How SEO Drives Short and Long-Term Leads for Your Business

Applying search engine optimization (SEO) best practices can amp up lead generation for your business. While it isn’t as flashy as going viral on TikTok, it is far more reliable and provides far better and more long-lasting results.

Implementing optimization best practices can be tricky and, in some cases, a bit time consuming. It helps to know what you are investing in with SEO long-term so you can use your time wisely.

We’ll give you the lowdown on how SEO can boost short-term leads and long-term leads for your business, and then give you some pointers to start reaping the benefits right away.

A crash course on how SEO works

If you are just starting out, you may be wondering what SEO even is.

SEO, or “search engine optimization,” refers to a variety of practices that optimize your content for online searching.

Translation: these tactics makes it more likely that the right people will see your stuff online.

But how exactly does search engine optimization work?

The algorithm that determines what results a search engines provides is going to look for content that meets certain criteria the best. This leads to a list of highly accurate results that fit best with what the end user is looking for. Search engine optimization allows you to cultivate content that best matches those criteria.

Search engines value relevance and authority in the content that they index and then show to searchers. This criteria allows them to evaluate where results are ranked–the better your ranking, the more likely you are to be seen in the top results or on the first page of results.
Read More: The Magic Spell to Start Understanding and Using SEO

What does SEO involve?

While algorithms are always changing, SEO best practices are centered on providing a high-value result for the end user with the best accessibility, reliability, and readability. The main areas you can work to improve on fall into these three categories:

On and off-page keywords: Keywords are one of the larger aspects involved with search engine optimization. SEO keywords can be used in website content, social media content, ads, and metadata. The right keywords can improve your ranking in search engine results lists and increase your site’s organic traffic.
Content and its quality: The volume and quality of the content that you produce is analyzed and categorized by search engines. The more content you produce, the more likely it is to show up in relevant search results. This goes double for high-quality content because, let’s be real, neither searchers nor search engine want to deal with BS content.
The user experience: Details such as your website’s loading speed, website navigation, and whether or not your links work all contribute to how good or bad of an experience someone will have on your website. Search engines algorithms prioritize results from sites that provide a pleasant user experience along with the “right” answers.

3 Ways SEO boosts short and long-term leads

Using SEO tactics helps you attract high-quality leads now and later in a few ways.

1. SEO expands your outreach to a larger relevant audience

Adjusting your SEO can allow you to show up for a larger audience almost immediately based on what they type in as their query in a search engine. For example, changing your primary keyword for your new product from “necklaces and rings” to “alternative gothic silver rings and necklaces” provides the end user and search engines with a clearer idea of what you have to offer. This allows the search engine to pair you with more searchers who are after exactly (or almost exactly) what you have. This can increase your immediate leads and bring in additional leads over time as your brand grows.

2. Tying on and off-page SEO streamlines the path to your brand

Statistics show that a majority of brand discovery occurs on social media (no one is surprised). A GWI report reflects that the top three ways that brand and product discovery occurs is through social media ads (40%), social media posts (36%), and sponsored social media posts (36%).

This makes it highly important to tie together your off-page SEO (your social profiles) to your on-page SEO on your website.

If a potential lead finds a “seasonal ritual candle set” on Instagram but finds the candles described as “organic” and “mood-setting” on the linked website, there’s going to be a disconnect for the consumer which may cause the potential lead to be lost.

Just like with matching brand identity across social profiles, you’ll need your SEO keywords and content quality to be consistent across the board. This can maximize the right types of leads coming to you and can increase conversions and customer retention as you cement yourself as a high-quality, trustworthy business.

3. Optimal authority increases leads now and later

Trust is a must. But what does trust have to do with SEO?

Remember how we mentioned that search engines take into account the accessibility and reliability of your website? These nitty-gritty details make up part of the user experience and a good user experience can breed trust both in the eyes of a search engine algorithm and your potential customers.

Creating a website that has high authority and trustworthiness in the “eyes” of the algorithm will increase your rank in search results, leading to increased organic leads. Over time, this effect magnifies and boosts your content higher in the results list for even more relevant search queries.

6 ways to use SEO keywords in your social media approach

You can (and should) use SEO practices in your social media marketing plan. Using SEO keywords in your social media content can increase lead generation now and later as your brand recognition grows.

Here are five ways you can use keywords to improve conversions from your social media profiles:

Captions/posts: Whatever the primary keywords are that you use in your website content, you’ll want to incorporate them into social media captions or posts regularly. How your incorporate keywords in your social media content will vary based on the platform, but using them in the body of your caption or in hashtags is a must.
Hashtags: Hashtags will vary based on what your posts are about but you’ll want to use a few that are pretty consistent. You can consider keyword hashtags like your brand name, slogan, and your main product or service. For example, we’d use hashtags like #RMCreativeServices #marketingagency #amplifyyourbrand

Learn more: Hashtags: What to Know and How to Use Them

Bio: Make sure that you use your keywords in your bio. This may take the form of your brand name if you have a small character count or it may be a primary keyword that you use in your content like “ritual candles” or personal styling consultations.”
Image alt text: If you haven’t started looking at your image alt texts yet, today is a perfect day to start. Alt text gives search engines more content for what your content is about. It also improves accessibility for hard-of-sight users using screen readers.
Local keywords: Have a business that relies on local customers to keep things going? Then make sure you make use of local keywords in your captions and hashtags too. For example, #marketingagency can be updated to be #losangelesmarketingagency. Including local keywords in your content and other profile details can connect to local leads.
Pin Titles, Boards and Descriptions: If you have a recurring blog or video series, we highly recommend looking into Pinterest — the search engines of social media platforms — for both short and long-term SEO. Because you can use Pinterest pins to add direct links back to your website, it’s easy to build authority on Pinterest. Make sure to incorporate long-tail keywords in your Pinterest Pin titles, Pinterest Boards and descriptions. The same rules can even apply to YouTube videos.

Marketing Locally? Make sure to check out “7 Online Marketing Strategies to Amplify Your LOCAL Brand”

3 tips to amplify your SEO strategy

Not sure where to start with improving your approach to SEO? We have a few ideas that you can use today:

Get to know your target audience a bit better: Target audience research allows you to better understand what they are looking for and adjust how you do outreach to connect with that audience more effectively.
Research high-value, multipurpose keywords: Look for keywords that you can use on and off your website. If a keyword would fit well in a social media caption that promotes your new album or product and it fits seamlessly into the blurb on your landing page, then you have a winner!
Check on your website health: Websites with instinctual navigation, working links, and fast load speed, are the favorites of search engines and searchers alike. Use a tool like CatchPoint’s Webpage Test to check your website load speed or perform a check to hunt down broken links that may be messing with your navigation and site indexing. Optimizing these less than glamorous details will pay off as it will improve your rank in search results almost immediately.

Need some extra help getting your website on track? Curious how you can improve your approach for search engine optimization and implement it in your regular content strategy? You can find the help you need with our digital marketing strategy services and other services.

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Written by Brianna Fries, a California-based writer, editor, bookworm, and mother of two. You can contact her at brianna@rmcsofficial.com and discover more of her work at briwritesthings.com.