Meet The Digital Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Strategy That Will Produce Leads and Sales for Your Business for Years to Come

Learn how to implement the ultimate gift-that-keeps-on giving online marketing strategy.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was the best year ever for us from a business perspective.

Over the years, we systematically implemented something that I call campaign-based content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. And it’s paying off big time for us!

This digital marketing strategy enabled us to create a set of “evergreen” pages on our website and outside of our website that continue to rank at the very top of Google for potentially years to come.

In this article, I’ll share precise information about this strategy and how you too can dominate page number one on Google for your online events.

Don’t Just Take My Word For It, Proof Is in The Pudding

Take a look at the below Google search results page. This is what someone would see if they searched for the keyword seo training denver. And this is precisely what this digital marketing strategy is all about:

In the top five organic (non-paid) search results, Google lists the following pages about our upcoming SEO webinar:

• Webinar landing and registration page (organic position 1)
• Press release about the webinar (organic position 2)
• Search Engine Optimization LinkedIn Showcase page about the webinar (organic position 4)
• And an SEO Training About.me page about the webinar (organic position 5)

We Used to Host In-Person SEO Workshops… Then the Pandemic Hit and We Switched to Hosting Online Events Only

As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we turned the landing page of our in-person half-day SEO training here in the Denver area into a webinar landing page.

Why? This landing page ranked at the top of Google for high-intent search terms such as seo training denver, denver seo classes, and denver seo workshops. We wanted to continue to drive organic search traffic to this page and give people the option to sign up for our events. So we decided to turn this landing page into a webinar landing page for a complimentary 75-minute SEO webinar.

Webinars are a great way to connect with your target audience, establish a rapport, and fill your leads pipeline. In our webinars, we give away a ton of free and relevant information that anyone could put to work for right away.

However, many webinar attendees realize how involved and complex search engine optimization has become these days. Right after hosting a webinar, we usually sign on two to three new customers. Several more webinar attendees will turn into customers over the following months, and sometimes even years later.

We don’t have a sales team here at Boulder SEO Marketing, so we don’t do any hard-core following up with our webinar attendees. We try to keep in touch with them via a bi-weekly or monthly email as we continue to share online marketing news, tips, and best practice.

Most people will only buy after a certain level of trust has been established. These educational webinars are a great strategy to lay the foundation and develop a real connection with potential customers.

A Proven and Tested SEO Strategy

As this strategy has proven to be so successful for our own business, we also try to implement it for our customers whenever possible and suitable. It not only allows up to implementing a meaningful and lead-generating digital marketing strategy for them but the customer retention rate also greatly increases. This is definitely a win-win situation as far as I’m concerned.

This inbound lead generation and business development strategy can be a game-changer for your company too, so hopefully, I’m able to explain the process in this article clearly. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Also, I’ll share real insights on how well this strategy worked for us in 2020, but in a nutshell, here’s what this strategy is all about:

• The overall goal of this effort is to create a series (ideally three educational webinars) of online events such as webinars that you’ll be able to host multiple times a year.
• As part of each webinar, you’ll create an “evergreen” webinar landing page as well as an “evergreen” press release (Google seems to love webinar press releases).
• You’ll also create and optimize a LinkedIn Showcase and About.me page for each online event.
• When it’s showtime, and you’re hosting the webinar, make sure that you share your BEST knowledge (thin or fluffy content will not cut it).
• At the same time, prove to your audience that you’re the real deal and educate them (in a non-salesy way) about your services or products during the webinar.
• After hosting the webinar, update the webinar landing page, the press release, the LinkedIn Showcase, and About.me pages with the next webinar date (refresh the content if needed) and republish the pages.
• By doing so, these pages will continue to accumulate SEO authority, and they’ll eventually rank well in Google for the respective target SEO keywords.

