For B2B companies looking for leads, there are many ways to go about this. Using social media, especially business focused platforms such as Linkedin, is increasingly effective. Paid ads on various platforms can drive good results (although can be expensive), and real world networking, such as attending events like World Telemedia, is still a great way to meet new prospective clients. Various different types of content marketing, from short form video such as on TikTok, long form video such as on Youtube, and even podcasts, are all increasing in importance as part of a lead generation strategy.
However SEO, specifically getting your site ranked highly within Google search results, is still very important and effective. Of course, getting ranked for high volume keywords that are relevant to your product is a great way to drive leads and acquire customers. However, it is also important to think about your brand strategy on Google search.
All Roads Lead To Google
It is definitely worthwhile to pursue a multi-faceted approach to your lead generation strategy. However think about your own actions when you firstly discover a company, brand, or supplier. Wherever you discover the name, whether social media, at a conference, via advertising or anything else, the first thing you will likely do is Google the name.
Therefore, it is absolutely key that your website appears at the top of Google for your brand name, and that you can populate the first page with as much about your company as possible.
Brand Search & Reputation Management
Reputation management is a potentially confusing term, and conjures up images of PR agencies working for celebrities in the midst of a controversy! However, in SEO terms, it is actually far simpler. It is about ensuring that your brand has relevant and positive content around your brand that ideally populates most of the first page of the Google search results.
Of course you want to have your own site at position 1. However, you should aim to also get your other channels, such as social media profiles, Linkedin, and Youtube, ranking on page 1.
Outside of that however, it is very important to have content related to your business also ranking. Having positive content around your business on sites that are not your own website is very important when establishing trust and social proof in the eyes of potential customers. Not only that, but it can really help your SEO. Google has long used backlinks as a way to assess the authority of a website, but they will also analyse other search results relevant to your brand when calculating where you should rank.
Keyword Research
Once you have secured your brand and are ranking for it on Google, you can then start to target non-branded search terms. This process starts with keyword research, which is really the most important part of any SEO campaign. With B2B keyword research, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer, and think about what someone who wanted to use your product would type into Google when searching.
This is often referred to as search intent. That is, what what was the reason for the person doing a search. It is crucial to consider the search intent of the keywords you are targeting to make sure you are optimizing your website to rank for keywords that are commercially valuable to your business.
Traffic Volume & Quality
Social media is a fantastic way to increase brand awareness. However, how does it compare with Google when it comes to traffic volume and quality?
A study by Brightedge found that 68% of trackable traffic to websites came from either paid or organic search, with organic search being 53%. This vastly outstrips the traffic websites receive from organic social media, by around a factor of 10.
In terms of traffic quality, it is generally seen within the digital marketing industry that traffic from Google search will be of a higher quality, and will convert better, than traffic from other avenues such as social media. This is largely due to the keyword focused nature of the Google platform, which is incredibly focused targeting, whereas on other platforms, it is more about promoting your brand to broader niche related audiences.
So, it definitely pays to focus on maximizing your SEO potential and driving traffic via Google!
SEO Tactics
SEO is a very broad area, and it is possible to go into great detail on each and every aspect. However, the main areas to focus on when optimizing your site to rank on Google and acquire the best B2B leads are:
Content Planning & Creation
Develop a strategic plan to produce high-quality, relevant content that aligns with search intent and targets key search terms.
On-Page Optimization
Optimize pages by refining meta tags, headers, and keywords to improve search visibility and user engagement.
Link Building
Build high-quality, relevant backlinks to boost your site’s authority and improve rankings.
Technical SEO
Ensure your site is optimized for crawlability, fast load times, mobile usability, and a secure structure to improve search engine indexing.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the process of ensuring that when potential come to your site, they will land on pages which will give them the content they are looking for, and when drive them towards the action you desire, whether that is sending an email, making a call, or completing a form. The main points to consider for CRO are:
User Experience (UX)
Ensure easy navigation, fast loading times, and mobile responsiveness to prevent user drop-offs.
Clear Value Proposition
Clearly communicate what sets your product or service apart and how it benefits the user.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
Use strong, visible, and compelling CTAs that guide users toward desired actions.
Analytics and Testing
Regularly analyze user behavior and run A/B tests to optimize key elements continuously.
The digital marketing landscape is ever changing, and SEO as a way to drive leads and customers via getting traffic into your website now has many other challengers, from social media, video content and even AI. However, Google will remain being a huge opportunity to drive users to your business for the forseeable future, so being on top of the best way to do this a great tool to have when looking to generate leads.
Hooley Media provide SEO and other digital marketing services, and the team has decades of experience within the telemedia industry.
