How SEO contributes to lead generation
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B2B businesses can use many different marketing strategies to drive leads. One of the most effective is search engine optimization or SEO. In fact, learning how to generate SEO leads and manage them successfully is the best way to encourage business growth. Fortunately, a wealth of valuable SEO resources is available to guide your strategy.
SEO is the process of creating content and optimizing your website to improve your visibility in search engines. As people encounter your content, they’ll visit your site, and many will become leads.
However, figuring out how to attract more SEO leads, let alone manage them effectively, can be challenging. That’s where we come in.
Keep reading to learn about the synergy between SEO and lead generation, how to generate SEO leads, and how to manage them for optimal results.
SEO is one of the most cost-effective and sustainable lead generation strategies: It brings in high-intent prospects who are actively searching for your solutions, especially when you target long-tail, problem-solving keywords.
Effective SEO for lead generation requires more than traffic: You need to convert visitors with optimized CTAs, landing pages, and lead capture forms, then manage and segment those leads to drive conversions.
Success comes from consistency and strategy: Combining high-quality content, technical optimization, backlink building, and analytics will steadily grow qualified leads over time.
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Keep reading to learn about SEO and lead generation, how to get SEO leads, and how to manage them more effectively.
Check out SEO services from our partners at WebFX to learn more about boosting your SEO lead gen efforts with a professional team.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that involves creating content and optimizing your website to improve your rankings in search engines.
Lead generation is the process of generating interest in your business, product, or service so that you can convert interested leads into customers. Typically, lead generation involves collecting potential customers’ contact information so you can establish a relationship and nurture them toward a sale.
So, how do these two strategies work together?
An effective SEO strategy increases your visibility in search results for relevant keywords that your target audience is actively searching for.
By creating relevant, high-quality content that ranks well in search, you attract your target audience to your website. This provides an opportunity to establish a relationship, capture their contact information, and guide them through the sales funnel.
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The short answer? Absolutely.
SEO is widely recognized as one of the most effective digital marketing strategies for a reason. It allows you to position your website prominently in search results, where potential customers are actively seeking solutions. A well-executed SEO strategy can drive significant traffic from search engines like Google.
Search engine optimization is also perfect for generating leads. Some marketing strategies, like email marketing, aren’t really intended to generate leads—they exist more to market to people who are already leads. But SEO helps people find your website for the first time, causing many of them to become leads.
Here’s a look at a basic SEO lead generation strategy:
The first step is to identify your ideal customers. Say, for example, you run a contracting company focusing on home repairs and renovations. Your target audience would be homeowners in your area.
The next step is to create content that speaks to your target audience. In our home repairs and renovations example, you could create content about topics like how to complete basic home repair projects and how to choose the right type of deck for your home.
As your audience finds these articles through search and visits your website, they’ll get to know your brand and begin to trust your expertise.
Another crucial step in the process is optimizing your website and content to improve your rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
These optimization methods include content-related strategies, such as creating highly valuable and relevant content, and more technical tactics, such as improving page speed and usability. We’ll cover optimization tips in more detail in the next section.
The next step is to implement ways to engage SEO leads and capture their contact information. For example, some leads might convert directly on your website through a quote form. Others might sign up for your email newsletter and convert there several months down the road.
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Now that you know how SEO and sales lead generation techniques work, you might be wondering how to improve your rankings in search so that you can drive more leads.
Search engine optimization involves many different tactics, but here are 14 of the most important tips for SEO lead generation.
The first thing to get right for your SEO is to create content based on search intent. What is search intent, you ask? Simple—it’s what people are looking for when they search for a particular keyword.
So, let’s say you write a page to target the keyword “What is metal fabrication?” If someone looks up that keyword, they’re clearly looking for a page that defines metal fabrication.
But imagine that the page you wrote doesn’t even define the term. It just talks about the fact that your company does it. Any users who find your pages in those search results will quickly leave once they realize it doesn’t satisfy their search intent.
That means that if you write a blog post targeting a particular keyword, you’ll want to check the current search results for that keyword to see what people seem to be looking for. Then, you’ll want to write your post to match that intent.
If you don’t consider search intent, you’ll end up creating content that people aren’t interested in reading. That means it will rank lower in Google, and your SEO will suffer, causing you to generate far fewer leads.
It’s crucial to distinguish between “website visitors” and “qualified B2B leads.” While a TOFU page might attract many visitors, the conversion rate may be low, making it less effective for generating B2B leads.
When initially delving into content creation on a particular topic, targeting long-tailed keywords with lower search volumes (fewer than 100/month) is typically a more effective strategy than going for broad, high-volume keywords.
Specifically, honing in on ‘money’ keywords associated with buying intent and incorporating specific geographical locations (such as “top solar panel installers in Central Pennsylvania”) can be especially beneficial for SEO and lead generation.
A lot of SEO comes down to optimizing your website. A website that isn’t user-friendly will struggle to rank and will consequently struggle to generate any leads. Thankfully, there are a handful of simple ways to improve your site’s quality, including page speed optimization.
