SEO referencing

The
SEO
is one of the main levers a company can use in its business acquisition strategy. No company should underestimate this means of achieving and exceeding your growth targets. In the field of lead generation and growth hacking, the AARRR framework is a model for many entrepreneurs:

Acquisition: attract new visitors or users
Activation: identify “hot” prospects likely to buy quickly
Retention: building user loyalty
Referral: turning users into prescribers
Revenues: optimize revenues per user

To kick-start this virtuous and profitable process, companies need to put in place an effective Acquisition strategy, and improve it regularly. One of the main channels for acquiring new visitors remains organic search.

By entrusting
SEO
of your site to an agency and giving it the place it deserves in your development strategy, you give yourself the means to capture qualified traffic with genuine search intent.

As an SEO agency, 1ère Position shares its experience with you, with hundreds of SEO projects every year and just as many lead generation strategies.

SEO and lead generation, a well-oiled machine

How does SEO fit into a lead generation strategy?

Whether internalized in a webmarketing department or outsourced ( SEO agency, consultants, freelancers…), an SEO team or SEO expert is part of and collaborates with the entire team in charge of growth, traffic and lead generation. Keyword research, content creation, link acquisition, technical audits, public relations campaigns, awareness-raising campaigns… Actions aimed at SEO benefit the entire team in charge of lead generation, conversion and loyalty. The best SEO teams are cross-functional (web copywriter, technical SEO project manager, UX designer, graphic designer…).

How can SEO contribute to growth?

Recruit new customers : people are always searching everywhere on the Internet, and search engine optimization sometimes goes beyond the usual limits of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Think Quora, Instagram, Facebook or how to make your videos more visible on YouTube. An SEO team focuses on reaching a target audience that is not yet familiar with your offer or brand.
Identify the right target : SEO makes it possible to reach quite different audiences and prospects with fine-tuned targeting. In fact, keyword research allows us to identify trends or strategic queries, but above all to detect search intent.
Capitalize on brand awareness (brand traffic): some companies are fortunate enough to be able to capitalize on strong brand awareness to attract brand traffic, i.e. by integrating a brand name. If you forget to include branded queries in your SEO strategy, you run the risk of being victimized by a clever competitor.

Improve organic search visibility

In concrete terms, how do you implement an SEO strategy that generates leads and stimulates business growth?

1. Keyword research and competitive analysis

Knowing what your audience is looking for on search engines is step #1. By listing the key expressions that are relevant to your brand, you can give yourself a first draft of your SEO strategy. There are 3 criteria for selecting strategic keywords:

Search volume
Relevance to conversion
Feasibility and competition

Obviously, the study of traffic and conversions is used to adjust the choice of keywords and their priority.

2. Technical audit

Is your site accessible and understandable to search engines? Are all your pages indexed? The technical audit enables us to identify the factors blocking or penalizing your SEO. Various SEO tools will quickly check and identify potential optimizations.

3. Application of corrective actions

The SEO specialist implements all possible technical solutions, either on his own or with the help of a more technical profile (integrator, developer…). There are usually a ton of opportunities: URL rewriting, tag optimization (ALT, title, Meta description…), sitemap, internal linking, site speed…

This stage also includes setting up traffic and position analysis tools.

4. Optimization and content creation

A site lacking in content, either in terms of quality or quantity, will have less chance of answering the questions of Internet users, and will logically carry less weight in the eyes of Google. The ability to create optimized content or relevant landing pages is crucial.

By devoting more resources to content strategy and production, you’re no longer blindly chasing Internet users. In effect, you’re capturing qualified traffic with high conversion potential and more diversified keywords. Content also helps to improve traffic distribution and reassure potential customers.

5. Netlinking campaign

Links to your site (backlinks) and mentions of your brand help to forge your brand’s reputation and improve the site’s natural authority. A real springboard to the top results of search engines, links set you apart from the competition. Are your current links clean, do you have opportunities for additional backlinks (guest blogging, partnerships, online media appearances, influencer campaigns…)? An SEO agency is able to support its clients in this kind of practice.

6. Reporting, analysis and corrections

It’s important to draw up a detailed report incorporating the chosen KPIs before implementing the first optimizations. The specific measures used in an SEO plan will depend on the objectives of the site and the company.

