A Guide To Evaluating Your SEO Strategy

A Guide to Evaluating
Your SEO Strategy for

B2B Lead Generation
A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

introduction
Many businesses launch their SEO programs and forget
to evaluate. In data-driven marketing, measuring and
assessing your performance should be given more
importance. It’s the best way to know if you are receiving
the ROI that was originally planned for the campaign. It
can also guide you in boosting your leads with action
plans that are not just strategic but informed.
This eBook will help you understand which metrics you

need to look at to make sure you are seeing ROI. We
provide a list of SEO tools you can use for your assessment.
All of these are designed to help you gain a good judgment
when measuring and evaluating your SEO performance,
which is essential in improving your strategies.
Remember, you cannot improve it unless you measure

it— the right way.
A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 02

Chapter 1:
Signs That Your SEO Strategy
is Problematic and Why
You cannot afford to continue the same set of SEO strategies if
you’re not getting enough quality leads months after rolling them
out. In lead generation, potential clients initiate your business
relationship right after they look up for services online. But, this
will never happen with a struggling SEO campaign.
Here are the warning signs you shouldn’t ignore when assessing
your SEO strategy:

#1. Decrease in
revenue- generating
customers from
organic traffic
Do you know where your best customers are coming from?
This is a complicated question you can answer when you
review your analytics. However, most companies haven’t
set up their analytics properly to understand the following:
Correct source of leads that ultimately

convert into customers
A converting lead might have discovered your site

initially through SEO, but returned and converted later
through another channel. This hides the fact that SEO
delivered the high-quality lead. Many companies do not
track source information in their Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) system. So, when a lead finally
becomes a customer, they fail to attribute the source
correctly. By doing so, they are not adjusting their
marketing time and investment to the channels that are
working best for them.
( Read Chapter 2 to learn more about attributing the

source to final sales )

Which page the lead entered your site
This is important because the main page of most

websites delivers brand traffic or searches in which
customers searched your company’s brand name on
Google. This means that the customers already know
who you are, indicating that they initially learned about
you through another channel. In addition, you should
position your Service/Product pages highly in search as
these are more likely to convert as potential customers
search for your business.
Brand vs Non-brand search clicks
Google Search Console will show you how many non-

brand clicks you are receiving each week, and to which
pages do these clicks go.
(Read Chapter 3 for more SEO tools )

*Sign No. 1 is your primary Key Performance
Indicator (KPI). But the following supporting
metrics may also indicate that your SEO
program is struggling:
#2. Primary keywords

dropping in rankinG
If you’re running paid AdWords SEM marketing programs,
check which keywords are generating the best leads.
Use this to guide your SEO campaigns. Focus on these
keywords when increasing your ranking. On the other
hand, if you’re not using AdWords, focus on the landing
pages and keywords that are driving quality traffic to
those landing pages.

#3. Drop in SEO
conversion rates
Your site traffic might be increasing, but if your SEO
conversion rates are dropping, you are bringing in the
wrong type of traffic.
Note: This excludes blog traffic. An intelligently crafted

blog strategy will attract your target market, but these
customers are still in the top funnel, which means that
they are not yet ready to convert. Instead, try to get
their email address and tag them with a remarketing
cookie to nurture them down the funnel with quality
content and marketing messaging.
#4. drop in seo traffic

Do you know why your traffic is dropping? This is typically
caused by keyword drops, seasonality in search volumes,
or a new SEM/SEO entrant with great SERP messaging that
is absorbing most of the clicks. Identify the reason behind
your dropping SEO traffic to find appropriate ways to fix it.

#5. Not considering
search terms with
competitiveness and
conversion in mind
Choosing your keywords is not just about picking the

ones related to your brand and services. The competition
in SEO keyword is tight. With lots of businesses offering
the same services that you have, all of you are more likely
to compete against similar keywords.
For instance, a recruitment consultancy must avoid using

“recruitment” as its target keyword. Apart from lower
chances of ranking for this keyword due to high competition,
you are less likely to convert. Why? A job seeker could
also be searching the same keyword.
Fix this by using long-tailed keywords. A keyword like “IT

recruitment consultants in Canada” has higher chances of
converting.

The earlier you can
detect these signs,
the faster you can keep
your poor SEO strategies
from hurting your lead
generation efforts.
In the next chapter, you’ll learn the key performance
indicators (KPIs) and metrics to guide you in assessing
your SEO performance and spotting your weak points. It
also provides a cheat sheet on effective SEO strategies.