Page speed is a significant ranking factor. A page that takes over three seconds to load will cause users to abandon your site.
Check out some top suggestions for speeding up your site, including:
Improving your site speed will provide users with a better experience on your site and boost your rankings in search results.
Another way to optimize your website for SEO is to make it mobile-friendly. This step is critical. In today’s world, the majority of web traffic actually comes from mobile devices. Failing to optimize your site for mobile will mean you rank lower and miss out on the majority of your potential traffic.
The best way to create a mobile-friendly site is to use responsive design. Responsive design is a web design technique in which your site pages automatically adjust to fit whatever screen they appear on. So, a page will look one way on mobile and another on desktop.
A responsive design approach is critical because Google uses mobile-first indexing—meaning it prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in rankings. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, it won’t rank anywhere near as high so you won’t get as many leads.
Plus, a non-mobile-friendly site will drive away even the traffic you get if users visit on mobile devices and find a site that doesn’t fit their screen.
By implementing responsive design, you avoid the hassle of creating every page twice while still harnessing all the potential leads you can earn through mobile.
Attracting visitors to your website is only the beginning of the lead generation process. Once you get visitors in the door through SEO content, you have to convince them to complete a conversion action, such as filling out a form to contact your sales team, signing up for a demo, or starting a free trial of your service. That’s what turns content consumers into actual sales leads.
For example, on any Nutshell blog page, you’ll see a “Start free trial” button in the top right corner of the page, a “Ready to try Nutshell for free?” sidebar form that follows you on the right side of the page, and occasional CTAs within the article copy that ask you to download a relevant content offer or start a trial of our software.
The point is you have to make sure your visitors know that you offer something of value beyond just your content. Make sure the visit-to-lead path is clear and coherent, no matter what page they land on.
When creating your SEO lead generation strategy, begin by defining a target persona. This enables you to pinpoint your ideal audience and understand their needs. It’s essential to incorporate the keywords your target persona typically uses when searching for information on your website. When you have a thorough understanding of your ideal audience, you can create content that will be meaningful to them.
For effective customer engagement, share valuable resources that prospective customers can readily access or download. Convey the message that your services represent the solution to their challenges or needs.
Updating your blog posts regularly is a great way to drive more leads via SEO. Search rankings fluctuate over time, and periodically updating your posts helps you keep up with the continual changes that impact your rankings.
Rankings may change due to shifts in user search intent, new or updated competing pages, algorithm changes, and more. It’s also vital to update the information in your posts to remain up-to-date and relevant.
Regularly updating your content keeps it fresh, relevant, and high-quality. It may also increase the likelihood of attracting additional backlinks, improving your chances of ranking.
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Not every SEO tactic happens on your website. You can also boost your Google visibility by creating a Google Business Profile. These profiles are public and include information about your company, like your business name, location, contact information, and reviews.
The most common way for people to find Google Business Profiles is by performing local searches. So, let’s say you run a metal fabrication company in Austin, Texas. If someone in Austin searches “metal fabricator,” they might see a local 3-pack that includes your profile.
That can lead to several people further researching your company, many of whom will visit your website and ultimately become leads.
Google considers a lot of factors when ranking websites in search results. One of those factors is authority. That is, Google prioritizes sites it sees as authoritative and trustworthy. So, how do you get Google to view your site that way? One important strategy is to earn backlinks.
Backlinks are where other websites link to your content. By earning backlinks, you show Google that those sites see you as reputable. To earn backlinks, you can look for linking opportunities on other sites and recommend that they address them by linking to your content.
However, be sure you aim for reputability and relevance in your backlinks. That is, try to earn backlinks from sites relevant to your industry and considered authoritative. Two or three reputable backlinks are worth more than 100 average ones.
Written content is undoubtedly valuable, but visual materials such as infographics or videos prove very effective for B2B marketing.
Because we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text, it is far easier for people to remember visual information than the same information in a written form. Visual content also lends itself well to sharing on social media, and infographics may earn links from other pages that include them, both of which can positively influence rankings.
Finally, something that’s vital to SEO for lead generation—as well as any other marketing campaign—is analytics. You absolutely must track metrics related to your SEO performance so you can see how well you’re doing.
For SEO, there are a few types of metrics you’ll want to track. The first and most obvious metric is rankings. It’s important to know which keywords your pages are ranking for and how high they rank for them.
You’ll also want to keep up with the amount of traffic coming into your site. Keep an eye on how much of that traffic comes from Google, which searches produce the most traffic, and which pages that traffic gravitates toward.
Finally, for the purposes of search engine optimization for lead generation, measure how many leads you earn as a result of your search traffic. Measuring all these things will help you improve your SEO, but it will also help you understand your audience better so you can market more effectively and drive more sales.
SEO is an excellent, cost-effective way to attract organic website traffic and leads. But, leveraging the power of SEO in your PPC ad campaigns can take your lead generation efforts to a whole new level.
Marketers often refer to this tactic as PPC search marketing, and it’s frequently included in inbound marketing strategies to boost a company’s lead generation rate.
