If your community has a website — and nearly all do these days — you’re probably employing search-engine marketing to promote it. Used strategically, the right SEM techniques can help move your site higher in the Google rankings and help steer more qualified visitors your way.
Ultimately, though, attracting more traffic to your website is about generating more leads and more sales. What are some steps you can take to ensure that you’re fully leveraging your SEM to bring in the most — and the most qualified — leads possible?
Target Search Terms Correctly
You’ll probably never snag the top spot on Google for “senior living community,” and why would you want to? In most cases, your prospective visitors will be much more specific in the terms they use to find you. At the least, they likely will use some combination of a city and state name, along with the type of services they’re seeking.
To maximize the potency of your search marketing, you should be using so-called long-tail keyword phrases that include several words each. The right long-tail phrases can help you gain better search engine placement, since they’re less competitive than shorter, more general phrases.
Long-tail keyword phrases also help ensure that visitors who arrive at your site really want to be there — which can help you pre-qualify prospects. Once you’ve chosen the right long-tail keywords, you’ll want to create engaging content that encourages visitors to click through a search result.
Share Compelling Content
Google has developed a laser-like focus on relevant, quality content of late. If you want to rank well, your content and keywords must be aligned. But content also plays a significant role in leveraging your SEM to generate leads.
With all the generic content vying for your prospects’ attention, your website and social media channels should offer information that is useful and provides value. To ensure that you’re delivering compelling content, consider how your articles, blog posts, videos, images, white papers and other offerings positively affect your audience.
Does the content include useful information or educate your audience in some way? Does it solve a problem? Is it entertaining?
Once you’ve mastered the art of compelling content, you’ll need to create and share new pieces regularly. Generating leads through SEM requires writing consistently over time; if you don’t have a writer in-house who can handle the workload, your marketing agency can assist you with creating a steady stream of engaging content that draws in your audience.
Develop Funnel Vision
Your SEM campaigns will draw in visitors who are at various stages of the buying process, and your online content should reflect the different concerns, needs and questions that prevail in each level of the sales funnel.
Some of your visitors may have become aware of a problem only recently. For example, they or their parents may have started having trouble handling tasks at home, or they may have learned of a looming health issue. At this stage, buyers seek introductory information on a variety of different solutions that may be available.
At a later stage, prospects may have determined that they want to move into senior living but are searching for the right community. They may seek information on how your community compares to others in your area. Other prospects may arrive at your site already intending to move to your community; they may want information on the application process or other relevant details.
If you can create useful content that appeals to prospective buyers at each phase of the decision to move to senior living, you increase the chances of generating qualified leads — and sales — from your SEM efforts.
Encourage Visitors to Take Action
To convert your SEM-generated visits to leads, consider including a call to action on every piece of content you post. If you’re creating content specific to buyers at different stages of their buying journey, you can add calls to action that help move them to the next stage.
For instance, if you want to identify qualified leads and collect their contact information, consider creating exclusive content like white papers that you can offer in exchange for completing a contact form. For buyers in the comparison stage, consider offering tickets to an event or for a meal at your community.
Generating Leads Through SEM
Are your SEM efforts resulting in qualified leads and, ultimately, sales? Your marketing agency can help you synchronize your targeting, content creation and SEM to provide you with a stream of visitors who become prospective residents.
The post Leveraging Digital Channels to Generate Leads, Part I: Leveraging SEM appeared first on Walker Marketing | Digital Agency | Internet Marketing | Web Design | Concord, NC.