Generating leads from social media can be tricky; each platform requires a slightly different approach that matches the user base and works with the algorithm. While Facebook is arguably the most popular option, there’s one social media platform that can yield much bigger returns for the same investment: TikTok.
With 1.04 billion active users, TikTok is one of the most effective lead-generating social media platforms out there, and if you’re not already using it, it’s time to get on board. But before diving into the details, let’s bust a common, pervasive myth that might be holding you back.
Status: Busted.
If you think TikTok is just for teens to perfect their dance moves and lip-sync to songs for attention, grab your business hat, because TikTok has quickly evolved from ‘teen sensation’ to ‘marketing domination.’ Believing TikTok is just an endless stream of lip-syncing videos is like thinking email is only good for sending cat GIFs to your grandma (although that’s a perfectly acceptable way to use email).
You might be surprised to learn that many businesses say TikTok yields the most conversions they’ve ever achieved on social media, and they consider TikTok to be a lead-generating machine.
But TikTok conversion rates aren’t just comparatively high.
They’re astronomical.
Where conversion rates are concerned, even the most popular platforms are lacking: Instagram averages 1.08%, YouTube crawls in at 1.4%, and Twitter barely qualifies for a mention with an average conversion rate of 0.77%.
Facebook’s average CVR is a little better at 9.21%, but many industries barely reach 2.82% (like travel). That’s higher than Google Ads, but it’s barely a blip on the radar compared to TikTok.
TikTok marketing blows everyone out of the water, and for good reason.
Many businesses are able to achieve a 20-40%+ conversion rate. Don’t believe it? Check out this case study about an e-commerce platform called Lazada that got a 47% conversion rate within the first week of their campaign. A whopping 47% of leads generated through TikTok became sellers on Lazada’s marketplace in just a week!
Another successful campaign using TikTok’s “Instant Form” brought fragrance maker, Nina Ricci, a 41.85% conversion rate and reduced the cost per lead by 83%.
If you ignore using TikTok for lead generation, you’re leaving serious cash on the table.
There’s more than one way to generate a lead, but not all methods are equal. Effective lead gen isn’t just about running an ad, getting a click, and having convincing copy that converts. Although that’s how it’s been done for years, TikTok simplifies this process and makes it even easier. They’ve also made the entire process more effective. According to TikTok’s own research data, 57% of TikTok users say they’re likely to buy from a business after viewing a lead generation ad.
When it comes to lead generation, TikTok’s method reigns supreme. Sure, other social media platforms can drum up leads – like how a kazoo can technically make music. But TikTok? TikTok is the orchestra that plays at Carnegie Hall.
Generating leads on other platforms is like tossing your ads into the digital void and praying users will be interested enough to click and visit your landing page. And then praying some more that your landing page is good enough to get them to sign up for your email list. Users might be initially excited when they see your ad, but instantly deflate when viewing your landing page.
TikTok’s in-app lead generation solution eliminates the need for users to navigate away from the app in order for you to get their contact information. They don’t have to visit your website at all. Instead, they provide contact information directly within the TikTok app. This alone plays a major role in TikTok’s higher conversion rate (CVR) compared to other platforms.
It’s an inconvenience to be taken off the app; people are more likely to sign up for your email list if they can enter their contact information immediately and go back to scrolling.
Getting leads inside of the TikTok app eliminates a host of common problems that cause users to bounce before they become leads, like:
· Copy that doesn’t convert
· An off-putting design
· A landing page that isn’t mobile-friendly
· Copy that isn’t clear
· A CTA that doesn’t make sense
· A “bait-and-switch,” where the lead magnet doesn’t match what the ad promised
· Users changing their mind after they click because they want to keep scrolling on TikTok
There are countless reasons users bounce before giving you their email address on an external landing page. Keeping lead gen on the TikTok app eliminates nearly all of those reasons.
As you probably know, generating leads begins with reaching your target market. On TikTok, that’s easy. Ads are easy to set up, and there are plenty of specific demographics you can target.
Many businesses say that TikTok does an excellent job at getting their content in front of the right market, even if they fail to select specific demographics. This makes sense. Since users spend more time interacting with content on TikTok compared to other platforms, user interests are dialed in more precisely. This works in your favor when you use the right keywords.
On TikTok, there are three lead gen methods available: organic reach, TikTok Ads, and TikTok Shop. Although many businesses create and grow their account organically, collecting followers and plenty of likes along the way, that’s not required to start generating leads. If you have even a small budget, you can start running ads and get leads right away.
Having your own content is great, but it takes time to build a reputation that will earn organic followers and a massive reach.
With TikTok Ads, you can reach a highly targeted market and start generating leads immediately while you work on developing your presence. In fact, you don’t need to create any content at all if all you do is run ads.
TikTok shop lets you set up a storefront right on TikTok where people can purchase from you directly within the TikTok app. If you have products that meet the requirements, this is an excellent way to earn trust, build your reputation, and grow your email list.
Now that you know why TikTok is great for lead gen and isn’t just for lip-syncing teens and cat videos, let’s get into some strategies you can start using right meow (I bet you saw that coming).
1. Use Instant Forms
Once you’ve been approved for TikTok Ads, you can start running lead generation campaigns that use the “Instant Form” feature. Here’s a breakdown of how to do this:
1. Inside your Ads Manager, create a “Lead Generation” campaign
2. Select “Instant Form” as the optimization location within the ad group settings
3. At the ad level, go to the “Destination” section and create your Instant Form (or use an existing one)
4. Customize your Instant Form for your intended ad
5. Publish your ad, track the results, and adjust as necessary
2. Create faceless ads using the native text overlay feature
Faceless marketing involves creating ads with stock photos and stock videos rather than using images and videos of real people. It seems less personal, but it can be incredibly successful when done right.
These faceless videos with text overlays have a sweet spot that rests between “I accidentally opened iMovie” and “Martin Scorsese directed my video.” The secret is creating videos that look well-made, but not so polished that they scream ‘corporate.’ Think of it as the equivalent to business casual – you want your videos to look good, but like you didn’t try too hard (because nothing says ‘keep scrolling’ like an ad that looks like it’s trying to win an Oscar).
Polished videos stand out as ads, which kill inspiration and attention. Making your faceless video within TikTok’s app and using the native text overlay feature will make your video blend in and appear just like any other piece of content.
3. Create highly entertaining, fun content
Take some time to watch some of the best performing videos on TikTok’s Creator Center to get an idea of what makes content entertaining and fun. It may not be what you think.
Videos that perform well on TikTok have a different vibe than successful videos on other platforms, and it’s not just that they’re short. They’re typically visually pleasing with a simple, concise message that is displayed as text over the video. Oh, and the music is usually upbeat and highly engaging.
4. Capture attention within 3 seconds
Since users are often scrolling through TikTok like there’s no tomorrow, you need to capture attention fast. Three seconds is about all you’ll get to make a user pause and watch your video. If you can master these first three seconds, you’ll have a greater chance at getting leads.
5. Make your text-based videos short on purpose
When people watch your videos in full, it tells the algorithm your content is worth sharing, and it will show up in more feeds.
One way business owners are getting people to watch a whole video is by displaying text that takes a little longer to read than the length of the video. For example, if a video lasts 5 seconds, and the text takes 8 seconds to read, most users will let the video repeat so they can read the whole text.
