When it comes to having success driving traffic to your website there is no magic formula. There are, however, a few simple and strategic actions you can take to give your site an edge over the competition. According to Search Engine Journal, SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate. SEO lead generation starts to look even more impressive when you throw in the state that it costs on average 39% less than its outbound marketing cousins.
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O.K., by this point I hope you are buying into what I am selling and are starting to realize the power of SEO lead generation. So what now? What can you do as a website owner to grow your site’s traffic and increase SEO leads? Below are 8 simple things any website owner can do to increase traffic and generate quality SEO leads.
Table of Contents
Build A Strong Foundation
25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. – Matthew 7:25 (ESV)
A firm foundation is essential to your success. This means taking all the little things into account, not cutting corners, and making sure that your site is ready to share all of its great content with the world. For more details on SEO basics check out this article.
Focus Your Content Around Long-Tailed Keywords
Optimizing your content around the right keywords can be the difference between your success and failure. In order to make sure you are choosing the right keywords, you must start with research. By determining what keywords your targeted persona is searching for, you can make sure that you optimize your content specifically for them. When it comes to SEO, think user first, search engine second!
Give The Crawlers As Much Information As You Can
After we’ve set our site up for the visitor, we then need to address what we are telling the crawlers. Too many website owners miss the opportunity to tell the crawlers, in more detail, what their site is about. Every chance you get to share with the search engines about your site should be taken! Use meta tags, optimized images, schema, and content to give the crawlers the clearest picture possible.
Speed Matters
47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. We live in an instant world and consumers are demanding that they get what they want, when they want it! Trim the fat and stay away from heavy code that slows your site down. Google also gives more weight to a site that loads quickly. So simply by increasing the speed of your site, you will please your users and the search engines at the same time!
Mobile Friendly Is A Must
Mobile is the future of search. In April 2015, Google released the dreaded Mobilegeddon update that would penalize the mobile search ranking of any site that was not deemed “mobile-friendly.” Creating a quality mobile experience will not only help your mobile search rankings but also give your leads a more pleasant experience.
Think Link Earning, Then Link Building
Yes, links still matter; no you should not buy them from Fiverr. Backlinks are still a huge part of your site’s success. Think of them as votes for your website, but not every vote is counted the same. By focusing on adding value with your content and online interactions you can earn links from high PR sites that grab the search engine’s attention. This takes a little more work on your end but the lasting results are worth it!
Be Social
Social does have some weight in your overall organic ranking but the power of being social goes much deeper than your run-of-the-mill search engine. Facebook is jumping into the search game to provide its users with more ways to connect with the world, without leaving the network. This is a trend I believe we will see more of in the future and website owners need to take notice. Connecting and marketing your site on the major social networks can only help in the long run
Measure, Analyze, and Refocus If Needed
In college, I remember having to take a statistics class and thinking to myself that I’ll never use this in my life. Man was I wrong. As a digital marketer, measuring, tracking, and understanding all of the analytics associated with a specific campaign is essential. You can’t know if what you are doing is working unless you are tracking it. Track your efforts and every action you take so that you can determine whether or not what you are doing is actually working!
Well there you go, 8 simple ways to increase SEO leads to your website. Remember it all starts with a strong foundation. Without that piece, all of the other work you put into marketing your site is a waste of time. SEO works. It just takes time, determination, and yes even a little luck. I’ll leave you with this great quote; “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” Vince Lombardi
Want to turn your website into a lead-generation machine? Wish that you could collect better information for your sales team? Learn about how Inbound Marketing is helping businesses in your area grow faster and smarter than ever before.
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