SEO to Drive Leads
-
Dear friends,
I have clients asking for SEO to drive leads. I have no experience on it, how could I do that? Is there any web layout I can suggest to my client?
Another question is how do I implemented the layout on the web structure? I usually structuring my website based on keywords.
For example:
Homepage niche: plumbing
Category: london plumbing, plumbing service, etc
Content:
- Finding London plumbing service in your area,
- what kind of plumbing service you should pay attention?
So, based on these layout, my SEO efforts goes to the content, instead of the homepage. Now, the question is how do I increase conversion with these strategy? Is placing a form above the fold would be wise, then place the content below it.
Please advice
Thanks for your kind support,
Albertus
-
Well you can, theoretically, but it can get very technical or be a bit imprecise.
You are correct that you can't really guarantee a set number of leads (what if everybody's plumbing is working perfectly in London this month) but you should be able to track your contributions.
If you use a second phone number on Google Local and the meta description, then anybody coming through that is a SEO lead.
Also, while a bit wishy washy, you should be able to see in your analytics what percentage of people are coming through on unbranded search and then attribute a percentage of web completions to that.
You get more precise by setting up a tracking system, but it'd be a very bespoke set up.
-
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for providing a really helpful answer. This is what I am looking for
You said to avoid being too keyword rich in the early stages. Did you mean we use 1 landing page for all of our keywords? Let say I am targeting 3-5 main keywords for this page.
I am sorry, I am a bit unclear on this part "get a lot of brand links" what do you mean with that?
Thanks in advance,
Albertus
-
Hi Stallion,
Thanks for the answer. Yes, I agree with your point about making the site easy for search engine, so they can provide valuable answer for the search queries.
Regarding my service, I am providing SEO service. Actually, I have run SEO for long time (about 5 years), but all of those projects are for my own business. I decided to jump onto the SEO business since there are so many friends asking for my help to run SEO for their business. BUT, recently I met BIG companies who wants leads as KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and for this one, I have never did this before.
So, with that background I am thinking of maybe there are someone else who have run SEO with leads as the KPI.
Well, this is much easier doing SEO for yourself rather than doing it for clients.
Regards,
Albertus
-
Lead Generation requires you to put yourself in the mindset of the consumer - do some keyword research to work out what is the search intent based on a need. In your example of "plumbing" trigger keywords might be "boiler repair", "radiator installation", etc.
Gather a list of relevant keywords and run a PPC campaign to get an idea of which keywords actually convert for your client – you might want to use modified broad match to cast your net as wide as possible.
Also you have mentioned onsite issues – make sure you have a clear call to action on each and every page. Personally I am not a big fan of squeeze pages / placing forms on every page. I feel it works better to have a call to action that is fairly noncommittal for users like “order a brochure” – the sales process can start once your client has the contact details. In your plumbing example, most people offer “free quotes” etc. (different in emergency cases).
Whatever your client’s niche – talk through the sales process and make sure you understand what would be the very first step in that process and focus on getting as many people as possible to make that step.
Back to SEO – while the PPC test campaign is running starting building links (try to avoid being too keyword rich in the early stages – especially for new sites – so get a lot of brand links). Also look for link targets – build a list of really high quality sites you want to get links from and begin to formulate a strategy to get those links.
Analyze the PPC data, optimize the site for the most profitable keywords and then start to get the odd link from the high quality sites with your important keywords.
-
Hi Barry,
Yes, that is a very helpful answer. Thanks so much for your help.
The reason why I am asking this question is that I have clients who asked for leads as the KPI (Key Performace Indicator), and for this I have never done this before. In my opinion, we can't guaranteed leads with SEO. Is that correct?
So, how do we set KPI for the client?
-
It's true that many find success with sidebar contact forms / top of page contact forms etc however what you are asking is for SEO services. May I ask what service you are already providing for your clients (I'm assuming web design)?
One thing to remember is that SEO focuses on traffic. SEO is about making the website as easy for search engines to understand as possible and then to add content that will help the search engines to identify your site as the answer to user queries it receives. From here it is about link building to gain authority and increase the web presence of the website. The majority of this is done with the sole intention of increasing the websites SERP position which will increase the traffic to the website.
Sorry for the rant, all-in-all, yes you can ultimately increase leads however the base initiative is to increase traffic. You can then see that if for example you have high traffic but few leads that you should address your website for capturing the interest.
What you need is the help of a SEO/internet marketing company or to learn the basics of SEO. If you are looking to do the latter you can start with SEOMoz's 'learn SEO' guide.
-
To drive leads via SEO basically means that you need to have the site put in front of people making relevant searches who then go on to use the service (plumbing in this case).
For this (and assuming you're working on getting certain areas of London to use your plumbing services) you can do several things.
First, read this beginners guide to SEO from SEOmoz. Then re-read it. Then read it again. Now you have a basic grasp of what you need to do in order to get in front of people that might use your service. Effective site structure and good content help.
The other big part of your SEO efforts will be around local search (which isn't something I have a huge amount of experience with).
Again, watch this Whiteboard Friday on local search, you're going to focus on becoming listed and getting reviews on relevant sites.
In order to quantify what leads are coming from SEO I would recommend a web only phone number (involves setting up a second line) and you can maybe try data capture on the site asking people if they would like to be contacted about a quote.
Good luck
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How does lazy load effect SEO?