If your marketing strategy includes super short faceless videos, this little tidbit can help you boost your visibility within TikTok’s algorithm.
6. Use strong calls to action (CTAs)
Short calls to action win on TikTok, as long as they’re enticing. Phrases like:
· Hurry!
· Offer ends soon!
· Final Days!
· Final Hours!
· Get it now!
Of course, TikTok goes above and beyond yet again by recommending CTAs to businesses based on the content of their ad, industry, past ad performance, and competitor ads using similar objectives. There’s even an option to generate dynamic CTAs so you can test a variety of them.
7. Always use captions
Today’s users love closed captions and subtitles, and some people rely on them if they have a disability or turn the sound off. Never rely on your audio to capture your market’s attention.
8. Hire a TikTok marketing expert from Marketer.co
If you’re ready to take your lead generation to the next level, hiring a TikTok marketing expert can be your golden ticket to success. At Marketer.co, we’ve spent decades helping clients generate more leads effectively, efficiently, and affordably. We’d love to do the same for you!
Let’s face it, running paid ads for lead gen can be confusing. Even when the platform seems simple, there are always hang ups when you aren’t familiar with the process. If you don’t have the time, energy, or interest to become a marketing expert, there’s a good chance you’ll make some mistakes. With paid ads, mistakes can cost you quite a bit of money.
Instead of fumbling around, trying to figure it all out on your own, let us do all the hard work. We’d love to help you generate leads on TikTok.
Contact us right now – let’s join forces and make some marketing magic happen!
As a real estate agent, generating leads is the lifeblood of your business. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your career to the next level, mastering lead generation is essential for success.
The good news?
There are countless ways to attract more clients. Here, we’ll dive deep into several proven strategies to help you build a steady pipeline of leads.
Now more than ever, your online presence is often the first impression potential clients have of you. Start with a professional website that showcases your expertise, current listings, and client testimonials. Make it easy for visitors to contact you by including clear call-to-action buttons and a contact form.
When it comes to social media, focus on just one or two platforms that align with your target audience rather than spreading yourself too thin. For example, if your ideal clients are professionals, LinkedIn might be the best fit. If you’re targeting younger buyers, Instagram could be more effective. By concentrating your efforts, you can dedicate the time needed to build an engaged and loyal audience.
Post consistently and ensure your content adds value – market insights, success stories, and community updates are excellent choices. Engage with your followers by responding to comments, asking questions, and sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work. This builds trust and establishes you as a relatable and reliable expert in your field.
Additionally, leverage features unique to your chosen platforms.
The key is to provide content that resonates with your audience and reinforces your expertise. A focused and consistent online presence will not only attract more leads but also help you establish long-term trust and credibility.
SEO helps your website appear higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential clients to find you. Start by optimizing your website with high-intent keywords that potential buyers and sellers might use, such as "real estate agent in [Your City]" or "homes for sale in [Your City]." Be sure to include these keywords naturally in titles, meta descriptions, and throughout your content.
Create valuable, keyword-rich content like blog posts, neighborhood guides, or market trend reports to attract organic traffic. The more helpful and relevant your content, the more likely people are to see you as a trusted resource. For example, a blog post on "Top 5 Family-Friendly Neighborhoods in [Your City]" can draw in families searching for their next home.
Another critical aspect of SEO is link building. Focus on earning backlinks from reputable sources, such as local news outlets, community websites, or industry blogs.
You can achieve this by contributing guest articles, partnering with local, small businesses, or getting your listings featured in online directories. Backlinks not only drive referral traffic but also boost your site’s authority, helping it rank higher in search results.
Don’t overlook technical SEO either. Ensure your website loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and has a secure HTTPS connection. Tools like Google Search Console can help you identify and fix any technical issues. With a well-rounded SEO strategy, you’ll consistently attract high-quality leads to your website.
Paid advertising, like Google Ads and social media campaigns, can give you immediate visibility and help you reach potential clients quickly. To make your campaigns effective, it’s essential to target your ads to specific demographics, behaviors, and geographic areas. This helps ensure your message reaches the right audience at the right time.
Platforms like Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads allow for precise targeting options, including location, income level, interests, and even homeownership status. For example, you can create an ad campaign targeting young professionals in your city who are actively searching for homes, allowing you to effectively generate real estate leads. Use engaging visuals and concise, persuasive ad copy to capture their attention, particularly by showcasing insights into the real estate market.
Experiment with various ad formats, such as carousel ads that highlight multiple listings, video tours that offer a virtual walkthrough, or lead generation forms that make it easy for users to contact you directly. Each format has its strengths, so testing different options helps you identify what resonates most with your audience, including those attending local events where real estate interest might peak.
To maximize your return on investment, track your campaign performance using analytics tools provided by the advertising platforms.
Monitor key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per lead. Use this data to refine your approach, reallocating your budget to the most effective campaigns and adjusting underperforming ads.
Additionally, consider retargeting strategies to re-engage users who have visited your website or interacted with your previous ads. Retargeting keeps your services top-of-mind and increases the likelihood of converting potential leads into actual clients. By focusing on strategic targeting, creative content, and data-driven adjustments, paid advertising can become a powerful tool in your arsenal for securing real estate leads.
Your personal and professional network can be a goldmine for leads. Let your friends, family, and acquaintances know you’re in the real estate business. You never know who might be buying, selling, or know someone in need of your services.
Stay top-of-mind by sending periodic updates, holiday greetings, or invitations to client appreciation events. The more you nurture these relationships, the more likely they are to refer you to others.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t have a very big network,” maybe take some time to brainstorm. You’d probably be surprised to learn how big your network actually is. That’s because your network doesn’t just consist of people you know directly. It actually extends to second-degree connections.
Second-degree connections are people who are connected to people you’re connected with. In other words, if you know a guy who happens to be close with a point of contact in the local universities athletic department, suddenly you have access to an influential individual who could connect you with dozens of other people. Sure, first-degree connections are always the best, but second-degree connections can produce a pretty high ROI too.
Open houses aren’t just about showcasing properties – they’re also a prime opportunity for real estate professionals to meet potential buyers face-to-face and build relationships. To make the most of this strategy, start by marketing your open house effectively. Use social media ads, email campaigns, and local community boards to spread the word. Highlight unique features of the property and create a sense of urgency to encourage attendance, ensuring you attract potential clients who are genuinely interested.
During the open house, make a lasting impression by being personable, knowledgeable, and approachable. Be ready to answer detailed questions about the property, the local market, and the surrounding community. Provide printed brochures or digital handouts with all the key details, so visitors have something tangible to take home.
To further engage attendees, consider offering refreshments or small giveaways. This not only makes the event more memorable but also encourages people to linger, giving you more time to connect with them. Use a sign-in sheet or lead capture forms to collect contact information from every attendee – this is critical for follow-up.
After the event, follow up promptly with personalized emails or phone calls. Even if attendees aren’t ready to buy immediately, staying in touch keeps you top-of-mind for when they are. Additionally, analyze the feedback you receive during open houses to improve your approach for future events. By staying informed about industry trends, you can continuously refine your strategy and offer exceptional real estate services.
Over time, hosting well-executed open houses can become a cornerstone of your lead generation strategy.