You Won’t See Results Overnight But Putting in the Work Is Well Worth It

There’s quite a bit of work that goes into this strategy, but it’s going to pay off, eventually. In fact, because of this strategy, 1,835 people signed up for our webinars in 2020—most of them via a Google search.
What you see below is the backend of our Eventbrite registration platform for last year’s webinars:

Besides mentioning the events via our social media platforms, we don’t do any promotion. As you can see below, registration for the first round of webinars in 2021 is already exceeding our expectations:

The first A Crash Course to Google Ads and Pay-per-Click (PPC) webinar of the year yielded 271 webinar registrants:

As of today, 227 people have already registered for the upcoming Introduction to SEO Training webinar, and 50 people so far have signed up for the next International SEO Training webinar:

Again, besides mentioning these webinars in our social media marketing efforts, we do ZERO promotion. Not bad; right?

Follow These Steps

Here’s a quick overview of some of the steps that you need to take to succeed with this strategy:

• Research and pick the three services or products that your potential customers are most likely interested in.
• Research and select the target SEO keywords for each webinar topic (check out the 30-minute recording of this keyword research for SEO webinar if you need a refresher on performing SEO keyword research).
• Now create and properly optimize each webinar landing page for the respective target SEO keywords. Not sure how to do that? Join one of our upcoming digital marketing courses.
• After publishing the webinar landing pages on your website, create, optimize, and publish a webinar press release about each webinar to your website.
• Create and publish optimized LinkedIn Showcase and About.me pages about each webinar.
• Plan on hosting each of the three webinars once a quarter. Doing so will allow you to host a webinar each month of the year.
• Google pays close attention to everything you do online, so make sure to promote the webinars via your social media channels. The search giant will take notice of the webinar-related links that you’re posting via social media.
• Since you’ll be hosting the same (or a slightly updated) webinar once a quarter, make sure to create an “evergreen” URL that also includes the main target SEO keyword in it. Heads-up: Don’t change the URLs of the webinar landing pages and press releases since it would take time for Google to understand and process the new URLs.
• Google currently displays up to two pages of the same website on page number one for the same target SEO keyword. This is why we’re trying to get the webinar landing and press release pages to display at the top of Google for each webinar.

A Quick Word About LinkedIn Showcase and an About.me Pages

It appears that Google is madly in love with LinkedIn and About.me. The search giant even counts outbound links from these two platforms as active and high-quality backlinks. Besides scoring a high-quality backlink to your site from these pages, you’ll also have a chance to get these pages to rank on page number one in Google. As you can see from the example above, these pages will also push down your competition in the SERPS.

However, it doesn’t just magically happen. Once the LinkedIn Showcase and About.me pages are published, you need to point backlinks to these pages. Create backlinks from your website to the pages. Mention and hyperlink these pages in press releases. Spread the word about the pages in social media posts. If you stick to this methodology and do a good job implementing it, you should see the magic happen rather sooner than later.

Slow And Steady Wins

As mentioned earlier, this is just a summary of how this strategy works. Quite a bit of work goes into this process, but hands down, if you’re in it to win it, this strategy is the gift that keeps on giving. Potentially for years to come.

So if you have the time, resources, and knowledge, I highly encourage you to implement a similar strategy for your business this year. Rome was not built in one day. Don’t try to do everything at once. Tackle one thing at a time and you’ll see progress happen. If you need help implementing this powerful online marketing strategy, we’re here to help.

Just One Piece of the Puzzle

The above-described strategy is just one piece of the puzzle and there’s so much more and you could and should be doing that will get your website to the top of Google.

Let’s conclude this article by briefly discussing some additional tasks that you should consider as part of your overall digital marketing efforts.

Take Inventory And Create a Digital Marketing To-do List

As we’re getting the global COVID-19 pandemic under control, time is of the essence. Economies around the globe are rebounding and demand for goods and services will steadily increase.

I recommend you ask yourself some questions and then compile a list of items that you need to get addressed so that your business can benefit from this increased demand.

Make sure to categorize your most urgent digital marketing tasks. For example:

Is your website ready for the Core Web Vital algorithm update?

When was the last time you updated your website? Does it pass the Google PageSpeed test and will it pass the requirements for the Core Web Vitals algorithm update that will roll out in May of 2021?

Are you checking your Google Analytics stats regularly to see how engaged site visitors are with your content, and whether or not they are taking action such as signing up for your eNewsletter or requesting access to gated content?

Google pays much attention to how site visitors interact with a website. So if there’s any room for improvement, it needs to get addressed.

Is there a way to boost your website’s conversion rate?