PPC ads allow you to target a broader selection of keywords with the opportunity to rank within the sponsored search results at the top of the SERP. When done correctly, this approach can bring in quality leads with a high purchase intent and fast.
There are a few elements you should pay special attention to when implementing SEO PPC ads, including:
Cold email outreach involves emailing people who fall within your target audience but may not have heard of your products or services. It’s a great way to introduce your business to potential customers but requires a little tact.
Remember, these individuals aren’t expecting your email—They haven’t signed up for your newsletter or permitted you to add them to your mailing list. Some may even take offense to you sending a promotional email out of the blue.
That’s why it’s crucial to ensure your cold email message provides the recipient with as much value as possible. Research suitable prospects and determine their pain points. Then, reach out to them with questions about the issues they’re facing and how your product or service can help.
Focus on starting a conversation and building rapport with the prospect rather than overwhelming them with a very long email and too much information. Use email marketing software to easily track cold email engagement.
While your Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn followers are already familiar with your brand, they’re likely not all customers yet. Promoting your products and services through your social channels is a great way to turn prospects into leads.
The best way to do this is to share posts about more than just what you sell—You also want to let prospective customers know how you do business, including your experience, values, and successes.
Sharing customer success stories, awards and accolades, and resources and articles that provide value is a good start. These social posts will display your business’s authority and expertise and should establish trust with your audience.
The key to success in social media lead generation is consistency. Set up a social media content calendar that’s manageable for your schedule, and stick to it. Posting regularly and engaging with follower comments positively should see you reap the rewards in the long run.
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Now that we’ve established some ways of generating SEO leads let’s discuss how you can manage those leads more effectively. Here are three tips to guide you through the SEO lead management process.
One of the first things you can do to improve your lead management is to segment your SEO leads. When we talk about segmentation, we’re referring to categorizing your leads into different groups. Those groups might be based on location, place in the marketing funnel, or something else altogether.
Regardless of how you divide your leads, doing so will allow you to manage them more efficiently since they’ll be more organized. For example, let’s say you segment your leads by which of your services they show interest in. Dividing them up that way means you can run separate campaigns for each group, allowing for more personalization.
Another way to improve your lead management is to use lead scoring. In lead scoring, you assign each of your leads a numerical value based on how valuable they are to your company.
You can calculate lead scores in different ways, but you should base it on factors related to how they’ve interacted with you, like how many times they’ve visited your site. Alternatively, you can use lead confidence, where you simply rank your leads by how likely they are to convert.
This helps you prioritize your SEO leads. Focusing the most on leads with a high chance of converting is beneficial since it gives you better odds of making lots of revenue.
Finally, you should take the time to analyze the SEO leads you get. Why? Because analyzing your current leads enables you to do two things:
First of all, analyzing the types of leads you’re getting—and discovering what they want—helps you more easily convert them into customers. But it goes beyond that because you can also use that information to adjust your marketing and have more luck gaining new leads down the road.
To put it simply, including analytics in your SEO lead management strategy will ultimately drive much more revenue for you in the long term.
Navigating SEO can be overwhelming, but with the right SEO resources, you can stay informed and make data-driven decisions. Here are some valuable resources:
Leveraging these SEO resources will continuously improve your SEO skills and drive better results.
Want some help getting new SEO leads for your business or managing the ones you already have? You’re in the right place. With our SEO services, you can get the help of a professional agency to improve your SEO and increase your traffic vastly.
Furthermore, as you generate new leads, you can use Nutshell to organize them. Nutshell is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, meaning it’s designed specifically to help you gather and categorize your leads and automate much of the conversion process.
Want to see what Nutshell can do for you? Just check out our 14-day free trial!
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Most businesses see initial results within 3-6 months, though significant lead volume often takes 6-12 months. Timeline depends on competition, site authority, and how consistently you optimize. The key is maintaining steady effort—SEO compounds over time. Starting with quick wins (on-page optimization, content) builds momentum for bigger gains.
Track these core metrics: organic traffic growth, lead volume from organic search, cost per lead acquired, and revenue generated. Use the formula: (Revenue from SEO – SEO Costs) / SEO Costs. A CRM helps connect these dots by tracking which leads came from SEO and what they’re worth over time, giving you clear ROI visibility.
SEO drives traffic, but a CRM converts it into sales. CRMs help you segment leads, track their progress through your pipeline, score lead quality, and ensure no lead falls through the cracks. They also provide visibility into which SEO keywords and pages actually convert—invaluable data for optimizing future efforts.
Both excel at different times. SEO builds long-term, compounding visibility—ideal if you’re willing to wait several months for results. PPC delivers immediate leads, perfect for testing campaigns or urgent goals. Most successful businesses use both: PPC for quick wins and data insights, SEO for sustainable, cost-effective growth. Your budget and timeline determine the right mix.
Agencies bring specialized expertise, handle multiple clients, and stay current on algorithm changes—ideal if you lack internal resources or want expert-level work. In-house teams understand your business deeply and maintain full control. Consider: your budget, need for ongoing optimization, internal skill gaps, and time investment. Many businesses hybrid it—working with an agency like WebFX while building internal capabilities.
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