Search engines show your page to people who already look for what you sell. To get qualified leads from search, match your pages and ads to the intent of the searcher, then measure and improve each step.
Why search gives you qualified leads
When people want something, they ask a friend or they search online. A search is a clear statement of intent. A person who types “SEO course Kuala Lumpur” is ready to compare options.
A search engine works like a recommendation engine. It shows a direct match for the query. It also shows related results. For example, a search for flights to Bangkok can also show hotels, the weather and travel rules.
The search engine finds and indexes pages each day. Its ranking systems use machine learning and many signals. Google has said that it uses more than 200 signals. Thus a good SEO practitioner knows which signals are important for each intent.
In Malaysia, most searches go to Google. In July 2019, StatCounter showed these shares:
- Google: 98.4%
- Yahoo: 0.78%
- Bing: 0.59%
- DuckDuckGo: 0.11%
- Baidu: 0.06%
Check the current figures on StatCounter before you set a budget. Other markets use other engines, for example Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia.
A good salesperson in a shop recommends the right product to the right customer. Search engines do the same for your page. SEO is like a sales assistant that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Signs of a gap in your search marketing
- Your pages get visits, but you get few enquiries.
- You do not know which keywords bring you leads.
- Your ad costs increase each month, but the number of leads stays the same.
- Your sales team cannot tell which enquiries came from search.
- Your pages talk about your company, not about the problem of the buyer.
The two parts of search marketing
- Search engine optimisation (SEO): your page shows in the unpaid results. SEO takes months to build, but the results continue after you stop the work.
- Search ads (pay per click): your ad shows above or beside the results, for example in Google Ads. Ads give results quickly, but they stop when the budget stops. Display ads and remarketing show your ads again to people who visited your site.
Use the two parts together. Ads quickly show which keywords bring leads. SEO then decreases your cost per lead over time. Before you start, write down your buyer personas, your content plan and your brand messages.
Make a search marketing plan in five steps
1. Do keyword research for your campaign message
Start from the message of your campaign. List the words that buyers use at each stage of their search. Put related keywords into groups, so that you get a map of the topic. Record which competitors show for each keyword and what each click costs. Then put the tasks in order, with the best opportunities first.
2. Connect the customer journey to the sales funnel
Write down each touchpoint from the first search to the enquiry. The journey is not a straight line: buyers go back and compare again. For each stage, agree the goal for the user experience (UX) and the user interface (UI). You test these goals later in conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
3. Make the content and the pages
The funnel from step 2 tells you which content you need. Make these decisions:
- Content types, for example web pages, e-books, rich results, infographics, videos, audio, forms and chatbots.
- The goal and the metric for each content item.
- Copy for SEO and for the quality score of your ads.
- Copy that gets and keeps the attention of the reader.
- Short text on buttons and forms (microcopy) that asks for one action.
- The brand book and its rules.
- The web platform, for example WordPress, another CMS or a landing page tool, plus the domain name and the hosting.
- The ad platforms, for example Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Meta ads.
- The analytics tools, for example a tag manager, an analytics platform, pixels and heatmaps.
- The connection to your CRM or your email system.
Leads then come in through forms, phone calls and chat messages. Make sure that each lead carries its source into your CRM.
4. Install and set up the analytics
Select analytics tools that give the reports you need. Keep the scripts small, so that your pages stay fast. Set up the goals and the events on each platform. Obey the data protection law of each market where the campaign runs. In Malaysia, this is the Personal Data Protection Act 2010.
5. Monitor the results and control the changes
After the launch, monitor the results each week. Use CRO tests to find a page or a form that brings more leads. Record the paths that bring new customers. Then review the customer journey map and look for new opportunities.
What to do this week
- Write down five questions that your buyers type into Google.
- Search each question. Record which pages rank and which ads show.
- Make sure that each enquiry form sends its source to your CRM.
To write pages that rank and convert, see the SEO Copywriting course.