Chapter 2:
How to Measure Your SEO
Performance: Key Performance
Indicators and Metrics for Top
SEO Strategies
Here’s your cheat sheet on how to effectively evaluate your SEO
strategies, including a few tips on how to ensure higher number
of quality leads.

Quality Leads:
It’s Not About Quantity
Not all leads are made equal. A B2B Marketing Benchmark

survey showed that 61% of B2B marketers send all leads to
the Sales team. However, only 27% of the leads are highly
qualified. This results in wasted time and effort contacting
leads that will more likely say “no”.
takeaway
It’s not about the number of leads that you generate.

It’s about the number of “quality” leads that you come
in contact with.

what you should be doing
As a start, choosing closely relevant keywords for
your business is a part of a good SEO strategy.
Sit down with your SEO team and discuss which
keywords will bring the best customers to your
site. Ask them to conduct a keyword research to
make your SEO strategy accurate.
Review your SEO strategies.
Are you doing these?

#1. Rank your Main Page
for your brand name
and relevant generic
keywords
The name of your company should be in the

first position when potential leads search for
you. This is called brand name. For example,
an IT company named “Technology Now” should
initially rank for the keyword “technology now”
together.
Select a few generic keywords/phrases that

describe the nature of your business, and make
sure to rank for these. For example, Technology
Now must rank for two generic keywords such
as “information technology services” and “IT
consultants.”

#2. Rank your Service
or Product Pages for
relevant keywords
Your potential leads should be directed straight to your
product or service pages, where they can easily check
out what you have to offer, hence higher chances of
converting. Thus, it is strategic to rank this pages for
relevant keywords.
Determine another set of keywords for your

service or product pages.
Optimize keywords for every word related to

these pages like title, meta, and on-page content.
Your service or product pages should include all

relevant information to keep potential leads
interested.
Add testimonials to strengthen the credibility of

your product or service, which could attract and
convince more leads to convert.

#3. Produce blog
content to support your
SEO strategies
Blogs are the heart and soul of content marketing and a
huge support to your SEO strategy for lead generation.
There are two major ways your blog can help up your
SEO ranking and generate more quality leads.
build posts that provide answers

to the questions of your target
Your business and your services must offer

solutions to the problems of your target market.
A blog post that provides relevant answers to
their existing business concerns and issues can
help initiate your first contact with them.
In B2B, most questions asked by the target market

are about their industry or discipline, which
include new trends, best practices, and case
studies, among others.
Be sure to produce “evergreen” content. Also,

information that can only be found on your site
allows a better organic search.

Create resources intended to earn links
A high number of backlinks to your site helps

raise its domain authority, which can better your
SEO ranking. Backlinks can also help increase
page views by spreading your content to a larger
audience.
Your resources could range from whitepapers,

case studies, e-books, and business templates,
among others. Useful and relevant resources are
the ones that are link-worthy.
Note that most Content Marketing efforts fail

because companies don’t invest in outreach or
paid promotion or the content. Make sure to
spend as much time in promotion as you do in
creation.
After implementing the abovementioned strategies,

you need to understand two concepts: Assists and
Attributing Final Sales.

Not all conversions happen
during the first touch on
your website.
Sometimes, it takes many return visits before a prospect reaches
out through the contact form. Some B2B marketers tend to forget
this. They check the source of conversion (or the channels from
which a prospect becomes a lead such as organic search, SEM,
paid, etc.) and ignore other channels that contributed to the
conversion process.
These channels, which may not be the source of conversion but

contributed to the process by, for instance, being the source of
the first touch, are called Assists.

For example, you’re a recruitment consultancy firm
based in New York catering to various manpower needs.
A potential client searches the keyword “recruitment
consultant in New York,” clicks on your website link from
the results, and gets directed to your main page—the
first touch. After reading your profile, potential client
exits your page, turns to Facebook, and sees your
Facebook display ad about Headhunting Service. He
clicks on it and lands on your Headhunting Service page.
From there, he inquires, becomes a lead, and then
closes a business deal with you.
You r Fac e book d i spl ay ad m ay h av e bro u g h t t h e

co nve rs io n, but it’s not the first time your client learned
about your company. Thus, you also give credit to the
channel through which a quality lead first touched you.
Why Assists are important to know?
Assists tell you which channels or sources of first touches

contribute to the conversion process. By knowing the
channels with high assisted conversions (the number
of conversions a particular channel assisted), you will
know if your SEO strategies are helping you generate
quality leads and conversions.
Note: There can be more than one Assist in a conversion

process as it does not necessarily mean the first touch.
All channels that brought the potential lead to you before
the last channel are Assists.

