SEO to Drive Leads

[toeplly]

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

[StalkerB]

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

[SeoStallion]

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.

[toeplly]

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?

[SEM-Freak]

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.

[toeplly]

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

[toeplly]

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

[StalkerB]

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.