Call Tracking & SEO for Increased Sales & Better ROI

Use Call Tracking, SEO and Other Marketing Efforts Together to Generate More Leads

Your website is the hub of your company’s online presence. It’s where you share who you are, what you offer and why your customers choose to buy from you instead of the competition. Today, there are so many additional ways for potential customers to find you such as social media posts and shares, referrals from online friends, social ads, e-books, webinars, chats, podcasts, video, etc.

In the not so distant past, SEO (search engine optimization) was the primary path to increasing web traffic, using the simple method of “stuffing” keywords into your content and hoping for a match so you would show up in the search results. Now, search engines are much more sophisticated and are able to discern the intent of a query in order to return more refined results… not just an exact keyword match. We still rely on keywords and SEO tactics, but it’s now essential to add other inbound efforts to enhance your marketing strategy as a whole. That means dropping SEO is not a good decision, but pairing it other inbound marketing strategies will help heighten your success. Now, it’s more important than ever to address your visitor’s needs with real value and trust.

SEO is the Foundation of your Marketing Strategy

SEO has a much broader definition these days, and it’s evolved over time. You still need SEO to reach potential customers looking for your products or services on whatever platform they’re using. This means the technical aspects of your website are still incredibly important, and basic SEO techniques are very much necessary. This also means you need to consistently use your targeted keywords throughout your website, in your social profiles, blog posts, newsletters, press releases, etc.

A content marketing plan is the perfect complement to your SEO efforts and will enhance your overall marketing strategy. When you regularly produce articles, blogs, email newsletters or lead-nurturing automation, utilizing your targeted keywords and providing links to other relevant material upgrades your online reputation as an expert as well as expands your reach to many more prospects.

You can also use SEO techniques to help create videos, podcasts, contests, promotions and gated content to get more exposure to visitors and potential customers. Search engines cannot “see” images or video and can only index text, so don’t pass up an opportunity to add descriptions, image captions, video scripts and other text-based information to give the search engines something to follow.

Collecting and analyzing data from all of your different marketing channels is essential to discovering what is working for your company. It will help drive the focus of your marketing strategies.

Call Tracking Data to Strengthen your Marketing Efforts

Call tracking provides the decision-making data you need to adjust and refine your strategies to provide the best return. This detailed, actionable information allows your staff to answer calls more effectively, knowing what marketing material generated the call and what the customer is looking for based on what he/she was most recently viewing. Your customer service levels go up and so do conversions.

Call Tracking allows you to identify the source of your leads and discover which marketing campaigns are getting more traction than others. That insight leads to more focused A/B testing, refined landing pages, enlightened keyword research and an opportunity to evaluate your offline efforts as well for a better return on investment.

In the past, call tracking has been expensive and cumbersome… not really accessible to non-enterprise businesses. CallRail has made it simple and practical for companies of all sizes to know where their traffic and leads originate and which marketing campaigns are working… and which aren’t.

Keyword level call tracking shows you which keywords and web pages your visitors viewed that led to a call, and that information is fed automatically to your Google Analytics account and then to Google Adwords. That means you can now view phone calls as conversions and can monitor which campaigns are driving leads. Keyword research may reveal that you’re not even targeting the keywords that your audience is actually using to find information that eventually leads to a purchase.

Campaign level call tracking allows you to identify which marketing source led a prospect to you, by assigning a dynamic phone number to each source, online or offline. For example, when a prospect calls the phone number associated with a particular ad on Facebook, you’ll know exactly which ad generated this particular call and be able to track it. Online call tracking can trace back to Google Adwords PPC, a Yahoo search, Facebook, a directory listing or an organic web search. Offline tracking can be tracked from a Yellow Pages ad, direct mail, print ads, flyers or even billboards.

Social Media platforms are everywhere. From Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube, potential customers are looking for information, referrals and how-to’s. Comparing experiences and reading reviews is a big part of today’s buying process, and establishing a reputation as an expert in your field influences buyer behavior. Tracking calls and leads from social platforms is an important part of determining how to spend your marketing budget and whether you’re building trust with your audience.

Mining your Google Analytics and Search Console Data

Now that you have more and better data, how can you read between the lines and find treasure in the numbers? What if you knew that most of your social media efforts weren’t leading to sales? What if you knew that many of your conversions were coming from specific types of blog posts? Or what if you experienced a big increase in engagement following a recent contest?

Once you’ve collected the right information, you can start to see patterns and gain insights. Here are some ways to use your data to refine your campaigns:

9 tips for digging into your Google Analytics and Google Search Console:

  1. Get your Google Analytics account and Google Search Console account set up to start collecting data and see keyword rankings, clicks and impressions.
  2. Monitor for which pages and search queries get the most impressions.
  3. Improve your title tags and descriptions to increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) using the targeted keywords
  4. Use those keywords in your content, image tags and headings
  5. Create new content targeting queries that you would like your website to rank for.
  6. Make sure your content describes the benefits, not just the features of your products/services.
  7. See which platforms are generating engagement and respond to those threads; spend more time on the channels that are working best.
  8. Set up custom reports for insights that are unique to your industry.
  9. Identify which audiences prefer what types of content.

When you use your Google Analytics and search console data along with your call tracking data to find trends and understand what’s driving traffic, you can stop spending money on poorly producing sources and focus on the efforts that are really paying off. Take advantage of applications that automatically distribute your social posts to other platforms (for example: PostPlanner, Zapier, or Dlvr.it giving you more exposure with no additional effort. Add demos to your top blog posts showing how current clients use your product to solve a problem or create video testimonials to build trust and influence.

Bottom Line: Call Tracking & Targeted SEO Improves ROI

Call tracking automatically produces the actionable data you need to take your leads to the next level. Conversions increase when you know what your prospect is looking for, what questions they have and what concerns may be holding them back. You’ll know what content is resonating with them and where/when they find it most convenient to engage with you.

Once you’re armed with the details regarding the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, you can allocate your budget to maximize your return on investment… And, you can improve your SEO approach with targeted keywords in all your outbound communications, driving more traffic and engagement.

Set up your keyword call tracking and offline call tracking to pinpoint what’s working best, to guide your SEO efforts and to make the most of your marketing dollars. Call 888.907.4718 or contact CallRail for more information.

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