Attributing Final Sales
In data-driven marketing, you absolutely must track
the source of leads into your CRM (or excel), and then
periodically review the leads that turn into customers,
summarizing the best sources. This practice allows
you to come up with informed strategies based on the
quality and quantity of data you have in hand.

The process of attributing final sales begins with the
initiative of your Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) to record all information involved in the conversion
process. Be sure to match the information you generate
from your online inquiry form (e.g. client’s name, date
and time of inquiry, location, and reason for inquiry)
with the source of the lead, which your Google analytics
can provide you.
Summarize all information. Identify which channels

(e.g. SEO, paid, SEM, social media, or blog) performed
the most to decide on how to transfer budgets from one
marketing strategy to another. Being aware of these
things makes your SEO strategy mature and efficient.
Why attributing final sales is important?

Attributing final sales allows you to look back and
review which strategies are worth investing and which
still needs improvement. Are you gaining quality leads
from organic traffic? Are your SEO strategies contributing
to your primary KPI? These are some questions you can
answer once you’ve learned to practice keeping and
analyzing the data you have.

KPIs vs. metrics
A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is your guide to
what you want to achieve. It is a type of performance
measurement that is highly quantitative in relation to
your marketing and business goals. There is no one
set of KPIs per company because different business
classifications have their own products and business
models (e.g. improving service/product sales, increasing
feedback form responses etc.).
Metrics, on the other hand, are the data that can be

gathered and measured by any analytics tool. Simply
put, KPI is the goal of your SEO strategy that is measur-
able, while Metrics are the quantifiable measure that
you track to assess your performance. Therefore, KPIs
and Metrics are measured improvement. In the aspect
of lead generation, your KPIs and Metrics will assist
you in evaluating your SEO strategy.

Your Primary KPI
for Lead Generation
Unlike the popular practice, the primary KPI for your

SEO-driven lead generation campaign shouldn’t be the
number of generated leads, but the number of new
customers gained from organic traffic.
This is somewhat similar to the concept of “quality”

leads. It’s never the amount of leads you acquired, but
the amount of business deals you close from organic
search. This should be the end goal of a B2B lead
generation effort. You’d rather have one business deal
closed from few quality leads than a thousand leads
with no conversion at all.
After identifying your primary KPI, learn other supporting

metrics you have to pay attention to get an overall
perspective of your SEO strategy:

Conversions from landing page,
by organic page
Landing page is the first entry point of a user to

your site. A conversion in your landing page can be
a pop up banner for your product or service. In this
case, if it produces a conversion through the first
touch, it means that your landing page (e.g. home
page) should be ranked and prioritized in your
SEO strategy. Based on a 2015 study conducted by
BrightEdge, this KPI drives the highest revenue for
most companies.
Organic traffic by landing page
When you drive your focus to a landing page like

setting up relevant keywords, the organic traffic
of that page is more likely to increase. Monitor
the number of organic traffic of your landing
pages because it’s one good source of conversions.
Tweak certain elements in your landing page like

call-to-actions and images if needed or if you want
to experiment. Although high organic traffic in
your landing page doesn’t automatically equate
to conversions, a drop in organic traffic by landing
page is a symptom of a problem.

Keyword rankings
It’s the building blocks of SEO strategies. Keyword

rankings determine the position of your site in
popular search engines like Google, Bing, and
Yahoo! If you can’t find your site on the first
page, you are probably investing in tight keywords
or targeting the wrong keywords related to your
company. Monitor your keyword ranking and be
sure that you’re in a good spot.
LINKS
Links are like the word of mouth in digital mar-

keting. The more you are linked around and
known to your industry, the more credible and
respectable you are (in this case, your site).
Being linked by several sites with high domain
and page authority sends a signal to search
engines, indicating the importance of your
website, hence greater chances of a better search
ranking. Not only will your rankings improve, but
a high-quality website promoting your company
can bring some of the best possible leads.