Providing free resources is an excellent way to attract leads while demonstrating your expertise. Think beyond the basics and create high-value materials that your target audience can’t resist. For instance, consider offering downloadable eBooks like "The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your First Home" or "Insider Secrets to Maximizing Your Home’s Value." These resources can be hosted on your website and made available in exchange for visitors’ contact information, effectively converting traffic into actionable leads.
Expand your efforts by hosting interactive webinars or live workshops. Topics like "Staging Tips That Sell Homes Fast" or "Demystifying the Mortgage Process" can appeal to both buyers and sellers. During these sessions, you can address common questions and provide actionable advice, further solidifying your role as an industry expert.
Another approach is to create localized content, such as neighborhood guides, school district rankings, or "Top 10 Reasons to Move to [Your City]." By tailoring your resources to the specific needs of your market, you’ll position yourself as the go-to agent for that area.
Don’t forget to promote your free resources on social media, email newsletters, and community forums to maximize their reach. When potential clients see the value you provide upfront, they’ll be more likely to trust you with their real estate needs.
Here’s another simple yet effective tip. You can get some pretty amazing results when you team up with local businesses to expand your reach. For example, partner with home improvement stores, interior designers, or mortgage brokers to co-host events or create cross-promotional content.
Collaborating with businesses that cater to homeowners can help you tap into new audiences and build valuable relationships. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. (And never underestimate how many other business owners and brands are looking to build relationships to grow.)
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay connected with potential clients over time. Create a monthly or bi-weekly newsletter that includes market updates, new listings, and tips for buyers and sellers.
Segment your email list based on where leads are in their journey. For example, send first-time buyers tailored content that helps them understand the buying process, while experienced sellers might appreciate tips for maximizing their home’s value.
Video is a highly engaging way to showcase your expertise and build trust with potential clients. Create virtual tours of listings, neighborhood overviews, or short videos explaining real estate concepts.
Share your videos on YouTube, social media, and your website to maximize their reach. Remember, people are more likely to work with someone they feel they know, and video is a great way to establish that connection.
A CRM system helps you organize and track your leads, ensuring no one falls through the cracks. Use your CRM to set reminders for follow-ups, record client preferences, and track interactions.
Many CRM platforms also integrate with email marketing tools, making it easy to nurture leads over time. By keeping your pipeline organized, you’ll spend less time managing data and more time building relationships.
Positive online reviews can make or break your reputation as a real estate agent. They serve as social proof, showcasing your expertise and reliability to potential clients who are researching their options. Encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Zillow, or Yelp. The more glowing testimonials you have, the more trust you’ll build with potential clients.
Make it easy for clients to leave reviews by sending them direct links to your review pages after a successful transaction. A personalized message thanking them for their business and requesting feedback can go a long way in increasing participation.
Respond to reviews – both positive and negative – to show you value feedback. For positive reviews, express your gratitude and let clients know you appreciate their trust. For negative reviews, take a professional and empathetic approach. Apologize for their experience and offer to resolve the issue. (Even a well-handled negative review can leave a positive impression on future clients, as it demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction.)
Additionally, you should highlight your best reviews on your website and social media profiles. Sharing success stories not only boosts your credibility but also reinforces the idea that you prioritize excellent service. Over time, maintaining an active and positive presence in online reviews can significantly enhance your reputation and real estate lead generation efforts.
Being visible in your community helps establish you as a local expert and builds trust with potential clients. You can do things like:
These activities not only give back but also increase your visibility and create organic networking opportunities. While this is the last tip on our list, it might be the most important and effective one – when it’s done well.
As a real estate agent, you can’t afford to have a disheveled or messy brand. In order to generate more leads, you need a cohesive approach that allows you to put the right message in front of the right people at the right time. At Marketer.co, we can help you do just that.
Contact us today to learn more!
Lead generation carries a different connotation with every business owner.
For some, it's a crucial stream of new prospects that keeps the business alive.
For others, it's a waste of money that shouldn't be considered.
For still others, it's a potentially massive benefit that they just can't seem to crack.
So what does lead generation mean to us?
Well, on some days, it's a headache, to be perfectly honest. But generally, we recognize lead generation as one of the most important elements of any sales and marketing strategy.
What exactly is lead generation and why is it so important for your business?
Lead generation is the process of generating leads.
Duh.
But really, lead generation services include a series of strategies and tactics designed to find, target, and connect with people who are likely to buy your products and services. In this way, it straddles the middle line between marketing and sales. Many lead generation strategies are also marketing strategies, but they differ in the sense that they're specifically designed to produce quality leads.
A successful lead generation strategy will provide you with a steady stream of people who are primed and ready to buy your products. Depending on the nuances of your strategy, it might mean that they're much more likely to buy products and services through your website, or it might mean that they're ready to receive a call from your most talented sales team.
In any case, if you can master the art of lead generation, you'll always have a steady stream of new and excited customers for your business.
Also, if you truly master the art of lead generation, let us know because you can probably teach us a thing or two…
Why Does Lead Generation Matter for Your Business?
There’s a reason why more than half of marketers consider lead generation to be a top priority in their marketing efforts.
And it's not because more than half of marketers are stupid.
It's because lead generation matters for your business in a multitude of ways.
· Sales and revenue. The first and most obvious benefit of better lead generation is a path to greater sales and revenue. If you have a good lead generation strategy in place and you use it well, you'll naturally increase the number of leads generated. More people who are ostensibly interested in your products will have the immediate opportunity to buy them, and more people who have never heard of your products before will have an opportunity to hear about them. Assuming your targeting is on point and your messaging is persuasive, you should have no trouble multiplying your earnings with superior lead generation.
· Brand awareness. Marketers also appreciate the capacity for lead generation to increase brand awareness. Even if your marketing qualified leads or sales qualified leads don't buy your products right away, they'll become more aware of your brand and more likely to buy from you in the future. By taking steps to nurture leads, you can build stronger relationships with potential customers. They may also be likely to recommend your brand to other people. In any case, the greater brand awareness you develop through your lead generation can have a secondary impact on your business development.
· Customer relationships. Lead generation can also be an opportunity to build customer relationships early, even before your prospects become full-fledged customers. Often, you'll engage with individual customers either directly, with calls and emails, or indirectly, with drip email campaigns, social media messages, and more. Either way, your new customers will have an opportunity to engage with your brand and its representatives repeatedly. This warms them up and helps them build a stronger relationship with your brand. Eventually, this can increase sales and customer retention.
· Growth. Lead generation is a growth strategy. If you want to grow your business, investing in lead generation is one of the best ways to do it. The more you spend, the more reach you can achieve, the more prospects you can persuade, and the more customers you can bring onboard. If you start feeling confident about the way your lead generation efforts work, you can greatly increase your investments in them, hopefully multiplying their impact many times over.
· Less wasted time. You probably passively generate high quality leads through your existing marketing and sales tactics already. However, a more thoroughly vetted, targeted approach will work in your interest. Once you improve your targeting and polish your lead generation approaches to perfection, you'll waste less time, you'll waste less money, and your lead generation strategy will become far more efficient.
Lead generation takes many forms.
Essentially, there are two big categories: outbound and inbound lead generation. In outbound lead generation, you'll be specifically reaching out to new prospects and targets, filtering out irrelevant parties and following up with and nurturing appropriate targets.