Getting someone to visit your website is only half the battle. Getting them to stay on your website and taking the desired action, such as buying a product, requesting information about your services, or signing up for your newsletter, is critical for the success of your business.

You can use a free tool such as Google Analytics to see how site visitors engage with your website, and there are also many paid tools such as LuckyOrange that you can use to improve your site’s conversion rate.

Improving your site’s conversion rate needs to be a top priority. There’s always room for improvement.

What do your content marketing and storytelling strategy look like?

You may have heard about Google’s recent B-E-R-T algorithm update. Since Google released this update, organic search traffic for websites that have focused on implementing a robust content marketing and storytelling strategy in the past, has gone through the roof.

I highly recommend that you implement a user-focused and engaging content marketing strategy. There is no SEO without content, but make sure not to write for the search engines only since that could backfire on you. Develop and publish content that your potential customers are looking for.

Do you need to get your on-page search engine optimization (SEO) cleaned up?

Have you performed keyword research for SEO? Are those keywords mapped adequately to each and everyone on your pages on your site? Have you properly optimized your meta tags? Are your blog posts optimized according to the tips that we shared in the below webinar recording?

Implement a powerful off-page SEO strategy?

As covered in detail earlier, third-party websites such as LinkedIn and About.me offer a great way to get more exposure for your business in Google. Make sure to also take advantage of Google My Business. The search giant continues to add new functionalities to this free tool so you’ll definitely don’t want to miss out.

These are just a few of the questions that you need to ask yourself these days. But more important, get to work right away if you haven’t already put an online marketing strategy for your business.

Please find following some ideas on how to do so:

Put a Digital Marketing Strategy to Work for Your Business

Implementing a lead-generating digital marketing strategy such as the campaign-based content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing strategy described in this article is not rocket science.

Sadly, many businesses will continue to struggle with their online marketing efforts as they don’t have the knowledge, time, or resources to implement and maintain these processes.

If your business is struggling at the moment and you don’t have the funds to hire an agency at the moment, don’t despair. There are a number of options that may work for your business. Let’s take a quick look at two options that may work for you:

1. Ask a family member (or friend) with digital marketing experience to help out.

If you don’t already have a digital marketing expert working at your company, see if someone in your immediate family with online marketing experience could help you out in the short term.

Pros: This option may well be the least expensive solution. A family member may not ask you for compensation.

Cons: Not too many people want to work for free in the long term, so this may only work for a short while. Also, if your family member has no formal education in digital marketing, you may not know if they are implementing strategies and tactics that will work.

2. Hire an inexpensive online marketing freelancer.

Sites like UpWork, FreeUp, or Fiverr offer a convenient way to hire a low-cost freelancer in no time.

Pros: You’ll be able to dig into a large pool of potentially qualified freelancers from around the globe.

Cons: While this option could be very cost-effective, you’ll most likely have to work with several freelancers since most of them specialize in a specific field, and they may not be able to meet all of your particular guidelines. Another risk that you could face is that they may disappear in the middle of your project.

Got Budget? Think About Teaming Up With A Digital Marketing Agency

If you’re looking for affordable small business SEO packages, we’d love to you more about how we can help. There’s no shortage of agencies that you could hire so make surely be able to find an agency that best fits your needs.

Pros: Being able to work with an agency not only provides you with peace of mind, but you can also rest assured that your business receives long-term support and maintenance. You usually have one point of contact at the agency which manages a team of digital marketing experts on their end. Working with a top digital agency ensures reliability and that you may be able to establish a long-lasting relationship that will yield results for your business for years to come.

Cons: Undoutfully, this is likely the most expensive option but also the one that will get you the most significant return on your investment. While we don’t require our customers to sign lengthy contracts, some agencies may ask you to sign a six-month or even a year-long contract. We usually ask our customers to give us at least three months since it takes about that time to see results from our efforts. If you can avoid it, don’t go with an agency that asks to sign a long-term contract. If for some reason, something goes wrong or they overpromised things and are under-delivering, you’re stuck with that agency.

Conclusion

Don’t delay. If you need more leads and customers this year, now is the time to get to work. The economy is rebounding and people are ready to spend again. They are turning to Google to search for what they are looking for. If you’re not at the top, you’re missing out.