One of my clients implemented lazy load on part of the navigation and I am wondering what the effects will be. Specifically, the drop-down navigation does not load until you hover over it. That means when you look at the page source that drop down navigation is no longer there. I am wondering if that means the google bot no longer sees the links in the navigation drop down. I am looking into this because the dev department of this company is going to do what it wants to and they need proof that its a bad move. I already suspect that it is. Too early to tell what the effects will be and not sure if there is a built-in delay in the algorithm as to when it will impact rankings. Ultimately, I am wondering if my belief that if you can't see it in the page source then as far as that particular page goes it is not seen. That would be an important thing to verify as being true.
Web Design | | KentH0 -
SEO Tips for Affiliate Website
Hi all , I would just like to have an expert Opinion on SEO for Affiliate Website . Basically if I list all Third party products (Amazon/Affilate Window etc ) on my website and then the customer will be redirected to the Affiliates website to make a Purchase will there be an issue with SEO (Lots of Outgoing Url's) and Will the website not rank for Important keywords or will it be hit by any penalty ? I heard it's not good for SEO , any work around this ? If this is case How come cashback Sites rank well with no issues , although the concept is basically the same ? Any Tips or Advice appreciated as how to get this done safe . My Preferred Option would be with Magento Shopping Cart or second option would be with Wordpress Cart only in case this provides some SEO benefits over Magento by some plugins .
Web Design | | Aus0070 -
Can anyone help me detect some SEO improvements onpage please...
Can anyone help me detect some SEO improvements onpage please... I have shortened the website URl so its not easily found when searched via search engines.. http://goo.gl/GlfMRl Please have a look and give me some tips. Thanks
Web Design | | Nettv0 -
How to add SEO Content to this site
Hi Great community and hope you guys can help! I have just started on a SEO project for http://bit.ly/clientsite , the clients required initial KPI is Search Engine Rankings at a fairly low budget. The term I use for the site is a "blurb site", the content is thin and the initial strategy I want to employ to get the keyword rankings is to utilize content. The plan is to: add targeted, quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content on the page itself by adding a "read more" link/button to the "blurb" on the right of the page (see pink text in image) when someone clicks on the "read more", a box of content will slide out styled much the same as the blurb itself and appear next to and/or overlay over the blurb and most of the page (see pink rectangle in image) Question: Is this layer of targeted , quality (user experience & useful) and SEO content (which requires an extra click to get to it) going to get the same SEO power/value as if it were displayed traditionally on the initial display? If not, would it be better to create a second page (2<sup>nd</sup> layer) and have the read more link to that and then rel-canonical the blurb to that 2<sup>nd</sup> page, so that all the SEO passes to this expanded content and the second page/layer is what will show up in the rankings? Thanks in advance qvDgZNE
Web Design | | Torean0 -
So apparently SEO moz will get us de-indexed according to a SEO company!
Each and every day i get called up from an SEO company who promises to get me top spots in Google rankings if i quickly get on their special offer they have today normally i would say "no thanks and put the phone down" but i had a bit of spare time so i indulged the guy and we got talking. After the introductions and speal about his company he was showing me what his company does and how they go about it to get me top ranks (they don't get me ranks but create a website they own which then passes leads to me- kinda clever since they could then start charging me per lead or my competitors) We continued to talk and i mentioned i used SEOmoz to check my rankings and back links etc and he told me that Google are cracking down and anyone using these types of software/websites will get their websites de indexed. This struck me as BS but i wanted to get your thoughts on the matter, i personally don't believe Google would ever do such a thing as this since it would be so easy to get your competitors websites taken down (i.e. negative seo) but its certainly a talking point.
Web Design | | GarethEJones0 -
What are some good places to read about SEO with Joomla CMS?
I recently was asked by a potential client to work with them on Joomla based website. I very rarely come across people with Joomla based websites and am struggling to find good resources outside of Joomla's own community site. At this point, I am not very comfortable working with them on Joomla. Any tips or advice?
Web Design | | GCSMasone0 -
Best E-commerce Solution - SEO Friendly
I need to know thoughts on the best ecommerce solution for our company. We currently have one website with our products, that people call and they purchase over the phone. In the future we are considering adding a different product line, to which we want to be a fully functional online ecommerce site. We eventually are considering having only a portion of our products on our current site to have the ability to purchase online. The reasoning is because we sell very high quality products that range from $1000 - $200,000. We would like to have a consumer section and an industrial sectioin. The consumer section would consist of products from $1000 - $10,000 or so. Then the industrial products you would need to call to purchase. So would it make sense to have a main website that is our corporate site with links to different websites? Or to keep this all in one website and have different directories like so: corporatecompany.com - links to product-line.com corporatecompany.com - links to product-line-two.com or corporatecompany.com/consumer-grade/ corporatecompany.com/industrial-grade/ corporatecompany.com/the-ecommerce-only-section/ Can a shopping cart be used to turn on half of the products for purchasing online, and the other half to be call in only ? What is the best e-commerce solution that is SEO friendly and also can just play a role of a regular website?
Web Design | | hfranz0 -
HTML5, semantic web & SEO
HTML5 is supposed to revolutionize the way browsers, web clients and services are supposed to "understand" information on the web. I have been planning on converting my site to HTML5 ever since it went into a working draft last spring, however I wanted to know if upgrading to HTML5 would offer any SEO benefits or if it would actually have a negative effect on how my site is perceived on the web. I guess my real question here is "Do search engines recognize HTML5 sectioning?" Is content found in semantic sections like <header>, <footer>, <nav>, <aside>, treated any different than content inside generic HTML4 containers like, or ? </aside> </nav> </footer> </header>
Web Design | | TahoeMountain400