These are a handful of examples:
· Cold email. Cold email is one of the most popular forms of outbound lead generation, even today. Yes, we've all had bad experiences with spam in our inboxes, and it's true that most cold emails don't get a response. But with the right targeting, enough relevance, and a broad enough reach, you can generate a significant flow of qualified leads through email alone. You can also use cold emails in combination with other lead generation tactics, so those messages aren't so cold. It's also highly cost-effective and easy to automate, so it has a place in almost any lead generation strategy.
· Cold calling. It’s true that 87 percent of people routinely ignore calls from numbers they don’t know. It's also true that people are spammed to the brink of madness with irrelevant, robotic phone calls. But that doesn't mean that cold calling is dead. Again, with the right targeting, with relevant messaging, and with a prioritization of quality and human connection, cold calling can be a valuable addition to your outbound lead generation portfolio.
· Social selling. Businesses integrate social selling into their outbound lead generation strategy. Essentially, this means networking with relevant people, expanding your web of connections, and trying to find people who are a good fit for your business and its products. This tactic is very hard to scale, but it's much warmer and more likely to produce results with each interaction.
· Pay per click (PPC) ads. Another highly accessible outbound lead generation strategy comes in the form of pay per click (PPC) ads. As the name suggests, these ads allow you to generate traffic for your website or a specific landing page as long as you're willing to pay for each lead that you generate. You can place PPC ads on a variety of channels, including Google, Bing, and most social media platforms. You can also use strategic lead generation tools to reach only the customers who are most relevant to your brand. Accordingly, it can be highly cost-effective and customized to achieve nearly any conceivable lead generation goal your business has.
Inbound lead generation strategies are differentiated by the fact that they attempt to naturally capitalize on existing interest. Instead of going out and tracking down potential sales leads, you'll create beacons that invite them in, like moths to a flame – but with a much less dangerous setup.
These are some of the best examples:
· Search engine optimization (SEO). By now, you've probably heard about search engine optimization (SEO). The basic idea is to modify your website and build links to increase its likelihood of ranking for strategically valuable keywords and phrases. When done properly, it's much more likely for people to find your business in search results, which means you'll generate more organic traffic to your website. It's a way of naturally capitalizing on searches people are already doing, and it's very cost-effective when done properly. The biggest drawback is that it takes time to build authority and gain rankings, so it's best complemented with outbound lead generation tactics.
· Content marketing. It's almost unfair to mention content marketing as a separate point from SEO because the two strategies are so tightly intertwined. It's almost impossible to practice SEO without content marketing, and if you practice content marketing, you'll probably experience some SEO benefits without even trying. In any case, you can also practice content marketing with a more specific focus on lead generation; for example, you can produce premium pieces of content known as lead magnets and distribute them for free in exchange for contact information from your most valuable prospects. It's one of the most convenient ways to build an email list.
· Social media marketing. Social media is another popular channel for inbound lead generation, if you use it to make posts, distribute content, build an audience, and naturally attract people who would be interested in your brand. Note that it can also be used for outbound lead generation in the form of social selling, PPC ads, and more. With so many channels to choose from and so many potential audiences to harness, the lead generation possibilities with social media are practically unlimited.
· Retargeting ads. It's also common for businesses to use retargeting ads as a form of inbound lead generation. Retargeting ads are ads that appear to people after they've already visited your website or engaged with your brand in some meaningful way. It's a passive and inexpensive way to capitalize on people who have already expressed genuine interest in your products or services.
· Webinars. Do you have knowledge or wisdom to impart to your target audience? If so, consider presenting it in the form of a free webinar. People will likely sign up in droves, providing their contact information in the process, giving you an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and follow up in the future.
Because outbound and inbound lead generation strategies have different strengths and weaknesses, it's a good idea to include both in your lead generation approach.
At this point, we've answered the central questions.
You came to this article because you wanted to know what lead generation is and why it matters your business, and if your reading comprehension skills are on point, you now know it.
But we didn't want to leave you hanging.
So we're going to leave you with some quick tips for more effective sales lead generation in your business.
· Work with experts. Lead generation can be overwhelming. It's hard to know who to target, how to target them, and how to get the most value from your money. That's why it's a good idea to work with experts, especially at the beginning. Consider reaching out to a lead generation firm (like ours!) for more guidance.
· Know your audience. Much of your lead generation success depends on your knowledge of your audience. If you target people who aren't interested in your brand, you'll waste all your time and money. If you target the right people in the wrong way, your messaging won't be impactful. Accordingly, you should spend the bulk of your early efforts focused on researching and better understanding your target demographics.
· Target as specifically as possible. With that in mind, you also need to target as specifically as possible. Broad, generic strategies meant to be relevant to everyone simply aren't going to work. You have to narrowly target your potential customers if you want to run an efficient lead generation process.
· Prioritize organic lead generation. It’s possible (and tempting) to buy leads for your business. However, most businesses are much more successful when they prioritize organic lead generation. That's because leads generated organically are much more relevant, much warmer, and ultimately, much more likely to buy from your business.
· Take advantage of multiple channels. These days, omnichannel marketing and lead generation strategies are dominant. That's because there are an incredible number of communication channels available, and each one has something uniquely beneficial to offer. Only by taking advantage of an array of different solutions will you be able to maintain a well-rounded lead generation approach.
· Automate what you can. Automate as much as possible in your lead generation strategy. Automation allows you to eliminate manual effort, saving both time and money, and it can actually increase the consistency of your execution at the same time.
· Be ready to adapt. Finally, be ready to learn and adapt. Good lead generation strategies aren't stagnant; They constantly evolve in response to the development of new technologies, the formation of new trends, and the machinations of industry competitors.
Are you ready to transform your qualified lead generation approach for the better?
Or are you interested in better understanding the landscape of your marketing, sales, and lead generation strategies?
The lead generation experts at Marketer.co are on standby and ready to help.
Contact us today for more information!
These days, when someone wants to buy a product or service from a business, they turned to Google for information.
If a business has lots of good reviews and very few neutral or bad reviews, they’ll be much more likely to move forward.
But even a single bad review can throw a wrench in things.
Obviously, as a business owner, you have good motivation to delete those bad Google reviews and improve the visibility, reputation, and sales of your brand.
So what's the best way to do it?
Google reviews are relatively short business reviews left by other people who have patronized your business, at least ostensibly. Users can find your business through a basic search, click to view your Business Profile, and write a review based on their experience. Users typically have to be signed into their Google account to leave such a review.
People have the option of rating your business on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, and they have the option to leave a more qualitative review as well. Once submitted, the review will automatically be scanned and evaluated; if it seems to be spammy, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable, it's going to be weeded out. Otherwise, the review will become publicly available.
Users have the option to delete or edit their reviews at any time. However, as a business owner, you don't have much direct control over how Google reviews get posted or what happens to them once they're up. You can always leave comments and feedback, and you'll have the option to contact users directly, but you can't easily or directly delete negative Google reviews.
Why are Google reviews so important for local businesses on Google Maps?
· First impressions. For starters, Google reviews are a solid foundation for the first impressions of most people researching your brand. Google reviews are extremely visible and highly valued by users investigating various businesses. An abundance of good reviews can make them feel more comfortable patronizing a business, while even a small number of bad reviews can make them second guess their decision. Individually, this may not seem like much, but it can accumulate to have a massive impact on your business. According to one report, even a single bad review can cost you up to 25 percent of your total business revenue.
