In B2B SEO, typically, the ultimate goal is to attract high-intent searchers who convert into qualified leads.
But, not all high-intent visibility translates to sales-ready traffic, especially in long sales cycles or complex buying journeys.
As we get deeper into an era of diminishing importance of keywords that translate directly into attributable clicks, a focus on quality of traffic is as important as ever.
Don’t get me wrong. Quality has long been a critical component and key performance indicator (KPI) in the sense that most of us know our conversion rates and stages of the funnel someone might be in related to intent with B2B and lead generation.
However, now, as much as ever, we have to scrutinize intent and the traffic quality even more.
When SEO teams over-prioritize high-intent visibility and focus under the false assumption that intent equals urgency, we can find that we’re not getting the conversions or leads that we expect.
In this article, I’m unpacking seven ways to help go deeper with mapping visibility to actual funnel stages, differentiating decision-makers vs. influencers, and building SEO content that nurtures, qualifies, and educates before the handoff to sales.
1. The Myth: “If It’s A Bottom-Of-Funnel Topic, The Traffic Is Ready To Convert”
While we may think about our website, our content, and analytics data in customer journeys and conversion funnels, our target audience doesn’t.
Maybe my nerdy search brain thinks that way when I’m consuming content on a website I’m interested in, but most of the world doesn’t.
There are too many variables that impact someone’s conversion decision to fully unpack here. I can personally tell you that a couple of times, I filled out forms while lying on the floor next to one of my kids in bed, falling asleep.
And, other times, I sat with a tab open on my giant desktop work monitor for months before eventually finding that tab again and filling out the form.
Those are two extreme examples, but as more possible ways to be found (e.g., AI search) enter play, we’re going to see myriad behaviors and paths that we couldn’t have anticipated just a few years ago.
Things are not going to make sense in a simple way, and what might seem like a home run conversion will be frustrating when you dig into the data, and things that might have felt like top of funnel that convert quickly will be equally (but pleasantly) surprising as well.
2. B2B Searchers Are Often Researching, Comparing, Or Gathering Info, Not Buying
Beyond the intent challenges and varying entry points and sources I noted above, we have a hand to play at times as well in how and where someone converts.
Our best converting content can still be standing in the way of getting the actual conversion. Just like the head scratchers that we might find when someone converts quickly without seemingly spending much time on the site or in “research” mode.
With more answers being given within search engines and large…
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