale, we specialize in bridging this divide, helping you create a better SEO content strategy with data-driven SEO software and unique reporting abilities tailored to your business needs. This empowers you to make sure you’re converting not just any SEO leads, but the best SEO leads.
Schedule a demo today and our founder Adrian will give you a free consultation about how your business can build an effective SEO lead generation strategy.