It’s a competitive B2B landscape, so you’ve got to maximize the effectiveness of every sales pipeline available to you. One excellent source of sales that many businesses underutilize is search engine optimization (SEO). Does SEO increase sales? Absolutely – in fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to not only bring in leads, but also to make it easier to close the deal.

What the SEO Sales Funnel Looks Like

The SEO sales process is a framework that outlines the customer journey from discovering your B2B business to making a purchase, all through SEO-driven efforts. Like any sales funnel, it's a five-step process: awareness, interest, evaluation, conversion, and retention. But let's break down each of these as it pertains specifically to SEO and B2B sales.

• Awareness: Potential clients find your website through search engine results, while high-quality content attracts and engages users. Social media sharing, guest posts, and backlinks increase your business's exposure.
  
• Interest Targeted keywords capture prospects with specific needs, and informative blog posts and guides showcase your expertise. Videos and infographics provide easily digestible information for potential clients.
  
• Evaluation: In-depth product or service descriptions help prospects compare options, while case studies demonstrate real-world success and value. Testimonials and reviews build trust and credibility for your B2B business.
  
• Conversion: Compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) encourage users to take the next step, and landing pages optimized for conversions capture lead information. Contact forms, demo requests, and live chat options facilitate lead capture.
• Sale: When you've generated a lead, cultivated that relationship with helpful information, and qualified the lead's fitness for your product or service, now it's up to the sales team to close the deal.
• Retention: SEO can be a tool to retain customers as well. When your SEO content has made your business ubiquitous in search for your industry, you build brand trust and remind current customers to get as much value as possible from your product or service. 

By understanding and optimizing each step of the SEO sales funnel, B2B businesses can effectively guide potential clients through the decision-making process, ultimately increasing sales and long-term customer relationships.

How Can SEO Improve Sales? Start With Keyword Research

First, you have to build a sales funnel that will begin to draw in those sales prospects. That starts with keyword research, which involves identifying relevant and high-value search terms that your potential clients are using to find solutions to their problems.

Key components of effective B2B keyword research:

• Industry-specific terms
• Buyer's journey stages
• Search volume
• Difficulty to rank
• Competitors' behaviors

By using keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs, you can uncover and target the right keywords for your business. Targeting these keywords in your content helps attract potential clients and drives higher conversions because they’re absorbing highly targeted content on your site – which builds trust in your brand.

For B2B sales, prioritize keywords that demonstrate buying intent, such as "software pricing" or "best CRM for small business." By focusing on these search terms, you can capture prospects at the right stage of their decision-making process, boosting your chances of converting them into customers. Then look for keywords with a high search volume and low difficulty or competitiveness.

On-Page SEO Techniques

On-page SEO plays a significant role in sales for B2B businesses by making your website more accessible and relevant to potential clients.

Key on-page SEO elements for B2B sales:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• header tags
• URL structure
• Internal and external links
• Image optimization

Optimizing these elements improves search engine rankings and user experience, increasing the likelihood of not only attracting potential clients, but keeping them on the site so you can close them. For example, use targeted keywords in title tags and header tags to signal relevance to search engines and users, and write compelling meta descriptions to encourage click-throughs from search results.

Ensure that your URL structure is clean and descriptive, making it easy for both search engines and users to understand your content. Lastly, use internal links to guide users through your site and external links to showcase industry expertise. By focusing on these on-page SEO elements, your B2B website will drive conversions.

Off-Page SEO Strategies

Off-page SEO strategies are essential for generating sales leads in B2B businesses by increasing your website's authority, credibility, and online presence.

Key off-page SEO strategies for B2B sales:

• Backlink building
• Social media marketing
• Influencer outreach
• Guest posting

Backlink building involves earning links from reputable websites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. Collaborate with industry influencers, create shareable content, and participate in online forums to gain high-quality backlinks.

Leverage social media marketing to share content, engage with potential clients, and showcase your expertise. Utilize LinkedIn, Twitter, and industry-specific platforms to connect with your target audience and generate sales leads.

Influencer outreach and guest posting help build relationships with industry leaders and gain exposure to their audiences. By providing valuable content to reputable websites, you can drive referral traffic and capture high-quality sales leads.

By implementing these off-page SEO strategies, your B2B business will attract more sales leads, increasing your chances of converting them into customers.

Content Marketing for SEO

Content marketing is essential for B2B SEO sales, attracting and converting potential clients through valuable content.

Types of content for B2B sales leads:

• Blog posts: Showcase expertise, address pain points, and rank higher in search results
• Infographics: Visually represent data, easily shareable, and drive traffic
• Videos: Engage audience, showcase products or services, and reach potential clients on various platforms
• Case studies: Demonstrate product effectiveness, build credibility, and encourage prospects to choose your business

By creating and sharing diverse content types, your B2B business can generate more sales leads and improve your SEO performance.

SEO Lead Generation Requires a Content Journey

Your goal is to drive sales, not just traffic, right? That means you need to convert visitors from organic search into leads. You do this by creating a content journey. Give readers of SEO blogs a next step to take, often further related reading on a mid-funnel blog post. On that blog, offer a piece of aligned long-form content like a white paper or instructional video in exchange for their email address. Now you have the opportunity to engage them with email campaigns and custom ad audiences.

Tracking and Analyzing SEO Results

Tracking and analyzing SEO results is crucial for B2B businesses to measure the effectiveness of their strategies and optimize sales efforts.

Key SEO metrics to monitor for lead generation:

• Organic traffic
• Conversion rate
• Bounce rate
• Average time on page
• Keyword rankings

Utilize analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Ahrefs to measure your SEO performance. Monitor organic traffic to gauge the effectiveness of your SEO strategies in attracting potential clients. Assess conversion rates to evaluate the success of turning website visitors into sales.

If you need help pulling together data from all these sources and turning it into useful insights, check out our Content Intelligence SEO Reporting Software.

Keep an eye on bounce rates to identify potential issues with user experience or content relevance. Track keyword rankings to understand your website's position in search results and identify areas for improvement.

By regularly tracking and analyzing these SEO metrics, B2B businesses can optimize their strategies for better sales lead generation and overall performance.

A Premium SEO Agency Can Show You How to Use SEO to Increase Sales

These days, you can’t build a B2B business that can compete without a scalable SEO content strategy. But that’s difficult to do with everything on your plate. Fortunately, an SEO sales consultant can build an SEO strategy that generates leads and results in sales – if you choose the right agency.

Search to Sale understands how B2B companies work. You don’t need someone to publish a bunch of content filled with keywords – you need someone who will create an SEO strategy with your customer in mind, and then execute that strategy. We’ll build lead-generating content that will help you convert those leads into sales.

Learn what we did for one B2B company, Reason Automation. And if you're ready to find out what we can do for you, book a consultation today: