There’s a running joke among content marketers, and it goes like this: Where’s the best place to hide a dead body?
The answer: The second page of Google!
And, as with all jokes, there’s an element of truth to this statement. Research shows that 75% of people never venture onto the second page of search engine results.
Why is this important?
You want to be on that first page. It is, after all, rule number one of marketing: always make yourself seen, known, and trusted.
So, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get onto the first page of Google?” The short answer is Search Engine Optimization or SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an essential part of digital marketing. It’s a set of strategies and tactics used to increase the visibility of a website or page in search engine results. SEO helps to drive more organic traffic to websites and pages.
SEO involves a variety of activities, such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and technical website optimization. By implementing these practices, a website can increase its chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages or SERPs. This helps to attract more visitors and potential customers to the website.
By using SEO, businesses can increase their website traffic and visibility, helping them to gain more customers and generate more sales. SEO can also help build brand awareness and trust, which is essential for any successful business.
What is SEO Marketing?
To understand SEO marketing, you need to know the basics of how search engines work. Search engines like Google use algorithms to determine how search results are ranked.
These algorithms take into account a variety of factors, such as keyword relevance, user experience, domain authority, and website content, to determine rankings. SEO marketing techniques are used to give your site a boost in these areas to help it rank higher in search engine results.
One of the most important SEO marketing techniques is optimizing your website for keywords. This involves researching keywords that are relevant to your business and including them in your website content, titles, and meta descriptions. This helps search engines understand the content of your website and show it to people searching for those specific keywords.
Another important SEO marketing technique is link building. This basically means getting other websites to link to your website. Link building helps search engines view your website as an authority on the topic—making it more likely to be ranked higher. Link building can be done by creating content that other websites may want to link to and reaching out to other websites to ask for links.
It’s also important to focus on user experience when using SEO marketing techniques. Good user experience means having a website that is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and includes quality content that is relevant and helpful to readers. By creating a positive user experience, you will help your website rank higher in search engine results.
But before you hire an SEO company, check out the different marketing channels that can help you rank, and the role SEO plays in each of these mediums.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is when a company creates and distributes content that is both valuable and relevant to its audience on a consistent schedule. According to SemRush, 84% of enterprises have a content marketing strategy plan in place.
A sound content marketing strategy will aid in boosting brand awareness and generating higher quality traffic. It’s a profitable marketing tool. If you’re keen to get started, you could consider interviews, ebooks, webinars, and roundups.
Content is a key player in your digital marketing strategy. Therefore, SEO is a huge component of whether or not your content gets seen by the right people. In order for your content to get exposure and interest, it needs to be created with your keywords in mind. Your keywords are essentially the terms and phrases your audience uses when searching for solutions online.
By creating content around these key terms, you’re laying the foundation of a strong SEO strategy and showing your audience you’re knowledgeable regarding the topics most relevant to their needs.
Now, let’s dive into a few specific components of content marketing and how SEO plays a role in each.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are the backbone of your content marketing, and SEO blog posts are like a belt and buckle. The two fit together. Of all SEO strategies, blogging is undoubtedly the easiest to start with. Blog posts offer a host of benefits:
- Companies that blog generate more leads on average each month than those that do not.
- Businesses that use blogging as a marketing tool enjoy an ROI that’s higher than businesses without active blogs.
- Updating your old blog posts will increase your organic traffic.
Prioritizing SEO is step one when creating blog content. You’ll want to first pinpoint your most important keywords and start by creating pillar posts for each. These are essentially lengthy, in-depth blog posts that dive into specific topics. Once these pillar posts are created, you’ll want to routinely link back to them using their designated key terms as the anchor text, which will help boost their SEO over time.
Guest Articles/Backlink Strategy
While blog posts are the owned media component of your content marketing, guest articles are the earned media component. Placement isn’t a guarantee; it’s earned through credibility, and rightfully so. Guest articles can bring you qualified traffic, motivated leads, authority, relevant links, and potential sales. There’s a reason they are perceived as one of the leading inbound marketing strategies around. Becoming a guest contributor means you can craft articles that provide readers with new opinions and expertise while positioning yourself as an industry leader. And since the goal is to place this content on high-quality sites your audience reads, they also provide you with an opportunity to build up your backlink strategy by linking to your pillar posts when possible.
One of the core metrics that search engine algorithms consider when trying to rank your website is backlinks. Backlinks can be seen as virtual votes of confidence from other sites; however, the idea isn’t to get links placed anywhere you can. You want to focus on getting good-quality backlinks from authoritative websites.
Aside from adding backlinks to your guest articles, here are a couple of backlinking strategies you can adopt for your own SEO campaigns:
- Exchange links with other sites
- Reach out to influencers who might share your content
- Write excellent content and conduct data reports that grab the attention of others and inspire them to share it
LinkedIn and Slideshare
If you’re a B2B marketer, you’ll definitely want to incorporate LinkedIn and Slideshare into your SEO strategy. Take those keywords you’ve identified as part of your keyword research and plug them into the description on your company’s LinkedIn profile page. Be mindful not to simply stuff your page with keywords, though! Search engines have evolved enough to be able to spot this and will likely not assign you points.
Apply the same idea to your LinkedIn posts on your newsfeed and in industry-related LinkedIn groups. Similarly, incorporate keywords into your Slideshare presentations. Slideshare offers an excellent platform for establishing your company as an expert on a particular topic, so be sure to use your target keywords in the presentation and description and share your slideshow far and wide.
PPC
The first few results on a search engine results page are paid ads. If you can snag the top spots for your keywords, it increases your company’s name recognition and importance (especially if this is combined with organic search results). Be sure to use the keyword list that you generate through your keyword research in your PPC advertising.
One way to figure out which keywords your target audience is using is to enable a site search functionality on your website. By doing this, you can understand exactly what language people use to search for specific products and services.
Be sure to apply this same strategy to your PPC advertising on social media sites like Facebook as well.
Instagram probably doesn’t come to mind when you think of places where SEO keyword research is applicable, but don’t be fooled. Just because Instagram is a visual site doesn’t mean people don’t find what they’re looking for with words.
For example, someone looking for workout inspiration may browse through the hashtag #fitspo (over 74 million posts tagged), while someone planning a trip to Vegas may look through the hashtag #whathappensinvegas (over 3 million posts tagged). If you figure out the combination of hashtags that give your posts the most exposure, you’re looking at a way of bolstering your usage of Instagram as a marketing channel.
YouTube
Videos are a vital part of your content marketing strategy. If they’re well executed, they can help boost your company’s visibility in search engine results. So how can a website like YouTube factor into your SEO strategy?
For starters, improve the quality of your videos so that people stick around for longer than the first three seconds. YouTube can tell how long people spend on videos and ranks them accordingly. One quick way to increase the duration of your views is to get rid of long-winded introductions.
Include links to other videos your brand has produced to add value for the viewer and increase the views of your other videos. Encourage your audience to like your videos, share them, or subscribe to your channel. Finally, make videos based on the topics you’ve already identified as high-interest topics through your keyword research.
Voice search
40.2% of Americans use voice search, with 71% of consumers preferring to conduct their inquiries by voice instead of manually typing.
In fact, people are more receptive to voice ads, with one-third of shoppers saying they are less intrusive compared to regular online, TV, social media, and print ads.
To take advantage of voice search, you’ll want to incorporate an SEO strategy that keeps that way of searching in mind. This involves making sure you rank for local searches online but that your website is optimized as well.
[BONUS] Infographics
We’re cheating a bit since infographics aren’t really a marketing channel, but they are such a useful tool for any SEO strategy that we have to include them.
Infographics present data and processes in an easily digestible way. Because they’re informative and pretty to look at, it’s no wonder people readily share them. It’s for these reasons that you should include infographics in your SEO strategy. Create them based on your keyword research and share them through social media, your blog, guest blogs, and more. Be sure to throw them up on sites like Pinterest as well.
The role played by SEO across marketing channels is invaluable. And yes, while the results are never instantaneous, it is worth persevering and keeping your keyword research top of mind every time that you seek to create new marketing content.
How Should You Nurture Leads that Convert From SEO Traffic?
Eventually, once the SEO best practices we’ve discussed above are put in place, you should start seeing some more organic traffic pouring in—along with an increase in leads. So, how should these new leads be approached?
Well, there are several steps you can take to nurture leads that convert from SEO traffic:
- Identify your target audience: The first step is to identify who your target audience is. This will help you understand what their needs and wants are and how you can address them through your marketing efforts.
- Create Valuable Content: Create content that is valuable and informative for your target audience. This can include blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, and other types of content that address their needs and solve their problems.
- Use Calls to Action: Use eye-catching and concise calls to action (CTAs) in your content to encourage readers to take a specific action, such as signing up for your email list or contacting you for more information.
- Score Your Leads: Lead scoring is a method of ranking leads based on the likelihood that they will become customers. By assigning scores to leads, you can prioritize and focus your efforts on the most promising leads while also keeping track of the progress of all your leads. Use a marketing automation and CRM tool, like BenchmarkONE, to tag and score your leads based on certain actions they take on your website and the content they engage with.
- Segment Your Email List: Once you have collected email addresses, segment your list based on the interests of your subscribers. This will allow you to send targeted emails that are more relevant to their needs.
- Use Email Marketing: Use email marketing to nurture your leads and keep them engaged with your business. This can be accomplished through newsletters, promotional emails, and automated email campaigns.
- Use Lead Magnets: Create lead magnets, such as eBooks or webinars, that encourage people to access something compelling and sign up for your email list. These offers should be valuable and relevant to your target audience.
- Use retargeting: Use retargeting to show targeted ads to people who have visited your website but have not yet converted. This can help bring them back to your site and encourage them to take a specific action.
Overall, the key to nurturing leads from SEO traffic is to provide value and be consistent in your efforts. By consistently creating and sharing valuable content and using email marketing and other tactics to stay in front of your leads, you can increase the likelihood of converting them into customers.
The role played by SEO across marketing channels is invaluable. And yes, while the results are never instantaneous, it is worth persevering and keeping your keyword research top of mind every time that you seek to create new marketing content.
Armed with a well-thought-out SEO strategy incorporating a handful (if not all) of the marketing channels above, it will only be a matter of time before the algorithms reward your diligent efforts.