SEO Tactics for Business Growth

In B2B sales, leads make the world go round. Without the right lead generation tactics, it’s virtually impossible to close any deals and keep the business running smoothly. However, generating leads for a B2B company is much different than doing it for a B2C brand. For one thing, the time it takes to convert a lead is much longer and often involves multiple decision-makers along the way.

Often, the best way to improve your brand’s bottom line is to improve lead quality as much as possible. High-quality leads turn into high-paying conversions, putting your business on the fast track to success. But how can you generate quality leads more effectively? Here’s how.

The Importance of High-Quality Leads in B2B

With B2C sales, companies often try to cast a wide net and capture as many leads as possible. Because consumers are making the final purchase decision, it’s easier to measure conversion rate optimization and adjust SEO tactics accordingly.

However, with B2B sales, casting a wide net doesn’t work. In fact, it can actually hurt sales and increase your costs. Here are some compelling reasons to focus on methods that help improve lead quality.

• Shorter Conversion Time – While each business is different, the average lifecycle of a B2B lead is around one to four months. When you have pre-qualified, high-quality leads, you can trim days or weeks off of your conversion rate, allowing your sales team to focus on closing more deals.
• Higher ROI for Paid Ads – Paid ads are a critical component of B2B SEO services, but you don’t want to throw your ad spend away. By focusing on ads that qualify leads, you can boost your ROI accordingly. In most cases, it’s better to spend more money on fewer targeted ads than less money on generic ones.
• Boost Team Morale – If you’ve ever lost a lead after investing weeks of time and energy into it, you know how it can damage company morale. The more you can qualify a lead before it reaches the sales team, the easier it is to close and build strong momentum for the brand.

How to Measure the Quality of a Lead

As you adjust your SEO tactics to improve lead quality, you must know which leads are worth your time and effort and which ones you should churn from your sales funnel. Here are a few elements that could suggest a high-quality B2B lead:

• Active Engagement – The lead interacts with your marketing content and social pages.
• Targeted Pain Points – The lead is experiencing the right pain points that your product or service can alleviate.
• Decision Maker – While most B2B leads won’t be the final decision-maker in the sales process, it’s good to engage with leads that are relatively high on the chain.
• Looking for Solutions – The best leads are the ones that need a targeted, customized solution as soon as possible. However, even if a lead is just partially interested, they can still be moved through the sales funnel.

With the right B2B SEO services from CSP, we can help you find and measure high-quality leads. Over time, you can refine your sales approach to close more deals in less time for less money.

SEO Tactics for Generating Leads

Although SEO for lead generation can help bring in new, qualified leads, you have to know which tactics work the best to attract the leads you want the most. Here are some basic methods to help move the needle.

• Long-Tail Keywords – With B2B sales, you want accurate targeting, which often means using longer keywords. The more specific the keyword, the more likely someone clicking on it will be interested in your product.
• Informative Landing Pages – B2C landing pages are often focused on sales, while B2B landing pages are focused on valuable and engaging information. So, rather than a CTA to “buy now,” you may use language like “find out more” or “request information.” You can also offer free digital products like whitepapers or e-books for new leads.
• Stay Up-to-Date – Because B2B leads want accurate, detailed information about a product or service, you want to promote current marketing materials and posts. Older content (even if it converts well) can get stale, so make sure to update high-quality pieces with relevant information.
• Value-Focused – B2C ads may use flashy sales language to get people to click. B2B ads should be clear, informative, and highly targeted (i.e., mentioning a specific pain point).

Optimizing for Conversions

One of the most valuable B2B SEO services is optimizing your website and landing pages to qualify and convert high-quality leads. However, optimization is not a one-time action. It requires ongoing effort and diligence. Over time, you should be able to refine your approach to speed up the lead generation and conversion process.

Best of all, if you can automate more components of your sales funnel, your team can focus even more on closing deals. Here are some tips on optimizing the right way for B2B sales.

• Meta Elements – Many companies neglect on-page optimization, including elements like the meta title, meta description, and title tag. Even the images on the page should be optimized with smaller file sizes, relevant file names, and keywords in alt text descriptions. While each piece won’t have a huge impact, they all work together to help your page rank more effectively.
• Person-First Content – The more you can understand your lead and why they clicked on an ad (or search engine link), the easier it is to move them through the sales funnel. Focus on specific pain points and solutions that speak to the user as an individual.
• A/B Testing – One of the best ways to ensure your strategies are working is to test them with different audiences. A/B testing allows you to improve your messaging so it qualifies and converts leads more efficiently. Sometimes, small elements like CTA placement or the specific words you use in your CTA can make a noticeable difference.
• Lead Scoring – You know your sales funnel better than anyone. Now is the time to create a scoresheet to help you qualify each lead. Typically, you’ll want to number actions between one and five (one is the least engaged while five is the most engaged). Examples can include reaching out to the sales team, clicking and reading a white paper, etc. Once a lead reaches a certain score, your sales team can reach out and move them through the funnel.
• Retargeting – Because the B2B sales cycle is so long, you don’t want to abandon a lead just because they’ve gone quiet. Retargeting campaigns can help nudge a lead to the next stage of the funnel. Even if the lead isn’t interested in buying yet, these campaigns can help keep your brand top-of-mind for when they are.
• Customer Satisfaction Questionnaires – The people who can tell you what you’re doing best are your existing customers. Questionnaires can help you determine which tactics work well and which to abandon. Typically, you may have to offer a small incentive to get people to submit answers, so plan accordingly.

SEO Lead Generation With CSP

Knowing the value of high-quality leads and optimizing your content and SEO strategy to get them are two very different things. Even if you know what actions to take, you may not have the time, infrastructure, or means to handle them all effectively. If you’re struggling to improve lead quality and streamline your sales funnel, B2B SEO services from CSP can help. Our white-glove lead generation services can help unlock steady, high-quality leads. Start transforming your pipeline today!