· Due diligence. Your savviest customers are going to do their due diligence before they even consider buying from you. They're not just going to look at your star rating; they're going to read the details of each review posted about your brand. If something distasteful catches their eye in a bad review, they may float to a competitor for the sake of safety.
· SEO value. Reviews also play a role in your search engine optimization (SEO). Having more reviews and better reviews is a positive signal, supporting you in the local rankings especially. A single bad review won't be enough to tank your entire SEO strategy, but you should generally strive for as many good reviews as possible. Finding a way to limit, delete, and prevent bad reviews can help you rank higher in search engines and generate more organic traffic overall.
Now to the main point: how are you supposed to delete Google reviews?
Remember, there's no way for a business to delete bad Google reviews directly. However, businesses do have the power to flag Google Reviews for human evaluation. If a bad review violates any of Google's policies, you can flag it, and hopefully, a human evaluator will decide to remove it.
These are some of the reasons you can flag a bad Google review:
· Off topic. Google wants reviews to be focused on reviewing. They encourage reviewers to write about the direct experience they had with the brand, rather than venturing off into personal opinions, speculative territory, or slander. If you feel that a bad Google review is not fully topically focused on the experience of your business, consider flagging it for removal.
· Spam. Google is pretty good at catching spam, but every once in a while, something slips through the cracks. If a Google review seems like it's hawking another product or if it's so low quality that it could easily be mistaken as spam, flag it.
· Conflict of interest. There are also policies in place to control conflicts of interest. If you can demonstrate that this bad review was written or facilitated by a close competitor, you can probably get it removed. Anyone with a financial interest in smearing the reputation of your business you should not be posting bad reviews about it.
· Profanity. Again, Google is usually good at catching negative reviews with excessive profanity, but sometimes, things slip through. If an inappropriate review features offensive language or obscenities, you'll be in a good position to have it removed.
· Bullying or harassment. One of the more nebulous policies of Google is a firm stance against bullying and harassment. This is a somewhat subjective standard, so it can be difficult to prove. If Google is too strict with this standard, bullying and harassment can persist indefinitely, but if Google is too lax with this standard, almost every negative review would be removed under the pretense that it's harassing the business owner. The line isn't always clear here, but if you sincerely believe that this review is more focused on attacking, threatening, or otherwise damaging your business than it is spreading honest information, flag it.
· Discrimination or hate speech. You should have no trouble getting a negative review removed if it includes any language that could be interpreted as discriminatory or containing hate speech. If someone insults you or your business due to race, ethnicity, religion, or other characteristics, flag the review and get it removed.
· Personal information. Google also has a policy against sharing personal information. If you find any sensitive information in a bad review, you can probably flag it for removal.
· Not helpful. Perhaps the most ambiguous category here is describing a review as “not helpful.” Obviously, Google wants all of its publicized reviews to be helpful to the people reading them. If a review is not helpful because it's not clear, because it's too obviously subjective, or because the details are too unbelievable, it's clearly not helpful for the people reading it. Be ready to justify what you think is not helpful about this review before you flag the review for this.
Remember that Google has built-in, automatic screening systems to identify problematic and negative reviews, so it's quite rare to find a Google review that’s publicly posted and in violation of one of Google's policies. Not every bad review for your business is going to be flaggable.
Obviously, there are some problems with this approach:
· No straightforward process. Unfortunately, the process is not always straightforward. You may have an issue with a bad review that was left for your brand, but it may not fit neatly into any one category for flagging for removal. In some cases, you may not be able to flag a bad review for anything.
· A slow process. If you do flag the review, it can take some time for someone to evaluate it. In the meantime, customers and prospects will be seeing and considering the review. Even if the review does eventually get removed, it can do some damage in the meantime.
· Unreliable results. There's no guarantee that the flagged review is going to be removed, even if you have a genuinely good reason for flagging it. Unfortunately, results here are highly unreliable.
· The Streisand effect. The Streisand effect is an internet phenomenon in which a person's attempts to bury or obfuscate a piece of information end up generating more attention on that piece of information. If your business relentlessly tries to hide or bury bad reviews, you might end up bringing more attention to your business and those bad reviews. Sometimes, the best course of action is to simply respond and let the negative review stand.
Instead of simply deleting every bad Google review you find, or bending over backwards to find ways to flag Google reviews for human evaluation, consider using the following strategies as alternatives for dealing with bad Google reviews:
· Authenticate and investigate. Take some time to investigate the review and authenticate what it claims. For example, if someone complains about the quality of the spaghetti you served them on Thursday night, and your receipts show that nobody ordered spaghetti on Thursday night, you'll have a basis for flagging the review – or responding with evidence that the review is in bad faith. The more information you can gather, the better.
· Respond in good faith. Consider responding publicly to the negative review and do so in good faith. Remain polite, accommodating, and concise in your response. In some cases, it's a good idea to apologize; in others, it's a good idea to provide supplementary information to properly contextualize the claim. For example, you may apologize that the customer didn't get the experience they want but point out that they arrived at your establishment five minutes after closing.
· Reach out to the customer directly. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can reach out to the customer directly. Ask them if there's anything you can do to resolve the problem or make up for the bad experience. In many cases, customers will be willing to take down their bad reviews in exchange for a refund, or replacement, or some other incentive. This isn't bribing someone to take down a negative review; Instead, it's an attempt to fix an underlying problem or offer a resolution where there wasn't one before. Again, be polite and straightforward in your communications with them.
· Follow up. If you don't get an immediate response, or if the customer doesn't take down their bad review, consider following up with them, especially if it's an inappropriate review. In private communications, you can move the conversation forward and hopefully work out a mutually agreeable course forward. If you can't make any progress, consider posting publicly that you reached out in private and offered to make things right. Even if users encounter the bad review, they'll see that your company genuinely cares about its customers and will try to resolve issues if they arise.
· Update your business practices. Even if you don’t fully understand or agree with the person who posted the negative review, there’s probably something you can learn about your target audience from this engagement. What can you change about your business to prevent this type of bad review in the future?
· Get more positive reviews. One of the best ways to drown-out negative reviews or fake reviews is to find a way to scale-up your positive reviews. The more positive reviews you get, it will dimish the impact of a couple of negative or fake Google reviews.
No business wants to get bad Google reviews, but even the best businesses must contend with them from time to time. If any bad Google reviews violate Google's policies and best practices, you can easily flag them for manual review and removal. Otherwise, there are plenty of alternative strategies that can help you mitigate and control those bad reviews.
Google reviews are just one aspect of your digital marketing strategy and overall online presence.
Juggling them with all your other priorities, like SEO, PPC ads, and social media marketing, can be challenging – which is why so many businesses choose to work with a comprehensive digital marketing firm for consulting, execution, and overall support. If you’re ready to get started, contact us for a free consultation today!
We recently had an opportunity to work with a leading video production company, in pursuit of higher search rankings, more organic traffic, and more leads.
And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think we knocked it out of the park.
In this brief case study, we're going to take a look at the strategic elements that helped us allow this video production company to see better results – and show off the fruits of our tactical approach.
Running a video production company isn’t easy.
This video production company, in particular, faced two massive challenges.
First, the video production industry is extremely competitive. There are literally thousands of agencies and individuals specializing in video production competing for a finite amount of online visibility – and a finite number of clients. Getting visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) for such highly contested keywords and phrases isn't exactly a cakewalk.
