What Is the Difference Between SEO and Lead Generation?
Need a refresher on the differences between search engine optimization (SEO) and lead generation? While these two marketing strategies have some similar aspects, they are actually very different. In simple terms, SEO helps generate organic traffic towards your website while lead generation focuses on capturing consumer interest in a product or service for the purpose of procuring sales.
With SEO, you wait for the search engines to deliver potential customers to your website. Lead generation goes out in search of prospects and brings them back to you. While both strategies can be successful on their own, a campaign that focuses on both SEO and lead generation is often most effective.
What is SEO?
SEO is not a lead generating tool on its own. It’s generally used to bring traffic from search engines to your website and improve your website’s overall prominence on the search engine results page (SERP). However, SEO does not necessarily improve conversions. It can help business owners accomplish a number of goals, including:
- Increased traffic to their website by increasing a site’s search ranking for relevant keywords.
- Generate leads by matching the content on your website to what internet users are searching for.
- Boost your sales by bringing more potential customers to your website where they can find your products or services.
What’s the difference between SEO and Lead Generation?
A lead is a demonstration of interest in a product, service, or brand. With the growth of the internet, marketers must find new ways to reach buyers. Instead of relying on mass advertising, marketers must now focus on building continuous relationships with buyers. Lead generation attracts interest by prompting users to fill out forms and similar tactics. Search engines allow you to generate leads through several methods, including:
- Creating links to relevant websites based on a search keyword or key phrase. Results are determined by the search engine’s unique algorithm.
- Creating links that appear at the very top or to the right of organic search engines. This type of paid advertising is referred to as pay per click or PPC.
In short, SEO is a traffic generator, not a lead generator. However, that doesn’t mean SEO is not a highly valuable tool that belongs in your marketing plan. When SEO and lead generation are used together, a business can generate more traffic and leads while building a pipeline for sales.