Redone at regular intervals, the results will help validate the SEO strategy and better target the SEO campaign’s efforts.

How does SEO indirectly impact other lead generation levers?

As well as attracting customers directly, SEO is an excellent way of generating leads indirectly, notably by using content created or optimized for the SEO campaign on other acquisition channels. This content positions your company as an opinion leader in its sector, while gaining greater visibility for the brand by appearing.

Below you’ll find a list of acquisition levers and the synergies obtained through SEO work:

Emailing : SEO helps you build a mailing list when you include a sign-up field next to high-quality content such as blog posts, videos or white papers. SEO content also provides interesting resources to feed your emailing campaigns.
Social media: When published on a brand’s social profiles, content created for an SEO strategy can have an impact on a social media channel such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. A simple tagline is all it takes to drive traffic from your social platforms.
Webinars: To the extent that your SEO content includes numerical information or a creative organization of concepts that your customers would find interesting, it can easily be repackaged as slides in a webinar. Extensive blog posts can themselves be translated into a full webinar.
Exhibitions and events: At its best, an SEO campaign raises your status within your industry, and brand recognition encourages interaction with the audience or trade show visitors, for example. The content can also be reused for brochures.

Structuring an SEO team

How do you set up an SEO team and how can it help you generate more growth? Let’s delve a little deeper into what an SEO team needs to achieve its goals, and what an organization needs to get there?

What should your SEO team consist of?

The best SEO teams are made up of technical SEO specialists, editorial managers, developers and graphic designers. Together, they can optimize sites according to Google’s recommendations, and write content with high conversion potential to help generate more traffic and leads.

SEO expert : “SEO project manager” or “SEO specialist”, this person is responsible for leading the team and identifying opportunities based on available data. Whether it’s data on potential traffic from search, current ranking data or technical audits, they recommend and facilitate the implementation of SEO techniques.
Developer : An SEO team often calls on the technical skills of a developer to implement the necessary modifications. That’s why you need excellent developers.
Designer : A webdesigner imagines and designs landing pages to improve visitor satisfaction and encourage them to convert (purchase, download, make an appointment…).
Content : SEO needs content, whether in the form of excellent articles, blog posts, white papers, optimized titles, etc. You can’t succeed without an excellent web copywriter who can find creative ways of formulating what you want.

Lead generation: what are the SEO team’s objectives?

The main objective of SEO is to generate qualified and more relevant traffic through organic search. Very easy at first glance, there are actually many KPIs that can be used to determine whether the campaign is a success or a failure. Here are some examples of KPIs for evaluating your SEO campaign:

Position monitoring
Traffic volume
Click-through rate
Conversion rates
Loading speed
Session duration
Number of page views
Bounce rate
Medium basket

Every SEO project is unique, and so are the KPIs used to evaluate it, which must also correspond to the company’s business objectives.

Integrate business objectives into SEO reporting

Don’t forget to include sales performance indicators in your KPIs. Lead generation managers don’t have to stop at the AARRR model acquisition stage. Monetary value indicators are used to assess the quality of leads generated by SEO leverage, and to determine the return on investment. It’s a good way to compare the ROI of SEO with other levers and allocate resources more intelligently.

IN BRIEF

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about lead generation:

By attracting prospects to you over the long term
By positioning your site in the top search results on carefully selected strategic keywords to attract qualified traffic
By creating high-quality content that can be adapted to a wide range of media
By optimizing conversion rates through carefully designed landing pages
By sharing tools, data and skills with other webmarketing professionals
By providing hot leads looking for a solution
By offering content that meets the needs of your target audience, you’ll have the chance to convert the ordinary visitor into a prospect and, eventually, make a sale.

SEO acts as a funnel that brings a stream of qualified prospects to your site. The latter should become one of the best lead generation tools with the support of an experienced SEO agency or a full SEO team. The 1ère Position agency brings together teams of SEO experts, copywriters, web designers and graphic artists to offer you comprehensive support for your site’s SEO. Lead generation is in the DNA of our webmarketing teams. Entrust your SEO project to us and give yourself the means to see the number of qualified leads take off!