In business, there are certain things we can’t get enough of: loyal customers, recurring revenue, and glowing reviews. However, many companies often overlook the need for qualified leads, which are the foundation for revenue. Equally overlooked is the role content marketing can play in generating those leads.

Lead generation is one of the early steps in a typical marketing funnel and typically entails collecting customer information that will help to eventually make a sale, such as a customer’s name, email, and company. This information is eventually used to create a consistent pipeline of high-intent prospects that will one day be converted into customers. The best way to generate leads is by optimizing your site, which is best executed by strategically creating content.

Define your Keywords

Yes, keyword research is SEO 101. But rather than thinking of keyword research as an SEO activity, I encourage you to think of it as market research. If you want leads, you have to get inside customers’ heads to provide them with the content they want and need. By figuring out how customers are searching, you’ll figure out what they care about.

To simplify, separate keywords into three main groups, based on where customers are in the marketing funnel:

• Top: High to mid-traffic informational keywords that will attract traffic to your company’s main pages, like the homepage and blog.
• Middle: Long-tail informational keywords, which can easily be used in your blog. These can also be used as your lead generation content, as they can help you discover what problems people have and the solutions they are looking for.
• Bottom: Mid- to low-traffic keywords (i.e., long-tail) that you can use for your landing pages and other promotional pages.

How Do I Research Keywords?

There are a ton of great keyword research tools — my personal favorites are Ahrefs and SEMrush. You can also a free tool like KeywordTool.io to find keyword suggestions. Also, Moz is a great tool to keep in your back pocket to identify long-tail phrases.

A word of advice: there are no “right or wrong” keywords that you need to uncover. Instead, focus on the ones that best suit your company.