Second, this video production company relied almost entirely on word of mouth for lead generation. There's nothing wrong with word-of-mouth advertising or leaning heavily on referrals from previous clients, especially when you do good work. But it's not especially consistent at generating leads, and it's definitely not very scalable.
This company knew they would need to change things if they wanted to succeed in this competitive digital marketing world.
That's where we came in.
The most important elements of our campaign included:
· Initial analysis. We started with an initial analysis, examining the structure of their website, their current target keywords and search results positions, and their current efforts with onsite content and offsite link building. We wanted to pinpoint promising areas for development and get a feel for the efforts they've already made.
· Highly targeted link building. From there, we began a highly targeted link building campaign. Rather than trying to build as many links as possible, we aimed for quality over quantity and tried to acquire only extremely high authority, very relevant links. We ended up building 47 links on referring domains with high domain authority and topical relevance to video production.
· Valuable keyword targeting. Similarly, we focused on only the most strategically valuable keywords and phrases, identifying keywords that were high in search volume, high in relevance to prospects, and relatively low in competition. This way, we could maximize the value of our efforts.
· SEO page tuning. We also practiced SEO page tuning heavily for this client. In case you aren't familiar, SEO page tuning is a strategy focused on making hundreds of little tweaks to target pages to make them more relevant and more authoritative in the eyes of Google and other search engines. Even tiny adjustments, like adjusting phrases and reorganizing page sections, can make a massive difference. Thanks to Google’s new content search ranking identifier, it’s easier than ever to analyze exactly what’s missing from your internal pages so you can tweak them to perfection.
· Internal linking. Additionally, we prioritized an overhaul of internal linking. Google loves to see websites with intricate, intuitive internal linking networks, as this facilitates a smoother user experience while simultaneously making it easier to understand the purpose and relationships of each page.
· 18 months of growth. We continued our efforts for a stretch of 18 months, gradually and iteratively adjusting our approach as we gathered more data about our client’s performance. By the end of this 18-month campaign, this video production company was in a much better digital marketing spot.
Here are the most important results we have to show as results of our efforts:
· Top rankings for “video production.” Our client now ranks in (or close to) the top position for keywords similar to “video production,” alongside major competitors who have 13 times their revenue. They can now contend with some of the biggest names in the industry.
· Dominance of valuable keywords. Our client also ranks in the top 5 positions for each of their most desired and targeted money terms. These keywords and phrases are highly relevant for leads and prospects, making top rankings even more valuable.
· A 7x increase in traffic. From the start of the campaign, our client saw a sevenfold increase in traffic to their website. That means seven times as much visibility, seven times as many potential leads, and seven times the total impact of the website.
· ~7 highly qualified corporate leads per week. This video production company had practically zero consistent leads before we got involved. Now, they get on average seven highly qualified corporate leads every week.
We helped this video production company completely revolutionize their approach to SEO, traffic generation, and lead generation.
And they’re not alone.
In fact, they’re just one of hundreds of companies and individuals we’ve guided over the years.
And you could be next.
If you’re ready to see massive increases in your search visibility, traffic, lead flow, and sales, the first step is a free consultation with us – so reach out today!
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The broad strokes of search engine optimization (SEO) are relatively easy to understand, even for lay people.
Google and other search engines want to reward good content, and they want to provide users with relevant content for their needs.
Accordingly, good, relevant content makes it to the top of search engines.
If you want to achieve the highest rankings possible within your domain, you'll need to write lots of relevant, useful content for your target audience. You'll also need to support that content with a host of different SEO strategies, including technical optimization and link building.
But in today's hypercompetitive online marketing environment, the fundamentals alone aren't enough to guarantee you success. Instead, if you want any page of your website to dominate the competition and rise to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), you'll need to incorporate SEO tuning.
But what exactly is SEO tuning, how is it so reliable, and how do you practice it for your internal pages?
We hope to answer all your questions and more in this guide.
SEO tuning is a specific set of strategies in the umbrella of search engine optimization.
These strategies are designed to help you fine-tune and polish an existing page, ultimately supporting it in terms of its ranking potential and relevance to your audience.
Chances are, if you've been operating a website for some time, you have lots of strong pieces of content that need just a little bit of extra help to reach the upper echelons of the SERPs.
The strategies in SEO tuning include things like cutting ineffective content, including more relevant keywords, minimizing keyword cannibalization, and fixing small technical issues.
Additionally, SEO tuning calls your attention to specific ranking factors and qualities of your page, so that you can maximize its likelihood of ranking highly for relevant queries. These include things like:
Note that SEO tuning isn't about creating new pages, nor is it about completely overhauling existing pages. Instead, it's about taking solid, reliable pages on your website and fixing the little issues that might be holding them back.
You can think about it as taking a page that ranks as a B or B+ and moving it to an A or A+.
Why does SEO tuning work?
For starters, SEO tuning can help you with the following:
It's also important to recognize the current landscape of SEO.
These days, the SEO field is incredibly competitive, even for relatively obscure fields and niches. Even if you have a piece of great content on your website, there are probably a dozen other websites that offer content of similar relevance and quality. If you want to reach page one, or even rank one for a given keyword phrase or query, it's imperative that your page is as polished as possible.
At the highest competitive levels, even the smallest changes can make a big difference.
On top of that, companies that heavily invest in SEO often suffer from redundancy and pages that overlap in their pursuit of goals. SEO tuning provides you with an opportunity to separate your strategic targets and remain focused on your most important objectives.
How do you tune a page for SEO?
The easy answer is to work with the team of SEO experts, like those of us here at Marketer.co. We can help you identify the most valuable pages of your website, brainstorm about strategically valuable keyword targets, and ultimately conduct analyses that lead us to the best SEO tuning strategies for each page.
But if you choose to do the work on your own, you need to keep the following concepts in mind:
Everything starts with an SEO tuning audit. Essentially, this phase is about identifying potential page targets of your website and evaluating them in terms of SEO performance. There are SEO tuning software tools available to help you do this; these will often provide you with specific recommendations, based on the content of your website.
However, it's also possible to conduct this audit on your own.
When evaluating pages of your website, look at:
Once you have a list of valuable page targets, take a look at the following:
Once you have a full analysis in place for a given page, you'll be able to devise a plan for how to make changes to it. If you're working with SEO consultants, or if you've used an SEO tuning tool, you'll likely have specific recommendations to work with. Otherwise, you'll need to brainstorm solutions on your own. Depending on the current status and position of your page, there are probably many things you can do.
The process of applying these changes can be somewhat tedious and repetitive, but remember that every tweak inches you closer to SEO ranking perfection.
Many people think SEO tuning is all about adding new, better content. But in many cases, the stronger move is to surgically remove things that aren't working.
For example:
Once you remove everything compromising your SEO ranking potential, you can focus on tweaking what already exists and adding more.
Pay especially close attention to the following:
The final step is to measure and analyze your results. Keep in mind that Google’s index updates only periodically, and it may take several weeks or months before your changes take full effect. Schedule an analysis in the future to see if your changes have increased your pages’ rankings, traffic, conversions, and other dimensions of performance; if they haven't, analyze why and consider starting from scratch.
So the solution is to tune your pages for SEO as much as humanly possible, right?
