Search engine optimization is a vital component of any winning digital marketing strategy, and it can yield substantial long-term results if you do it right. In the increasingly competitive online world, your focus should be to reach as many people online as possible, but also target the right audience to generate qualified leads and lead people towards positive outcomes. Needless to say, you can do all of that and much more if you know the key SEO factors and commit to improving your standing in the relevant search results.

SEO has a domino effect, because the higher you rank, the more trustworthy your brand becomes, people become aware of your company, Google starts recommending you more and more, and people start going to your website because you have become the authority in the industry. That’s why one of the things you should expect from your SEO agency is to help you achieve numerous marketing and sales goals, because effective SEO should take your business forward as a whole in the online realm.

Let’s put all of this into perspective and take a look at the best practices you can use to boost your lead flow with good SEO.

Increase website speed and responsiveness

The first thing you should focus on is to provide a seamless browsing experience for your customers. Google is nowadays heavily prioritizing websites that load quickly and fully without a hitch, and can provide a snappy and responsive browsing experience. What’s more, given the fact that Google now sorts websites predominantly based on its mobile-first indexing, it has become imperative for companies to optimize their websites for mobile devices.

With all of that in mind, here are some technical SEO features you need to have on your site:

• Improve site speed.
• Make sure to establish a secure connection with an SSL certificate.
• Find and fix any crawl errors.
• Fix all broken links.
• Make sure there are no duplicate versions of your site in Google’s index. 
• Optimize your website for mobile with accelerated mobile pages.

These are the essential things you need to take care of in order for Google to rank your website properly, especially now that it focuses so much on providing a stellar experience to every user. 

Build informative and user-focused content

Like we mentioned just now, Google is determined to provide the best possible user experience, and to do that, it has to prioritize websites that boast the best content in the online market. Rich, deep, informative, and factual content is what people are looking for in the oversaturated digital world, and this is even more important now that fake news and misleading articles are popping up at every corner. 

If you want people to come to your site, read through your stories, and develop a meaningful relationship with your brand based on trust (which leads to a conversion), then you need to start your blog page and publish quality content regularly. This content also needs to boast a clear structure, and you should try to incorporate relevant keywords naturally throughout to help Google crawl through it and push to the top of the search results. 

Focus on generating leads from local search

There are many reasons why you should try to rank higher in the local search results, even if you’re trying to grow your brand locally. For the majority of small businesses, though, succeeding in the local market is the thing that will take the company forward, build its reputation in the community, and drive business to their doorstep. 

Wherever you’re operating from and however big your local market might be, you should work with an SEO agency that can build a tailored SEO strategy to boost your brand’s visibility in local search. Using localized keywords, publishing content that is relevant to the local community, and earning links on local websites are just some of the techniques your SEO agency should use to boost your local presence and generate qualified leads for your business.

Build a decent backlink portfolio

Speaking of earning links, one of the key techniques to improve your ranking locally and globally is to build a backlink portfolio. This means earning links that lead back to your website on authority sites in your industry and beyond. 

That said, you have to earn do-follow links in order for the “link juice” to go through, so refrain from any black-hat link-building techniques if you want to nurture your reputation with Google and the global business community.

Don’t forget about customer reviews

Last but not least, you need to manage your online reputation in order to consistently rank high in the search results. Google places a high emphasis on customer reviews, because reviews are a source of quality information for other customers and users around the web. 

Simply put, if you have positive reviews, you will invariably rank higher. Your goal should be to respond to every review, positive or negative, to show your audience how much you care and to build social proof. Make sure to pay special attention to negative reviews, and resolve any issues your customers might have in order for them to retract the review or turn it into a positive one.

Over to you

SEO is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy, and it can help you generate qualified leads that are sure to turn into paying customers. But investing in SEO over the long term can achieve much more than that, so be sure to use these tips in order to elevate your brand’s standing online and propel your business forward.