How to Qualify Leads For Your Business

Want to attract a lot more qualified leads to your small business? If you do the legwork up front, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to attract clients who are ready (or almost ready) to buy. The secret? Keywords.

A qualified lead is defined by the keyword you have chosen to best describe your product or service. When someone types the name of that product or service into a search engine, you will show up in search engine results and people will come to your website – all because of that keyword.

Here’s a step-by-step approach on how to qualify leads for your business:

Decide what to promote

Identify the products or services that drive revenue for your small business or attracts the most clients – that’s what you want to promote online. For example, if you’re a family law attorney, you might want to promote mediation, adoption, child custody payments, and divorce.

Set goals

In order to know whether your marketing efforts to attract qualified leads works, set goals. “I want X new clients within three months that I’ve defined and targeted in my online campaign,” or “I want to sell X products this month.”

Choose your keywords carefully

If you’re running online or social ads, you need to choose the right keywords to attract the right client. A company that specializes in residential and commercial water damage restoration does not want to attract someone looking for water damage repair for their smartphone. PPC is sensitive, so you definitely want to be more specific.

Be consistent

When it comes to SEO, make sure you use the same keywords in your content, for photos and videos, blogs, links to other sites, company descriptions in industry trade groups, etc. Keyword consistency is key if you want qualified people to find you.

Follow Google’s lead

You might have noticed that Google changed their search engine results page format significantly. Now, a maximum of four paid ads appear at the top, followed by three local companies on Google maps, a list of optimized search results, and maybe a handful of additional ads on the bottom. No ads appear on the right hand side.

This is so incredibly important for small businesses. To be found and attract qualified leads online, you have to appear in all three sections at the top of the page: PPC ads, maps, and optimized search results. If you are working with an online marketing agency, make sure they present you with a game plan for these sections.

Use reporting to your advantage

Want to attract even more qualified leads? Use reporting tools. For example, you can see how many people have visited your Google maps section, how far people travel to reach your location, and even what routes they’re taking. This information helps you better target people who are interested in your products or services.

It probably goes without saying that you need to nurture and water your online marketing campaigns. If you don’t maintain it, your competitors will outrank you, you’ll fall off the map, and you’ll end up wasting a lot of money. Come up with a plan and be consistent, and you’ll be successful.