How to Increase Organic Leads (+ Why Increasing Traffic Isn’t the Same Thing)

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses strategies for increasing organic leads through search engine optimization (SEO) content marketing. It contrasts common generic advice with the authors' own findings and recommendations based on their experience.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Prioritizing Buying Intent Over Traffic

1. Why does the article recommend prioritizing keywords with high buying intent over high traffic keywords? The article argues that while high traffic keywords may bring in more visitors, the conversion rate for these low-intent keywords is often extremely low (less than 0.01%). In contrast, keywords with high buying intent, such as those indicating the user is ready to research or purchase a product, have much higher conversion rates (around 4.78% on average). This makes targeting high buying intent keywords a more effective strategy for increasing organic leads.

2. How does the article illustrate the difference in conversion rates between high and low buying intent keywords? The article provides data from a client, Geekbot, showing that bottom-of-the-funnel (high buying intent) keywords had an average conversion rate of 4.78% compared to just 0.19% for top-of-the-funnel (low buying intent) keywords. Despite the TOF content bringing in significantly more traffic, the BOTF content generated over 3x the number of conversions.

3. What are the three main types of high buying intent keywords the article identifies? The article states that most high buying intent keywords fall into three buckets:

• Category keywords: Different ways to describe the product/service offered
• Competitor comparison and alternatives keywords
• Jobs-to-be-done keywords: Keywords indicating the user is looking to solve a specific problem

[02] Identifying Target Audience vs. Buying Intent

1. What is the key difference between the generic advice on identifying a target audience and the authors' recommendation? The generic advice focuses on creating detailed buyer personas based on demographic information. In contrast, the authors recommend identifying the specific pain points and keywords that indicate a user is ready to buy, rather than just focusing on who the user is. They argue that buying intent is more important than the user's job title or other persona details.

2. How do the authors recommend identifying high buying intent keywords? The authors suggest talking to your sales and customer success teams to understand the key pain points and buying motivations of your target customers. You can then use this information to identify keywords that indicate the user is actively searching for a solution to those problems.

[03] Content Quality and Search Intent

1. What does the article say is the key to creating "good quality" SEO content? The article states that "good quality content" is not a single, universal standard. Rather, it depends on fulfilling the specific search intent of the target keyword. This means understanding the reader's existing knowledge level and creating content that educates them at the appropriate level, while also effectively positioning and selling the product/service.

2. How does the article contrast this with generic advice on creating "good content"? The article notes that generic advice on creating "good content" often focuses on superficial elements like word count, use of headers, and including statistics. While these can be helpful, the article argues that the true measure of content quality is how well it meets the searcher's intent and converts them.

[04] Social Media and Video Content

1. What is the article's view on using social media for organic lead generation? The article acknowledges that social media can drive initial traffic spikes, but argues it is not an efficient long-term strategy for increasing organic leads. The traffic from social media is "spikey" and temporary, unlike the more evergreen traffic from SEO.

2. When does the article recommend using video content? The article states that video content is only necessary if the search results page (SERP) already includes a video section, indicating that users expect to see video for that query. Otherwise, the article advises against going out of the way to create video content, as it can be time-consuming and expensive.

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