Two types of links:
dofollow
Links that can be detected by search engines. It can help

increase your ranking by allowing the linking domain to
share its authority with your site.
Nofollow
Links that cannot be tracked down by search engines

and bots; only by human users. Therefore, NoFollow
links cannot significantly help improve your search
engine ranking. However, there are special cases in
which NoFollow links count for page rank depending on
its placement on the page. Placing it on top paragraphs
would be more helpful.
Tip: Be linked by websites with high domain authorities

and traffic to help increase your website’s ranking and
referral traffic. Do this by building links through outreach
strategies or producing quality resources that earn links.

Evaluating your SEO
performance does not
end with your KPIs
and metrics.
Learning how to use the SEO tools is what makes the
task easier than ever. In the next chapter, you will be
introduced with a set of SEO tools you can use to pull
out data you need to assess your SEO strategies.

Chapter 3:
SEO Tools to Evaluate Your
Strategy and Performance
If your KPIs and metrics are your measures, your SEO tools are
your instruments. Use these following SEO tools to generate
accurate data to effectively assess the performance of your SEO
strategies for lead generation.

Google analytics (FREE)
Google Analytics (GA) is the boss of SEO tools. GA gives

you a 360-degree perspective on your site’s performance.
It is also highly flexible and tweakable.
Certain elements can be highlighted to focus your review

on one factor. GA is dependable for a lot of its users
because it presents your KPIs and metrics the simplest
way possible but still of high-value.
moz pro tools

(FREE for 30 days, Fee plans: $99/mo-$599/mo)
The Moz Pro can do a lot of good things for your SEO
strategies. Its in-house research tools can help you
measure SEO opportunities, track growth, and build
reports. It even has a feature that can provide an
overall manipulation of all these efforts.
Unique fature: Crawl Test Tool

This tool can give you 3,000 links using a specific
URL and sends you an email containing the data
you need for analysis.

ahrefs
(FREE trial, Fee plans: $82/mo for Lite,
$149/mo for Standard)
Popularly known as “backlink checker,” Ahrefs can track

the rank of your keywords. One key feature is the Keyword
Explorer.
Ahrefs Keyword Research saves you a lot of time by

integrating all the things you need in one document. It
includes full SERPs, phrase match ideas, Parent Topic,
and Search Suggestions. You can instantly view the pages
that rank directly in the Dashboard.
HubSpot’s
Website Grader (FREE)
This SEO tool gives you a score based on a set of criteria

like page load time, mobile readiness, security, and the
main elements of SEO. Here are the kind of data HubSpot
Website Grader can give for you:

Performance:
site’s page size, requests, speed
Mobile readiness:
your site’s responsiveness and viewport settings
SEO:
page titles, meta description
Security:
SSL certificate (for your site’s authenticity and
submission of contact information)
seo report card (FREE)
If you need a tool that performs well for your own company
and at the same time, checks out your competitors, SEO
Report Card is perfect for you. Signing up for this SEO tool
gives you access to the following:

Rank analysis:
SEO Report Card will give you a preview of your
website’s rank on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
The analysis is based on the main keyword you
choose to highlight in a specific report. One
additional feature is the Rank vs Competitor for
keyword, which shows how your company and a
specific competitor rank on your chosen keyword
in main search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and
Bing.
link building:
the number of sites that linked back to your site
on-site analysis:
an evaluation on how your main keyword is used
in every section of your site.
website accessibility:
ease of access for users like your site’s loading
time
trust metrics:
trust or authority of your site in the targeted
keywords
current indexing:
a record of your site’s indexed pages

woorank
(FREE for 14 days, Fee plans: $49/mo Pro Plan,
$149/mo Premium Plan)
If you want extensive metrics, WooRank provides the

following:
marketing checklist
seo practices
(e.g., appropriate title and description, keyword
consistency, backlink count, www/non-wwww
canonicalization, XML Sitemap usage, etc.)
mobile compatibility performance
usability evaluation
technologies optimization
social media presence

