With all the different marketing tactics to leverage, small business owners often put too little stock in SEO and how it can impact lead generation. Learn how you can boost your lead generation with some basic SEO practices.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. It’s a digital marketing strategy that focuses on your website’s presence in search results on search engines like Google. When you understand how SEO functions, you can use different tactics to increase your visibility in search results.
Why is SEO so important?
SEO is essential for your small business because it gives you more visibility online. It drives organic traffic to your website, which, in turn, leads to more leads and customers and more sales for your business. It helps your website to stand out from your competitors online. If you rank well online, you’ll get found by your target audience, especially if you rank better than your competitors! SEO is good for both search engines and website visitors. It allows you to optimize your website for search algorithms without sacrificing the experience of your website visitors. By doing this, you ensure that your website is ready to generate as many leads as possible.
How to improve your SEO for better lead generation
While there are several key components to good onsite SEO, below are suggestions that directly impact lead generation.
Have an onsite blog
Onsite blogs are a powerful way to attract visitors to your website. If you focus on creating blog posts that readers find useful and educational, searchers are more likely to click through to your website. To create an effective blog that attracts site visitors, be sure you’re writing about topics that your target audience cares about. Try to showcase your expertise and weave in how your product or service may address those issues without being salesy. One easy tactic is to make a list of every question you ever get asked about your product or service. Take each question and answer and turn it into a blog post. For example, if you’re a pool cleaning company, write a blog post about how to get rid of the white ring around your pool’s tile or how to tell if your pool needs more chlorine. These are questions people are Googling online; give them the answer in your blog post!
Make sure your website is running optimally
There’s nothing worse than finding the information you’re looking for in search results, only to click through to the website and watch while the website slowly loads. Most visitors expect a website to load in three seconds. As a matter of fact, 1 in 4 visitors will abandon a site that takes longer than four seconds to load. 64% of those won’t visit the site again. If someone is visiting your website for a possible purchase, having a slow or improperly functioning website can be a deal-breaker. Make sure your website is running quickly and doesn’t have any issues. There are several free tools online to test website speed and overall onsite SEO.
Leverage the right keywords
What keyword phrases do you think people type in to find a company like yours if they don’t know you exist? If you’re unsure, it’s time to do keyword research to figure that out. It’s critical to use the right keywords on your website, including on your blog, to attract the right visitors to your website. Not sure how to conduct keyword research? Engage the services of a small business marketing firm to assist you or take advantage of online tools such as Google’s keyword planner.
Maintain active social media channels
Social media can help your website rank higher in search results, which can attract more visitors to your website. If a searcher sees your website as well as several of your social channels in search results, they’re more likely to visit your site or at least research further before becoming a potential lead for your company. Social media also has an indirect correlation with SEO because the more of a social media presence you have, the more likely you are to attract those who will link to you from their websites, which further strengthens your site.
Make sure your site is secure (HTTPS)
Showing that your website is safe and secure to visitors can have a tremendous impact on lead generation. The “s” after “HTTP” stands for encrypted and secure. The technology that powers that “s” is called “SSL”, which stands for Secure Sockets Layer. Google is giving preferential rankings to pages that are secured by SSL. They’ve even gone so far as to start marking pages with forms and no SSL and with a big “UNSECURED” warning in their browser. Adding an SSL certificate to your site creates trust, critical for lead generation. Not having one can negatively impact lead generation. As a matter of fact, 46% of visitors won’t stay on a site that doesn’t have SSL.
Making sure your website is properly optimized is more important than ever. Strong SEO can have an incredibly positive impact on lead generation, so it’s worth the extra effort to get it right. If you need assistance making sure your website has appropriate SEO, reach out to a professional like Strategic Marketing Services to ensure you’re not missing any opportunities to strengthen your site and improve your lead generation efforts.
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