Not necessarily. There's such a thing as “too much of a good thing” in most areas of life, and SEO tuning is no different.
Google doesn't want pages that are tuned to technical perfection, necessarily; it also wants authentic, user-centric content. If it becomes clear that you're artificially manipulating your rankings, or if your content becomes so tuned that it reads as robotic or mechanical, it could end up hurting you more than helping you.
These are just some examples of how:
These tips and strategies can prevent you from overtuning your articles for SEO:
We’ve helped a wide range of clients achieve next-level SEO results, and one of the best tools in our arsenal is SEO tuning.
Here are a few of the best success stories we have to offer:
SEO tuning is hard. If you have hundreds of pages to optimize for, it’s even harder. That’s why we make every effort to help our clients navigate this space – and tune their pages for ranking perfection. If you’re interested in a free SEO tuning audit, or if you need help executing the finer directives of your SEO strategy as a white label SEO reseller, contact us for a free consultation today!
This past year, we had a massive opportunity to help a Fortune 100 company with their SEO efforts.
We’ll call it “Company A” for the sake of discretion.
As you can imagine, Company A was no stranger to SEO.
The marketing team at Company A had been managing a robust SEO strategy for many years – and they had a lot to show for it. They had strategically important target keywords, a relatively high domain authority, and an impressive spectrum of keyword rankings worth showing off.
But they wanted more. Naturally.
So they came to us. And we helped them spearhead a new campaign that pushed their search engine dominance even higher – and set them up for even more momentum to come.
Let’s take a look at how we helped a Fortune 100 company increase their keyword rankings by 45 percent.
Our initial engagement focused on consulting and strategic analysis. We wanted to understand Company A’s current goals, philosophy in marketing, and previous SEO efforts.
After a few meetings and a deep dive into their existing strategic targets and needs, we collaboratively developed a strategy we felt would make the biggest impact.
3 Months
So far, our campaign has lasted 3 months. That's not a lot of time in the SEO world; it's ample to see meaningful results, but the best campaigns last many years.
Still, we wanted to make the most of the time we had and prove that our efforts were worth continuing.
1 Vital Page
Company A had 1 particularly important internal page in mind for development. Naturally, we also wanted to build the company’s domain authority more broadly.
6 Vital Keywords
We decided to focus our efforts on 6 vital keywords with strategic value for the client. Each of these keywords had significant search volume, a high degree of relevance, and a host of powerful competitors vying for them.
If we wanted to increase rankings for these keywords, we would need to make our efforts count.
4 Waves of Link Building
Our role in this campaign was, primarily, link building.
Our link building efforts unfolded across 4 separate waves, each with a blend of diverse offsite targets. The goal was to build links across a variety of different websites with different DA scores – and maximize relevance to readers and publishers. We also mixed up our publication schedules and timing to make sure our links would be as natural and organic as possible.
Now for the juicy part – the results.
How much did Company A benefit from our new campaign?
First, let’s talk about their most valuable target keywords.
We’ll anonymize the keywords for the sake of discretion. For each keyword, we’ll show you the original ranking, the gain in ranking (in parentheses), and the final ranking (in bold).
· Keyword 1. 13 (+11) > 2
· Keyword 2. 18 (+16) > 2
· Keyword 3. 22 (+19) > 3
· Keyword 4. 11 (+1) > 10
· Keyword 5. 100 (+93) > 7
· Keyword 6. 16 (+7) > 9
Note that these keywords are highly competitive, head keywords. All 6 of their most valuable keywords are now on page 1, despite none of them being on page 1 before our efforts – including 1 keyword that barely made it to page 10.
On top of that, we led an increase in Company A’s total number of keyword rankings. Company A went from 1,812 ranking keywords to 2,627 today – a nominal increase of 815, or 45 percent.
The page we targeted started with an authority score of 52, and by the end of our campaign, it rose to 57, an increase of nearly 10 percent.
Our results for Company A speak for themselves.
But can we replicate these results?
We’ve had hundreds of engagements with hundreds of clients who can attest to that – and you don’t have to be a Fortune 100 company to benefit from our help.
At Marketer.co, we can help you with everything related to SEO and marketing, including:
· Strategic consulting. Arguably the most important part of your campaign is the strategy and research that happens before you develop a single piece of content. We can help you evaluate your current strategic position, including your domain authority, page authority, keyword rankings, and more. From there, we can help you develop a holistic strategy to achieve your SEO and marketing goals.
· Keyword research. It's important to recognize your most strategically valuable target keywords, based on their relevance to your business and your audience, their search volume, and the level of competition contesting them. Otherwise, you may not achieve your full potential in generating organic traffic or new revenue for your business.
· Content development. Content has been at the heart of SEO for more than a decade, and it continues to be the most important component of your strategy. We can help you not only figure out what types of content you need, but also develop those pieces of content on your behalf. We specialize in both onsite and offsite content.
· Link building. When it's time for link building, we can help you tap into our massive network of publishers to find only the most relevant, highly authoritative, trustworthy referring domains. Whether you're just starting out or are competing with some of the top names in the industry, we'll help you boost your authority numbers and rise to the top of the SERPs.
· Peripheral strategies. As our name suggests, we’re about much more than just SEO (though it is one of our greatest offerings). We can also help you with practically any peripheral marketing or advertising strategy, such as PPC advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing. Many of these strategies complement each other, so it pays to have a dedicated partner who can help you with all of them.
If you liked this case study, you'll really enjoy this bidet marketing example where we took a NEW bidet brand from zero to page one on Google in 18 months.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we achieve such impressive results for our clients, or if you’re ready to get started with a free consultation, contact us today!
You want prospective clients to find your law firm.
There are many ways to facilitate this, but the best is to optimize your presence in search engines.
After all, most of your clients and prospects are primarily using search engines for researching lawyers and law firms for their needs.
But here's the thing.
Chances are, most of your competitors are already outranking you in search engine results pages (SERPs) for queries relevant to your niche.
And as you might imagine, higher rankings get not only more visibility, but more traffic and more prestige as well.
If you want to earn that visibility and traffic for your own law firm, you'll need to find a way to outrank your competitors. Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you do this. But an SEO strategy without keyword research is like a boat without a rudder; it may be powerful, but it lacks direction.
Accordingly, keyword research is typically the first step of any SEO strategy, and it's certainly the best place to start as a law firm.
So what exactly is SEO keyword research? And how do you practice it?
In SEO, keywords (and by extension, keyword phrases) are words and phrases that people enter into search engines like Google as a search query.
For example, “lawyers” is technically a keyword, though most people don't search this broadly. “Personal injury lawyers near me” is a much more common keyword phrase, as is “How to choose the best personal injury lawyer.”
If you can optimize your web presence for phrases like these, you'll increase your chances of ranking in the SERPs produced for these queries.
SEO keyword research is the process of analyzing various keywords and phrases for the sake of finding the best possible targets. Some SEO keywords are more valuable for your law firm than others, and for a few different reasons; some keywords are more relevant to your organization, some are more popular search terms, and some are easier to optimize for.
The process usually begins with some simple brainstorming, which you can do even if you don't have much SEO experience. Think about what your law firm represents, what types of customers you serve, and what those customers might search for if they're looking for a business like yours.
Most people start producing a list based on their brainstorming efforts, then they turn to the power of specific keyword research tools that allow them to gather more data and come up with new ideas.