(e.g., data on Facebook profile)
local area performance

(e.g., site’s rank on area-specific applications
like Yelp)
visitors measurement
(various traffic measurement of your site)

semrush
(FREE, Fee plans: $69.95/mo for Pro)
SEMrush’s Pro version boasts its 500 keywords tracker

in over five campaigns. The tool can help you view how
a certain keyword performs on your site. It can provide
you related keywords with low competition for better
chances of higher rankings.
This tool also features a backlink tracker that can analyze

both the quantity and quality of backlinks. Also, SEMrush
allows you to check out your competitor’s strategies. It
can analyze their site content and provide their keyword
rankings and the value of their keywords.
google keyword
planner (FREE)
Formerly known as AdWords Keyword Tool, this SEO tool

gives you a bulk of Google search query volume estimates
for a lot of keywords in a short period. Google Keyword
Planners gives you the estimated traffic from your targeted
keywords with more relevant and related keywords for
your industry.

google search
console (FREE)
Before 2015, Google Search Console is famously known

as Google Webmaster Central. This SEO tool includes:
search appearance
search traffic
technical status
crawl data
additional educational resources
Google Search Console doesn’t only benefit SEO strategists,

but also website owners, webmasters, and web marketers.

summary and conclusion
Information is wealth. Knowledge is power. One way to

gather rich information and perform knowledgeable
actions is to learn how to evaluate. Only when you properly
measure and evaluate your SEO performance are you
able to form informed strategies that will ensure quality
leads and high conversions.
Warning signs manifest when your SEO performance is

poor, and you must know how to spot a decrease in
revenue-generating customers from organic traffic as
well as drops in primary keyword ranking, SEO conversion
rates, and SEO traffic. Not considering search terms with
competitiveness and conversion in mind is also a sign
that you are doing it wrong.
When evaluating your SEO performance, you need to

make sure that these three major strategies are being
done:
rank your Main Page for your brand name and

1. relevant keywords
2. rank your Service/Product Pages for relevant

keywords
produce blog content that answers the questions
3. of your target market and earns links to support
your SEO strategies.

Your primary KPI should be the number of new customers
gained from organic traffic. Note that it’s not the number
of leads, but the amount of quality leads and the number
of business deals closed from organic search. Assess
your KPI and make use of the information you gather
from your quality leads with Assists and Attributing
Final Sales.
It is also important to monitor your metrics to arrive at

informed judgments. These are:
1. conversions from landing page, by organic page
2. organic traffic by landing page
3. keyword rankings
4. links
All of these can be easily done when you equip yourself

with the best SEO tools that can make your evaluation
accurate, efficient, and convenient.
Takeaway : An effective SEO strategy for lead

generation can never be born out of thin air.
It has to be data-driven and well-informed.
Proper evaluation and analysis will pave the way
for better SEO strategies that will guarantee you
a business deal.

Need help with your
B2B lead generation
strategies?
Ask for a free consultation today!
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A Guide to Evaluating

Your SEO Strategy for

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

This eBook will help you understand which metrics you

Remember, you cannot improve it unless you measure

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 02

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

Correct source of leads that ultimately

A converting lead might have discovered your site

( Read Chapter 2 to learn more about attributing the

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 04

This is important because the main page of most

Brand vs Non-brand search clicks

Google Search Console will show you how many non-

(Read Chapter 3 for more SEO tools )

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 05

#2. Primary keywords

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 06

Note: This excludes blog traffic. An intelligently crafted

#4. drop in seo traffic

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 07

Choosing your keywords is not just about picking the

For instance, a recruitment consultancy must avoid using

Fix this by using long-tailed keywords. A keyword like “IT

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 08

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

Not all leads are made equal. A B2B Marketing Benchmark

It’s not about the number of leads that you generate.

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

Review your SEO strategies.

Are you doing these?

The name of your company should be in the

Select a few generic keywords/phrases that

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 13

Determine another set of keywords for your

Optimize keywords for every word related to

Your service or product pages should include all

Add testimonials to strengthen the credibility of

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 14

build posts that provide answers

Your business and your services must offer

In B2B, most questions asked by the target market

Be sure to produce “evergreen” content. Also,

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 15

A high number of backlinks to your site helps

Your resources could range from whitepapers,

Note that most Content Marketing efforts fail

After implementing the abovementioned strategies,

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 16

These channels, which may not be the source of conversion but

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

You r Fac e book d i spl ay ad m ay h av e bro u g h t t h e

Why Assists are important to know?

Assists tell you which channels or sources of first touches

Note: There can be more than one Assist in a conversion

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 18

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation

Summarize all information. Identify which channels

Why attributing final sales is important?

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation 20

Metrics, on the other hand, are the data that can be

A Guide to Evaluating Your SEO Strategy for B2B Lead Generation