Is SEO effective for lead generation?

According to a study by Marketing Sherpa, SEO was selected to be the most effective marketing strategy for lead generation. Content marketing is an essential part of any long term SEO strategies and it was rated as more difficult and less effective than SEO. Also under the content marketing category, webinars or web conferences were perceived to have mid-level difficulty due to issues with content generation. However, this strategy was perceived to be effective due to the low level of competition of other firms in those markets using webinars presenting some good opportunities for lead generation for businesses.

Social media marketing was perceived to be less effective but I predict this will change as Google is indicating that SEO strategies and social media will be linked in the future. It was disappointing to see that mobile marketing was perceived to have a low level of effectiveness for lead generation especially when smart phone and tablet purchases are seeing a huge amount of growth in both purchases and usage. This is probably due to inertia to explore mobile marketing strategies because this strategy is so new to marketers and business owners. Email marketing was perceived to be the easiest strategy and quite effective.

Handy tip: Use mobile friendly email marketing campaigns that can be viewed on any device. Mail Chimp offers this service for free! http://mailchimp.com/mobile-friendly-campaigns/ 

It is important for all business owners to be aware of the quality of your businesses SEO strategies. SEO is not only a technical process; it is an essential part of your marketing strategy and should be carried out by an experienced marketer. Overall even though digital marketing is scary to some business owners it is the most effective strategy for generating sales leads and for this reason alone it is worth investing in!

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SEO is the most effective marketing strategy according to marketers (source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/)