Is SEO good for lead generation?

I’m going to say something that may shock you; “SEO is NOT for lead generation.” That’s right I said it. Search Engine Optimization is essential for any website looking to be found but indeed it is limited in its reach and is not intended to be a means of lead generation. For years business owners have made a crucial mistake that other web ventures who achieve a great return on investment do not make. Good SEO is essential for being found. It is very important to have your web venture indexed but if you are looking for a flood of traffic to overcome your website by a trail blazed from a search engine for quick lead generation, you are making a mistake.

SEO is not ROI friendly.

When you spend funds on good SEO (which you should) the measure of those funds and the cost of customer acquisition cannot be accurately measured. This is because of the very nature of SEO, which is casual and organic search. Which means there is no way to accurately measure who has come to your site, where they have come from, which funds paid for that conversion and more. Impossible.

When you launch a marketing campaign your business focuses on the actual return on investment via conversion minus the total cost of the marketing campaign. The data is clear, concise and efficient. With SEO this is not the case. SEO is not measurable. Period.

SEO is built for marketing

Ok, think on this for a moment. What reward is there for good SEO? A good ranking? A continual ranking? Okay. But this makes my point; for primary keywords Google and other search engines are giving up large space for pay per click ads. And why are businesses buying them? Simple; they know it is far easier to list their business for keywords that have HIGH commercial intent (i.e. intent to buy), search engines are giving more room to paid advertising.

Also When you index your site for primary keywords, thousands of other businesses are doing the same so the competition is intense so filtering through the competition is tough and a long process which leads me to my other point;

SEO is slow

By comparison to social or pay per click marketing, SEO is a lengthy process that involves many steps that take time; Content creation, optimization, link building, submission and more.
This process can take months to perfect and for any result to be seen. This is why SEO is not a good idea for start-ups and can kill any business just relying on SEO for lead generation or customer conversion.

Paid Traffic is Good Karma

Paying for a spot gets immediate results and measurable results. For lead generation I always recommend paid marketing for ROI driven results. Nothing else. SEO is a great way to list your business and hey, if you have a good ranking? That’s great but SEO is NOT for lead generation.

However…

SEO IS an essential building block for any marketing campaign. A website must be optimized and healthy in order to succeed on a paid listing anywhere. If your web venture is not primed for your keywords and market, your marketing campaign will ultimately fail.