You can figure out the best keywords for your law firm to target by studying the following metrics:
· Relevance. Relevance is largely a subjective matter. You need to choose SEO keywords that are relevant to your organization as well as the clients and prospects searching for it. Otherwise, there isn't much of a point in receiving the traffic.
· Search volume. Within the realm of relevant keywords, you should also choose keywords and phrases with relatively high search volume. Search volume tells you how many people search for this keyword or phrase within a given time period, usually one month. The higher the search volume, the more people are searching for it, and the more traffic you'll receive if you can rank at the top for that keyword or phrase.
· Competition. That said, choosing only the keywords with the highest search volume is a surefire recipe for failure. That's because you also need to consider the competition; keywords with high search volume often have high competition, making them difficult or even impossible to rank for. Keywords with lower search volume may not get as much visibility or traffic, but you can reach rank one for those terms quite easily.
Ideally, you'll select a host of keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your organization, with high search volume, and minimal competition. These perfect keywords are unicorns, however, so you may have to make some compromises.
Your strategic keyword targets are going to inform every element of your SEO strategy, including your onsite optimization, your content creation, and even your link building. You'll use them to create new pages of your website, inform the topics for your blog posts, serve as anchor text for your links, and more.
You can start the keyword research process by simply getting into the mind of your ideal target client or prospect. What is this person looking for? What has this person recently experienced? What types of things would they enter into a search engine if they were either A) interested in services like yours or B) could benefit from services like yours?
Already, you can likely come up with various ideas directly related to your area of expertise. For example, people might search for things like “family lawyer,” “divorce attorney,” or “custody agreement lawyers near me.”
But if you want to go a step further, you should also consider the types of questions that people ask search engines related to legal matters. Think of things like “what should I do if someone is suing me?” or “how do I create a last will and testament?” Consider all the things that your prospects and clients ask you when first meeting you.
If you're struggling to come up with ideas, or if you just want to flesh out your list even further, look to online resources that specifically support questions and answers related to legal matters. Avvo, Justia, and Lawyers.com are fantastic resources for this.
Keep a list of all the keywords and phrases you've generated. Most experienced SEO professionals do this in a spreadsheet, making it easier to manage SEO keywords both now and in the future.
As your list expands, you can consult other tools designed for keyword brainstorming. SEMRush, Ahrefs, Google Trends, and Google Keyword Planner are good places to start. All you have to do is enter a handful of keywords and phrases, and these tools will help you generate even more ideas.
In the course of your brainstorming and development, be sure to highlight keyword variations and related searches. For example, if you came up with the keyword idea “divorce lawyer,” you should understand that “divorce attorney,” “divorce law firm,” and “divorce legal help” are all functional variations of that query.
Each variation and related search can function somewhat on its own in your SEO strategy, though it is worth noting that due to semantic search, Google often blends semantically similar keywords and phrases together.
Don't worry about anything else at this point; just focus on cultivating a large list of potential keywords and phrases that are relevant to both your organization and the clients and prospects it serves.
At this point, you should have a long, borderline comprehensive list of keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your law firm.
Now, your job becomes whittling that bulky tome down to a more manageable list. Many law firms and lawyers start with a list of about 20 keywords and phrases, but feel free to increase or decrease this according to your budget and your goals.
The two primary factors you'll need to consider beyond relevance are search volume and competition. The best targets are ones with high search volume and low competition, but these are understandably rare, due to the attractiveness of high search volume keyword terms in such a competitive industry. You'll need to decide for yourself how to balance these; most lawyers and law firms choose a diverse mix of “low hanging fruit targets” with low search volume and low competition along with “long-term goal” targets with high search volume and high competition.
Head keywords, or relatively short keywords and phrases, like “DUI lawyer,” typically offer very high search volume, but also high competition. Long-tail keywords, or longer search queries, like “How do I get out of a DUI?” typically offer very low search volume, but also low competition. The best SEO campaigns include a mix of both in their keyword targets.
Local keywords, as you might expect, are keywords and phrases that also include some geographic element. For example, these are search queries like “real estate lawyer Ohio,” “real estate lawyer Cleveland,” or even “real estate lawyer near me.”
These keywords and phrases are especially valuable for local SEO – the practice of optimizing your law firm for local searches. Local SEO is very similar to national SEO, but with some extra considerations for local search results.
Optimizing for your geographic location can be an easy way to avoid big competition and maximize visibility for the people geographically closest to you. Just keep in mind that in addition to optimizing for local keywords, you also need to optimize your local presence, such as by cleaning up your local citations and maximizing the quality and number of local reviews for your law firm.
Local SEO is a complex topic that requires its own article, but suffice it to say that most law firms do benefit from having at least a handful of local keywords among their strategic targets.
If you're hoping to get more out of SEO keyword research for your law firm, these tips should give you a good start:
· Work with the pros. We've tried to make this guide thorough, yet accessible. It should help you understand the basics of keyword research, but as you probably understand, SEO keyword research is better performed in the hands of an experienced professional who knows what types of keyword targets work best. If you have the budget for it, we advise you to work with SEO professionals for your keyword research needs.
· Consider budget and scope before beginning. There is no such thing as universally applicable keyword research. That's because each business has a unique budget and a unique scope. What works for a small, local, boutique law firm simply isn't going to work for a large, more generalized law firm. Make a plan for your budget and the scope of your SEO campaign from the beginning so you can choose better strategic targets.
· Triangulate the truth with multiple tools. Unfortunately, keyword data isn't perfect. It's constantly in flux, and different tools use different methodologies for providing you with data. Accordingly, it's good to triangulate the truth by using multiple tools to cross-reference each other.
· Understand search intent (and cater to it). Google is all about serving user intent. When someone asks a question, Google tries to find them an answer. When someone is obviously searching for a certain type of business, Google tries to find businesses that match those defined criteria. Accordingly, the better you understand search intent, and the better you cater to that intent, the better results you'll see.
· When in doubt, go narrow. A small number of very focused keywords is possibly the best way to start any SEO strategy. This way, you can use your budget on keywords that are extremely relevant with low competition; even if these searches don't generate much volume, you can at least get some early results to fuel the rest of your campaign. This is also a great way to stress test your SEO strategy; if you can't increase your rankings with very niche keywords with limited competition, you'll need to make some changes before you increase your budget and scope.
· Study your competition carefully. It's also a good idea to understand your competition. Go beyond simply looking at the competitive rating of various curative phrases and try to understand the tactics your competitors are using to optimize for them. What types of articles are they writing? Where are they building links?
· Optimize with caution. Keyword stuffing is the practice of deliberately including keywords in your content for the explicit purpose of manipulating your rankings. If done excessively, it leads to a much poorer user experience and can actually work against you, earning you a penalty that precludes you from advancing your SERP rankings. When optimizing for your strategically valuable keywords, do so with caution.
· Measure your results. Finally, be prepared to measure your results. You won't know how effective your keyword targets are until you put them to use and objectively observe their impact.
Keyword research is never easy.
It’s even harder in a competitive market like legal services.
That’s why it’s valuable to trust your keyword research – the foundation of your SEO strategy – to competent professionals with expertise in your niche.
We’re waiting for you. So don’t hesitate to reach out today – and find out how we can help your law firm dominate the SERPs!
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